Zero standing charge supplier for gas?

matt_drummer

Octopus removed my gas meter at the same time as fitting my heat pump.

There was no additional charge for doing this.

At some point I expect someone will come and remove the pipework that supplys the house.

I don't expect to have to pay for that either.

Chrysalis

After hearing about utilita from Martin I had a look.

Our Smart E7 tariff is for electricity via an Economy 7 meter, it has two daytime unit rates, one night unit rate, and no standing charge. The First Rate is collected for the first 1 kWh of electricity used during daytime hours and the Saver Rate applies for the remaining daytime kWh used per day. The night rate applies for all night usage.

When he said the first unit costs the most, I thought I misheard him, but I didnt, seems backwards, it would be amazing if the The First Rate was the cheapest, then perhaps next two units per day also cheaper than the average with then a higher rate for all units there after, whilst no or significantly discounted SC.

But instead a SC is added on to the first unit (circa 50p), then the unit rates after seem uncompetitive.  So it doesnt seem great unless you have extremely low usage, and especially zero usage days. But still its an option for people who fit in the window, doing the maths 3 units a day would cost circa £1.40, on SVR in my region would be circa £1.47 a little bit higher (not exact maths).  So the window seems to be under 1 unit a day to save money.

I suppose the problem with my idea though is it would need heavy users to make the numbers work, and those customers likely wouldnt be interested, unless they expected to have at least some light usage days, like regular holidays and stuff.

Tariff might be of interest for LLs maybe for when they have void periods.

Or have I misunderstood it?

Added note only the first daytime unit on their E7 tariff has the premium attached to it. So for night only usage it is interesting.

MWT

Chrysalis said:

When he said the first unit costs the most, I thought I misheard him, but I didnt, seems backwards, it would be amazing if the The First Rate was the cheapest, then perhaps next two units per day also cheaper than the average with then a higher rate for all units there after, whilst no or significantly discounted SC.

The problem is that the standing charges still have to be paid by the energy supplier, so there really is no economic way to provide a low use tariff that doesn't load the charge onto the first unit.

Also to meet the Ofgem cap they on the standard variable tariff, a supplier can't have a standard variable tariff that would over-recover the standing charge on higher users, which is a trap that OFtM fell into with their zero standing charge tariff.

wrf12345

"That brings a simple ASHP install with likes of BG or Octopus - down to a similar level to a gas boiler in England - and nearly free in right parts of Scotland. What more help do you expect ?"

It might come down to a similar level of cost to the likes of BG but my recent install cost £1300 incl new pipework for a cheap and cheerful combi boiler (I did a bit of the grunt work so he could do the job in a day) by a GasSafe engineer... not sure what a simple install of an ASHP is, though. Certainly, if the govn were to offer five grand for removal of gas I would grab it with both hands and fir air source heat pumps myself (the wall mounted all-in-one types) to the living areas and super insulate the house so that the bedrooms would not be directly heated... total cost around three grand.

By contrast, if I want to fit triple glazing I either have to suffer the council poking around at the property and stealing even more money off me or pay a FENSA fitter to do a worse job than I can do myself. We live in an absurd country, a laughing stock...

Scot_39

The govt doesn't design schemes around the skilled but the average person in UK.

And for liability reason mandates use of hopefully competent suppliers now (after so many cowboy outfits in past green schemes).

Qyburn

wrf12345 said:

 I would grab it with both hands and fir air source heat pumps myself (the wall mounted all-in-one types) to the living areas and super insulate the house so that the bedrooms would not be directly heated... total cost around three grand.

If you can "super insulate the house" why not do so anyway, even if you're not getting a subsidised heat pump?