I've switched away from Shell Energy

JainEm

I was moved to Shell Energy in October 2021 when my previous small provider went bust. I was paying £34 pcm in the summer months and £56 pcm in the winter, average £45 pcm. I know I had a great deal with the previous provider, which is obviously why they went bust with the fuel price hike, but Shell decided my new monthly DD should be £107! I spoke to friends whose properties and lifestyle were similar to mine and none of them were paying this much.

I didn't realise I could change the DD amount myself, unlike another post on this thread, but I did try to talk to Shell about it. After about 3 months of phoning and emailing I was able to discover that my night electricity meter reading (I have a day / night meter) had been recorded wrongly from the date of the handover and once that had been amended I hoped that things would improve, but no.

In April it went up to £124. This was causing me a lot of worry, so although we were advised that switching providers would not help, I decided to do my own sums as Shell Energy's figures had been wrong from day one. I went back over my meter readings from when I started with the smaller provider until Shell took over (15 months) and put these into a spreadsheet, worked out usage per kilowatt/hour for each month, then for the year. I had been recommended Utility Warehouse by a work colleague so I put the year's usage figures into the pro forma on their website for dual fuel. What do you know? My monthly payment has come down to £66! I did the switch then and there and feel a great sense of relief.

GingerTim

Out of interest, what is your tariff and usage in kwh for each fuel?

Utility Warehouse has a pretty dire reputation round these parts.

JainEm

Elec Day = 1,234.38; Elec Night = 256.90; Gas = 972.35. They put me on a Value tariff, but when I spoke to them today they had not realised that I had a meter with day/night readings, so they've switched me to Economy. I wasn't sure about Utility Warehouse, but when my work colleague mentioned he was with them he could not speak highly enough of them and he's actually my boss who's been running a successful company for decades, so I trusted his judgement.

pochase

If you had a fixed deal in 2021 with a usage of £45 there is no chance that you can get the same energy now for £66.

As @GingerTim is asking for please give us your usage.

JainEm

I'll let you know how it goes.....

Evan3020

Gas 972 units or kwh? 

GingerTim

What are the unit rates on your tariff, please?

elsien

You have a 14 day cooling off period. It may be wise to answer the questions people have asked about usage to check there’s no nasty shocks in store in the future. 

pochase

JainEm said:

Elec Day = 1,234.38; Elec Night = 256.90; Gas = 972.35. They put me on a Value tariff, but when I spoke to them today they had not realised that I had a meter with day/night readings, so they've switched me to Economy. I wasn't sure about Utility Warehouse, but when my work colleague mentioned he was with them he could not speak highly enough of them and he's actually my boss who's been running a successful company for decades, so I trusted his judgement.

With your usage a E7 tariff does not make any sense, you are not using enough during the night to benefit, a single rate tariff should be cheaper.

The £66 looks correct until the new increase in October, when it will go up to £90 to £95.

You usage you have given us for last year does not match at all your usage figures, the more expensive SVR from October would have been only less than £40, so was your good fix rate more expensive? 

MWT

JainEm said:

Elec Day = 1,234.38; Elec Night = 256.90; Gas = 972.35.

The gas consumption, 972.35, is that kWh or units from your meter readings?

It doesn't look like you have enough gas for it to be heating, do you just use it for cooking?

If so how do you heat your home, as the electricity is very low indeed?

My concern is that you have used the m3 meter reading so your gas use should really be 10,000kWh or so...

pochase

That would explain the huge difference between UW and Shell.

Using 10886KWh of gas the monthly DD would need to be £122, exactly what Shell was asking for.