Friend's business paying a fortune for business electricity, options?

Aaron3195

Enquiring for a friend of mine that runs a nail shop (not part of a franchise) alone on the high street and also works alone, he's been with EDF Energy since the beginning. New price from 26th April will be 80p standing and 23.50p per kWh which I think is exorbitant. He sometimes has to run 2 or 3 electric heaters during the cold months and the costs mount up quickly.

I have tried looking at uswitch for comparisons but businesses need to call up instead of being able to compare online. Would switching to a consumer supplier be breaking any laws? He also uses consumer broadband without any issues, so I'm not very clued up on what's allowed or not. He would also prefer to pay the bill via Post Office.

Thanks for any help!

PaschalFun

Give us a shout when your friend is looking for a good defence barrister with a specialism in fraud shoud your friend follow your suggestion

If, as you say, you are " not very clued up on what's allowed or not", best not to suggest anything other than provide the telephone number of those who hopefully do know.

NineDeuce

The rate that you have stated above is a deemed/out of contract rate, 100%.

Just get into a contract, that's all. Any supplier will offer a rate at about half of your current one, even the current supplier.

Robin9

How big is his annual consumption ? If less than 60,000

As above just ring the main suppliers and ask for a quote.

Neil_Jones

Yeah these are typical rates for business energy out of contract, something astronomical. Easy fixable - get a contract with EDF or whoever and that problem solves itself.

With regards to the broadband, the only real differences between consumer and business broadband is the price and the support you get when things go wrong. Business Broadband costs more but you usually get first dibs and a faster resolution when there's a problem, whereas with consumer broadband a wait of anything up to a week for any issue isn't uncommon.

Aaron3195

Alright thanks for the input guys, will ask him to call up his supplier