Gas Tariff with low standing charge for low usage

TRBob

Hi, just tried the Cheap Energy Club but had no luck, we recently had a heat pump installed and now only use gas for the hob and oven (which will both be replaced with electric when we can afford a new kitchen at some point down the line), so our usage is really low, about 0.15m3 per day on average, which I believe is 1.7kWh. We are on the British Gas Standard Variable Tariff, paying a £0.2722 daily standing charge. Does anyone know of a supplier with a lower standing charge? I understand that the unit rate will be higher, but hopefully there is a balance to be found.

pochase

There are no companies left without a standing charge. There was a prepaid meter company that works with much higher rates for the first two KWh, so that also would not really help you as you use gas every day.

Why do you need to wait for a new kitchen to replace hob and oven? A used one will pay for itself.

MWT

Not really any obvious options at the moment unfortunately.

Until a couple of days ago I would have suggested the Octopus gas tracker tariff, but they have now aligned aligned their standing charges so that isn't any better.

Probably your best hope is to find a fixed tariff which will have a higher kWh rate but may have a lower standing charge, not sure where to suggest looking though...

bristolleedsfan

TRBob said:

 Does anyone know of a supplier with a lower standing charge? I understand that the unit rate will be higher, but hopefully there is a balance to be found.

British Gas were very recently offering this to new customers, not currenty offering anything to new customers,

The Fixed One V17

Fixed 12 months

Gas

✅

20.886 per day

11.994 p kwh* National average rate quoted

pochase

bristolleedsfan said:

TRBob said:

 Does anyone know of a supplier with a lower standing charge? I understand that the unit rate will be higher, but hopefully there is a balance to be found.

British Gas were very recently offering this to new customers, not currenty offering anything to new customers,

The Fixed One V17

Fixed 12 months

Gas

✅

20.886 per day

11.994 p kwh* National average rate quoted

As long as you use less than 40 KWh per months it works out cheaper, but I doubt that somebody is able to cook and bake with 40KWh.

Plus of course you know what you are paying for your gas after October.

purplepixi

How about using gas bottles instead, if it's only for the oven and hob, this could be an option. https://shop.calor.co.uk/47kg-propane-gas-bottle.html

pochase

purplepixi said:

How about using gas bottles instead, if it's only for the oven and hob, this could be an option. https://shop.calor.co.uk/47kg-propane-gas-bottle.html

To use a gas grill from using you gas supply you need a conversion kit. I assume this is also true the other way around if you want to use Propane or Butane for your stove.

Also the 47KG bottles are not for use inside your home, and there were big issues with availability when I checked a few month ago.

Should be cheaper to but a used electric oven.

Shedman

pochase said:

There are no companies left without a standing charge. There was a prepaid meter company that works with much higher rates for the first two KWh, so that also would not really help you as you use gas every day.

Why do you need to wait for a new kitchen to replace hob and oven? A used one will pay for itself.

They would still have to pay the standing charge anyway unless they paid for the gas to be disconnected completely (which isn't cheap from info on other threads) so not sure that would be economic.  It's also something that the OP needs to take into account when they do refurb the kitchen if they actually want to go all electric with the cooking 

TRBob

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies, I'll look into used electric appliances and how much it is to get the gas disconnected, it will be at the very minimum a year before we get a new kitchen, probably longer.

*Edit* Just found this https://octopus.energy/blog/disconnecting-your-gas-supply/ 

It's likely that I will go with Octopus for the electric, it's ever so slightly less than BG but the main reason is for the Solar export tariff which is decent if you buy your electric from them.