Bulb customers… what next?

Newmum92

Mstty said:

@Newmum92

Yep that all makes sense I can fill in any gaps.

So the first picture will be what you pay now and what you should pay with green energy with the figures provided.

The second picture shows what happens if you do nothing and stay on the standard variable rate with the expected price cap rises on October 1st this year and the green energy fix

The last thing to make sure of is the estimated use, do you think this is right?

That’s so helpful. Thank you so much for doing that! 

I am not convinced what bulb says my estimated annual usage to be is right. They’ve estimated that I use quite a high amount of electric but there’s only me my husband and a toddler here and most of the time my hubby is at work. Seems quite a lot of electricity to me and on the green energy website that would come under a large house which mine isn’t. I’m not sure how I get bulb to do a more accurate annual useage I might contact them to see what they say. 😊

Based on this would you say it’s worth doing? Can’t believe how much it is even with the fix… struggling to pay it as it is now but then I don’t want to be stuck paying 334 a month if I don’t do anything! 

GrumpyDil

OP.

The estimated usage should be based on your usage. If you are able to access two bills a year apart you should me able to work out your actual usage. 

There are also a number of threads about analysing and reducing your usage which may well be worth looking at. 

wittynamegoeshere

It's more of a judgement than a calculation.  Those extremely useful spreadsheets do confirm that you'd be paying more before 1st October, and less after, but remember that the figures are only estimates yet - figures of a 65% rise have been suggested but this is just an estimation at the moment.  But of course if the rumour becomes a fact in a month's time, it will be extremely unlikely that this deal will be available at that time.

In summary, you will be volunteering to pay a big chunk extra until the end of September.  But this is during the months of the lowest usage for the entire year.  My judgement, for me, for electricity only, is that I will save by switching to GE, even if they go bust on 1st December and probably even if it snows next week!

Anything could happen, we'll have a new PM that may be keen to keep the population happy, so they may make an exception to the cap calculation and/or limit the rises in some way.  Perhaps world peace will break out next week and world prices will fall through the floor.

One big advantage of this tariff is that you can switch away from it at any time.  However, I don't think that GE offer a capped tariff as they're excluded being an eco supplier.  So you'd need to find a regular supplier who will accept new customers, which may or may not be possible.  I don't know whether Ofgem are required to somehow appoint a standard capped tariff supplier if you want one, this would be something I'd look into if it became necessary.

Similar issues may also apply next year, when the tariff ends.  If GE's tariffs aren't attractive then going elsewhere may be difficult.

But, all in all, I'm happy to take a risk on this to avoid the risk of remaining on the capped tariff.  We're all gamblers now, whether we like it or not.