Advice please - Storage heaters nPower price increase

SharonO

Hi,
My parents, who are in their 70s, have electric storage heaters and are on nPower's Standard Electric Super Tariff. From 1st Jan the charges on this tariff have increased dramatically. The standing charge has increased from 15.823 per day to 23.709 per day. The 'heating' tariff has increased from 8.389p per Kw/h to 10.034p per Kw/h. When my father had phoned them to ask about this, he was told it is due to the energy price cap, but when I look at their website it just states that prices will be coming down as a result of the cap! He rang them twice and received no help. They even said they couldn't give him a number to complain as their 'system was down'.
I know very little about these storage heaters but my father believes they are unable to switch suppliers.

Please can anyone offer any advice? Has anyone else had this price increase? Thank you in advance.

sgun

The super tariff is a legacy tariff from a while back when the supplier was Northern Electric. There isn't anything equivalent through any other supplier so your father is correct that he can't change suppliers and get an equivalent deal. (You get 5 hours overnight and 2 in the afternoon at cheap rates. It uses a different type of meter to E7 or E10)

They could have a meter change and go onto E7 but then they lose the cheap 2 hours boost in the afternoon.

Can they get gas? Npower are desperate to phase out this tariff but they aren't legally allowed to. Instead it seems they will just make it more and more expensive so that people leave it themselves.

Don't expect to get any sense from Npower, it took me 12 years to find anyone there who understood anything about the super tariff! I believe it was the energy efficiency department who I eventually spoke to. Or something like that anyway.

I have sold but if I was staying I would bite the bullet and get gch n.

Robin9

Time for you to do some work on your parent's behalf and do some sums. Look at their bills and work out what their annual consumption is - you need 2 ACTUAL not ESTIMATED readings 12 months or so apart - and put the figures into a comparison site. Ignore what is called savings and look at the bottom line - take into account any penalty nPower charges.

I don't think your father is correct in saying he can't switch because of storage radiators. If he's on E7 there should be no issue.

sgun

Robin9 wrote: »

I don't think your father is correct in saying he can't switch because of storage radiators. If he's on E7 there should be no issue.

See my post above. The super tariff isn't E7 and uses different meters. I was quoted about 140 pounds to change to an E7 meter but that was by Npower so probably wrong anyway!

My heating and water has been very reasonable on the super tariff, large 2 bed terrace on average about 500 pounds a year. Much cheaper than it would be on E7. However with the pricing changes it makes more sense to change to an alternative form of heating.

AFAIK it is only the old Northern Electric area that still has this legacy tariff which is why most people don't know anything about it.

SharonO

Thanks very much for the advice and information. Unfortunately they don't want to have gas in the house so it isn't an option to change over. You're correct they live in what was the old Northern Electric area.

It looks like they don't have much choice.

matelodave

The so called "price cap" is only applicable to the supplier's standard default tariff (formerly their Standard Variable Tariff) and is only a cap on the the unit rate/standing charge.If you use more you pay more.

It should have been pretty obvious, even to Ofgem that if they fixed or reduced the prices for some customers then all the other customer's prices would end up rising to compensate.

nPower

SharonO wrote: »

Hi,
My parents, who are in their 70s, have electric storage heaters and are on nPower's Standard Electric Super Tariff. From 1st Jan the charges on this tariff have increased dramatically. The standing charge has increased from 15.823 per day to 23.709 per day. The 'heating' tariff has increased from 8.389p per Kw/h to 10.034p per Kw/h. When my father had phoned them to ask about this, he was told it is due to the energy price cap, but when I look at their website it just states that prices will be coming down as a result of the cap! He rang them twice and received no help. They even said they couldn't give him a number to complain as their 'system was down'.
I know very little about these storage heaters but my father believes they are unable to switch suppliers.

Please can anyone offer any advice? Has anyone else had this price increase? Thank you in advance.

Hi SharonO,

Thank you for your post. We will be happy to look into this further for your parents if they can drop us an email to the address on our profile.
Thanks, Carmel

macman

Why don't they want mains gas, if available? It's about a third of the price of single rate electricity. And the install will pay for itself long term in the value added to the property of having gas CH and DHW.

SharonO

Hi Carmel,

They don't do email unfortunately. Are you able to offer any other method for them to contact someone who will understand the issue?

I think a lot of people who have storage heaters might be older people, so this increase in tariff is impacting on the most vulnerable in society. Can you explain how nPower can justify this please?

SharonO

They just don't like gas. They are scared of it to be honest and have had it completely removed from the house. They aren't really looking at the long term benefits and aren't interested in adding any value to the property, at their age. They like the storage heaters, and wouldn't have minded a small increase in the tariffs but these seem excessive.

OPMDaze

Wouldn't take any notice of the Npower posters on here. They're just puppets trying to get their terrible customer services rating improved. About as useful as a standard motorbike ashtray