NPower tarriffs

meggsy

I am having an issue with npower tariffs also, especially after receiving a hefty winter bill, have you looked at the 'gas sculpting' thread ?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=822299

Strawberry1_3

Thanks meggsy for this..will have a look...
The problem is twice I spoke to someone at Npower and twice was given different information!!!
I need to look at my bill in greater details..

onejontwo

mute_posting wrote: »

I wouldn't use £'s for the comparrison unit - can be influenced FAR too much by tier 1 & 2 discrepencies,standing charges etc.

The only useful comparrison is made with kwh /unit usage

MP

But surely if one company is charging you say £1100 per annum and another says it will only charge you £850 per annum for the same usage (which is what happened in my case), then the kwh figure doesn't really come into it.
As the majority of people have a rough idea of their annual gas and electric spending, this is not always the case of the kwh consumption.

Cardew

onejontwo wrote: »

But surely if one company is charging you say £1100 per annum and another says it will only charge you £850 per annum for the same usage (which is what happened in my case), then the kwh figure doesn't really come into it.
As the majority of people have a rough idea of their annual gas and electric spending, this is not always the case of the kwh consumption.

Your use of the term "same usage" is not understood.

If you know your usage, that by definition is your kWh consumption.

Using your Monthly DD payments, is no indication of your usage. You could be underpaying, overpaying, or paying off a large debit balance that has occured previously.

Plenty of people on MSE are paying, say £1,500 a year because they built up a debit balance of £hundreds over the previous year(s)

Even your quarterly billing is not a good indication because of the frequent use of estimated meter readings.

StuartGMC

goldtooth wrote: »

Before I take the plunge and switch from EDF to NPower (as recommended by uswitch), does anyone know of a website which actually compares the consumption rates, in £, for both gas and electricity? uswitch only looks at your direct debit amounts when making its comparisons - it doesn't compare the actual consumption rates.:cool:

To confirm the other replies, use the drop down box "Your usage" and select "Annual Consumption in kWhrs" do not use £ based information; just recall how much the unit prices have jumped in the recent past.

StuartGMC

Cardew wrote: »

Your use of the term "same usage" is not understood.

If you know your usage, that by definition is your kWh consumption.

Using your Monthly DD payments, is no indication of your usage. You could be underpaying, overpaying, or paying off a large debit balance that has occurred previously.

Plenty of people on MSE are paying, say £1,500 a year because they built up a debit balance of £hundreds over the previous year(s)

Even your quarterly billing is not a good indication because of the frequent use of estimated meter readings.

Cardew
I fully concur with your comments; I've been with Scottish Power for Gas & Electric for a few years and do try to remember to check comparisons twice a year at least (when all have increased prices so like now, it is a good time to get a comparison). I've moved tarriff with them in this time. Used online billing for all this period and submit monthly readings without missing them. This helps to ensure you get an idea of usage and you get a much better DD requirement from the supplier (mine dropped a £1 per month recently) so it is close to the actual spend (about £30 in credit at the moment) so neither underpay nor provide money to supplier which is better offsetting my mortgage (every penny helps).

If you don't use a calendar software package to set reminders to read each month (plus all the other checks you need to do each year) then get Sunbird it is free and opensource from the good people at Mozilla.

PS: Thanks for reminding me on this thread to visit USwitch; just added last FY gas, night electric and day electric kWhr consumption figures from my monthly monitoring spreadsheet so I could check my present tariff (Online Energy Saver 4) and happily find it is the cheapest by £31 per annum against the next best. Guess I'll stay on this one then at least until I check again in the summer.

Stuart

jmcdyre

Great post, thanks, about to do this myself - checked website and it's exactly the same terms as my current tariff but cheaper. The "tier 1" will probably be reset but it was last year anyway so won't notice that!

I've just got to try getting a non economy 7 electricity tariff first.

jmcdyre

well that was easy, no questions asked lol
they took readings and for gas the new tariff kicks in with immediate effect, electricity once they've fitted our new meter in 2 weeks time!
Very impressed. Thanks

notbritishgas

For those of you who recently managed to change to the npower SoL 10 tariff.
As of yesterday npower have brought out SoL 11, it is difficult to say if this is cheaper than 10 but on my usage entering SoL 10 as my current supply in Energyhelpline it shows 11 is £19 more expensive.
For EastMids area the gas is cheaper on 11, but the electric is more expensive, eg the primary rate is more than 30p per kw but the secondary is only just over 5p.
Once again I think npower are muddying the water.

mute_posting

notbritishgas wrote: »

Once again I think npower are muddying the water.

Who'd have imagined it? NPower in water muddying shocker!