Switching - which of these companies would you choose?

brewerdave

bristolleedsfan said:

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)

Those rates are stupendously good !! However,proof of the pudding for these tracker deals will be next Winter. I ,for one ,will be interested to see if customers save over a full year vs the best fixes.

MWT

brewerdave said:Those rates are stupendously good !! However,proof of the pudding for these tracker deals will be next Winter. I ,for one ,will be interested to see if customers save over a full year vs the best fixes.

The Octopus Tracker Tariff has been around for nearly two years now so there should be some historical data out there somewhere...

brewerdave

MWT said:

brewerdave said:Those rates are stupendously good !! However,proof of the pudding for these tracker deals will be next Winter. I ,for one ,will be interested to see if customers save over a full year vs the best fixes.

The Octopus Tracker Tariff has been around for nearly two years now so there should be some historical data out there somewhere...

That's interesting - if the deals were that good on an annual basis ,why haven't the forums been full of self congratulatory posts tho' ???

EDIT the explanatory video on Octopus site compares with std variable (and the graph is 4 years old) - I'm on fixes which are literally £00s cheaper for me. Got a quote for the Tracker which would be £20 pm MORE than I'm paying.

matelodave

This is an interesting website as it been tracking the price of the AGILE tariff over around 18 months. https://www.energy-stats.uk/

It would be helpful if there was something similar for the tracker tariff so you could get an idea of the average price per kwh throughout a 12 month cycle. It's worth noting that most people would be using 70% of their energy in the 5 winter months Nov-March) so that's the period that's could be most important for them so historical data on the tracking price would be quite useful to help you to decide.

grumpygardener

My current fixed tariff with British Gas ends soon but the last time I switched, my BG 1st generation smart meter went dumb. Are there other companies which would be able to use the same smart meter? Or would my new supplier need to change the smart meter, and if so would I have to pay for it?

bristolleedsfan

grumpygardener said:

My current fixed tariff with British Gas ends soon but the last time I switched, my BG 1st generation smart meter went dumb. Are there other companies which would be able to use the same smart meter? Or would my new supplier need to change the smart meter, and if so would I have to pay for it?

If Smart Meter needs to be changed, new supplier will change it for free when they are installing S.M in your area

brewerdave

bristolleedsfan said:

grumpygardener said:

My current fixed tariff with British Gas ends soon but the last time I switched, my BG 1st generation smart meter went dumb. Are there other companies which would be able to use the same smart meter? Or would my new supplier need to change the smart meter, and if so would I have to pay for it?

If Smart Meter needs to be changed, new supplier will change it for free when they are installing S.M in your area

True, but even when this current crisis eases, I don't think replacing smart meters will be high priority as the suppliers can't count them against their targets. If you believe the press releases 1st gen. smart meters can be converted to operate with the DCC to allow them to become smart again ……...me, I'm a weary cynic  

victor2

grumpygardener said:

My current fixed tariff with British Gas ends soon but the last time I switched, my BG 1st generation smart meter went dumb. Are there other companies which would be able to use the same smart meter? Or would my new supplier need to change the smart meter, and if so would I have to pay for it?

I was in the same position a few years back. BG remotely disable the IHD when you leave, so even that doesn't work. I've switched twice since then with the dumb smart meters. The supplier I'm with now says they will install new smart meters when they're doing my area. No sign of that and I've just renewed my contract with them early to get on a better fixed deal. If they do it fine, if not I'm happy to keep giving monthly readings myself.

nadsat

Those rates from bristolleedsfan are obviously terrific but have they said what company it is? 

I'm puzzled about how the Octopus tracker works - we don't have a smart meter so how do they calculate the cost as the tariffs change. 

We are in London N1 which might explain why rates are on the higher side. We always seem to pay more in central London for most things. 

MWT

nadsat said:

I'm puzzled about how the Octopus tracker works - we don't have a smart meter so how do they calculate the cost as the tariffs change. 

Ideally of course you do have a smart meter on that tariff so the daily charges use your actual daily usage, but if you don't then they will use industry standard calculations to apportion your usage based on meter readings that you supply.