Scottish Power

Sleepysusie

I moved into my rented council house (Scotland) on 23/11/2020, a very traumatic separation from my husband. My house has Dimplex Quantum total heating, brand new fitted after last tenant left. Council put them in for the environment. Super heaters, however, Scottish Power have been an absolute nightmare from that day after taking on the tenancy and having to let them know, because this house for energy is registered with them. I was advised by the council that I should be econonomy 10 with these heaters. But Scottish Power only do economy 7 and I had to register with them before I could change supplier. They quoted over £170 per month, based on previous tenants usage the advisor told me. My house is a 2 bedroomed end terraced house, only me occupies it. There are 4 Quantum heaters kitchen, living room, small hall and top of the stairs. There are two manually operated Dimplex heaters for the two bedrooms, none in the bathroom. I was advised that the usage would sort itself out so I gave my bank details for a direct debit. But then the advisor advised that there was a problem and put me on hold for so long that I hung up and re-dialled. Got another advisor, this time quoted over £150 per month, my prior call not been logged. Went through the whole process again with my bank details, a problem, put me on hold yet again. Now this has been going on for over 3 months, I was billed via email on 1st December 2020, for £64.17 which I paid. Since then, no bill, no direct debit set up, yet when I contacted Chat, was sent details of a direct debit set up for £78.58. More like it I thought, but no was advised there is a further charge of about £80 on top of that, no details of that, Chat couldn’t deal with tariffs or billing, had to call yet again. Over the weeks it transpires that there was a pre-payment keycard meter here and that was the problem. I involved SCARF who can speak to Scottish Power on my behalf, because I suffer from mental health and going through a very traumatic separation. They’ve been given meter readings, they’ve been emailed photographs of the credit meter I have, there is no keycard meter here at all. I can’t move supplier because on the data base it shows two number 80’s my house number and two meters. It took another energy company to advise me that this phantom keycard meter needs to be de-energised and I can move to them as they do economy 10, where Scottish Power told me that they only offer economy 7. I am at my wits end, Petrie of a Huge bill, so have reduced to just the one storage heater and roughly working that out it’s costing £25 per week! Including the meagre amount of the normal rate which I now boil my kettle once a day, fill a flask to make tea/coffee all day. Hot water bottle, layers of clothes and fleece throws. I go to bed early. Everyone else I know in a house of same size, and with families are a lot less than £100 per month. My mental health has got worse, I’ve been suicidal. I’ve never lost my temper when speaking to all the advisors you never get the same one twice, because I used to work in a call centre and I know how abusive and nasty people can be. They are only doing a job, its the Top of the Tree people who should take these calls. Anyone out there with advice please ?

spiro

Sorry I am finding you post a bit difficult to read due to lack of paragraphs. What I can tell you is:
Economy 10 is an old tariff and most suppliers don't offer a tariff for it and in part it is dictated by the metering setup.
Unless you know your usage (which you won't) the supplier will always base your estimated usage as they have nothing better to go on. 

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

Assuming the storage heaters are big enough (chase the council if not) you need to switch to an Economy 7 tariff.  E10 is expensive, effectively being withdrawn, available from few suppliers so you need to get rid of it.

You also need to think in terms of kWh, not ££; it's not an All You Can Eat tariff.

Read the meters at least weekly, send readings at least monthly and keep records.  You'll then be able to get an idea of your annual consumption in kWh and be able to switch to the best E7 tariff from any company that you like (many companies won't offer E10).  Start comparing with Citizens Advice and 'Which? Switch', ignore all claims about savings and don't use any autoswitching service, always do it yourself.

It's also very, very important to make sure your Quantum heaters are programmed correctly.  They can use peak rate electricity to provide an afternoon / evening boost at expensive daytime rates, so it's important that you don't let this happen.

Also make sure that your immersion heater only uses the night E7 rate.  Any Boost switch (connected to a second immersion heater halfway up the tank) should be left switched off.

Make sure your are on your energy supplier's Priority Services Register.

If you have any queries just come back here and people will be happy to help.

Sleepysusie

Thank you, but I’ve been told by a council engineer that these storage heaters are total heating control and need economy 10, they are meant to charge from about 3am til about 8am, then 3 hours during the day, then 2 hours in the evening.  Economy 7 the heaters store heat for 7 hours during the night, then next day by the evening the heaters are going cold.
These are meant to be revolutionary storage heaters. I just don’t understand why Scottish Power cannot get this two meter problem solved either. They are adamant I have a pre-payment card meter, 2 weeks ago they sent me a new key ! Followed by a letter to tell me from 1st April the tariff price will increase... I do not have a keycard meter, it is a dry credit meter. No bills, so using electricity for free? But SCARF have worked out from readings I gave them, over £700 for just over two months. So, I shut them off bar the one in my living room. The council put these heaters in, meant to be best for the environment, so how can economy 10 be an old tariff? These heaters are programmed to use cheap tariffs during the day and evening. They are brand new, meant to be state of the art, they work out themselves too the room temperature for instance when the sun is shining through the window.
I live alone, I don’t even use the manual heaters upstairs because my house is well insulated and very warm. I’m down to one storage heater and that with small usage of daytime tariff is £25 per week. Do I demand that the council take the heaters out and re-install gas? because there is a gas main here, just no meter as that was taken out years ago.
Does anyone out there have these Dimplex Quantum heaters and economy 10.
Cheers.

Gerry1

Quantum heaters don't need E10 unless the council has bought ones that are far too small.  If they have been correctly dimensioned (=big enough) then they will be absolutely fine on E7.  E10 was introduced over 40 years ago when electricity cost pennies and it allowed tiddly little heaters or underfloor heating to be installed on the cheap, but now it's as relevant as having a 405-line TV set or dial-up narrowband internet.

I'd be inclined to switch to E7 and make a big fuss with the council if it turns out to be too cold without resorting to a peak rate top up in the afternoon or evening.  It's quite unreasonable to lock you into a stupidly expensive legacy tariff just so that they can cut corners.

Heaven knows why they've installed storage heaters now when there's gas available, presumably it's the green agenda, but that's leaving you with much higher bills that are quite unnecessary.

The council certainly aren't doing you any favours.  Shiny new heaters are all very well, but not if their penny pinching means you can't afford to run them.

Sleepysusie

Thank you, yes the council in Scotland are all green energy and like you say, to hang with how much it costs their tenants to run them. You got it in one shiny new heaters, state of the art no less, yet costing me more per month than my rent. Thank you. I will address this with the council, they are my landlords and responsible. There is a gas main here, but gas meter taken out years ago.
Thank you.

jbuchanangb

There are two problems here which have to be sorted out one by one.

(A) Scottish Power have the wrong meter allocated to your property.

(B) There is an issue over the proper tariff for you.

Focus on one of them. When that is fixed focus on the other one.

First focus on (A) Scottish Power have the wrong meter. Now is the time to put a COMPLAINT in writing.

ScottishPower Energy Retail Limited. 320 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow G2 5AD.

Include the date you moved in, a photo of the meter, a note of the meter readings of the date you moved in and the meter readings of the date of the complaint. (There should be two readings if the meter is set up for Economy 7) Tell them that you wish them to set up your account correctly and issue a bill for period between the date you moved in and the date of the letter. Tell them that until they have done that they should not pursue any debt recovery actions for any other meter which they may have wrongly registered to your property.

When this is sorted out, then you can move onto the more complicated question of the best tariff, but it's not worth worrying about that until the account is set up properly.