Switching - which of these companies would you choose?

nadsat

Hasbeen said:

MWT said:

Also worth considering the Tracker Tariff...

That's a really good rate!
I am with Symbio  Rate: 11.181  Standing charge: 17.619 and thought that was good. 

Approx: 10500 kWh per year. Electric.

 Runs out in September. So will have to choose which company will go bust next!

Symbio looks good - not heard of them. Their current electricity rate is lower than the Octopus tracker but the standing charge is higher. 

MWT

nadsat said:

Symbio looks good - not heard of them. Their current electricity rate is lower than the Octopus tracker but the standing charge is higher. 

You may have already done this, but always check the tariffs you are comparing using the correct regional information.

Anything I post will be for Eastern, which is not one of the cheaper regions.

victor2

nadsat said:

I like Octopus but it's time to leave them as comparisons are bringing up £450+ yearly savings. Which of these would you choose? Claimed savings are from £445 to £478. 

Green Network Energy
AVRO
ESB Energy
Shell Energy

As has already been said, you could consider separate suppliers for each utility to bring the cost down. Your usage is well above the "typical" high domestic user, so using two suppliers could be financially worth it for the extra work involved in managing two accounts.

If you decide to go with just one supplier, of those you list I would probably go with Avro. I've been with them before, and manage somebody else's account with them now. They do have competitive fixed tariffs with zero exit penalty. However, their customer service is almost inpossible to contact by telephone, but they do reply to emails IME - it does take them a week to do so though, and I believe that has now increased to 7 working days.

Hoof_Hearted

Don't be dazzled by savings quotes. Do the simple calculation: kWh tariff x consumption /  100 plus fixed x 365 /100 to give an annual figure, then compare.

nadsat

I've just rerun the quotes for dual fuel as I'd selected USwitch favoured ones before by mistake. Without this the top deals are now the below - I appreciate the need to check details and I'm thinking now the advice to go for separate suppliers is the best.

Outfox the Market - £570
Igloo - £517
Together Energy -  £505

Then AVRO. 

Talldave

and what's the Octopus price? (Actual, not stupid comparison site pseudo savings).

MWT

nadsat said:

I've just rerun the quotes for dual fuel as I'd selected USwitch favoured ones before by mistake. Without this the top deals are now the below - I appreciate the need to check details and I'm thinking now the advice to go for separate suppliers is the best.

Outfox the Market - £570
Igloo - £517
Together Energy -  £505

Then AVRO.

Sorry if I'm repeating earlier advice, but do please stop looking at the theoretical savings that are presented on these sites, they can certainly help you find cheaper offerings, but the way the savings are calculated and presented can be misleading.

Take your 3 or 4 examples there and look at the standing charges and unit costs for the energy then do your own comparison to the best rates you can get at Octopus, (Probably either the Tracker Tariff, or 'Octopus Exclusive Online 12M Fixed April 2020 v1' if you prefer a fixed tariff).

nadsat

MWT said:

then do your own comparison to the best rates you can get at Octopus, (Probably either the Tracker Tariff, or 'Octopus Exclusive Online 12M Fixed April 2020 v1' if you prefer a fixed tariff).

Well I got fed up with trying to work it out so yesterday I just emailed Octopus and asked to switch to the tracker. Today they did it so hats off to them. This is today's info in their email which shows electricity a lot less than we were paying and the projected monthly average spend has dropped from about £220 to £155, so I think this is a good result should the tracker remain fairly stable.

Thanks for your help and I'm pleased not to switch as Octopus are mostly good but they should guide people better to cheaper tariffs. 

I'm mostly hopeless with financial stuff as I find it very boring but I did make one very good decision which was to switch the mortgage to a base rate tracker just before 2008 and this has saved many thousands in interest. 

Electricity Unit price 11.41p per kWh Standing charge 17.87p per day Gas Unit price 2.41p per kWh Standing charge 15.09p per day

brewerdave

Just be thankful that you didn't switch to Together Energy - in my opinion , the worst of a not very impressive bunch! Still trying to finalise my account with them 15 months after I left.

bristolleedsfan

nadsat said:

MWT said:

then do your own comparison to the best rates you can get at Octopus, (Probably either the Tracker Tariff, or 'Octopus Exclusive Online 12M Fixed April 2020 v1' if you prefer a fixed tariff).

Well I got fed up with trying to work it out so yesterday I just emailed Octopus and asked to switch to the tracker. Today they did it so hats off to them. This is today's info in their email which shows electricity a lot less than we were paying and the projected monthly average spend has dropped from about £220 to £155, so I think this is a good result should the tracker remain fairly stable.

Thanks for your help and I'm pleased not to switch as Octopus are mostly good but they should guide people better to cheaper tariffs. 

I'm mostly hopeless with financial stuff as I find it very boring but I did make one very good decision which was to switch the mortgage to a base rate tracker just before 2008 and this has saved many thousands in interest. 

Electricity Unit price 11.41p per kWh Standing charge 17.87p per day Gas Unit price 2.41p per kWh Standing charge 15.09p per day

Appreciating  rates vary from area to area that does not look like Gas tracker rate to me, yesterday my Electricity rate was 8.95p kwh , are you sure they have changed Gas to tracker tariff, Gas in my area is around 1.63pkwh and postcode areas I have looked at have been around  similar sort of kwh rate for gas, on 16th May on previous page someone who lives in a different region posted Gas rate as 1.66pkwh

Electricity 6.22p per kWh  Standing charge  16.88p per day ( today)