Energy switching advice

Hi everyone :slight_smile:

I’m looking to switch my energy provider and just wanted some advice on what I should be looking for on
price comparison websites. Many price comparison websites offer me savings of £100+ to switch but when i’m looking at the standing charges and unit payments, they’re actually higher than the ones I currently have.

My question is, what should I be paying attention to when switching? Should I be going for the lowest unit and standing charge cost (even though on the comparison i’m saving less overall), or should I go for the highest saving recommendation and ignore the unit/standing charge cost?

Any help would be appreciated :slight_smile:

Maybe check if it is looking at what you will be paying once your current contract ends? I think that happened to me when I looked before - basically it is looking to see what you’d be paying if you stayed where you are and comparing that to new deals.

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The comparison sites generally base it like this:

Your fixed term tariff is going to end soon, so you’ll be on the ‘standard’ tariff, what will you save compared to this standard tariff.

It all gets a bit confusing. It may be that the energy prices have risen across the board since you last fixed. Whilst it’s not a fixed deal, I highly recommend Bulb. Plenty of my family, friends and I are with them and the prices are generally amongst the cheapest and they offer excellent service.

If you ask I’m sure there will be someone who wants to refer you too, you’ll each get cash on your account.

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Go onto MSE Energy Club and enter your energy used and it’ll work out which is actually cheaper overall taking into consideration standing charges, dual fuel etc.

Then avoid ‘Outfox the Market’.

Bulb is good. I’m now with Peoples Energy. In future I might try Green.

https://green.energy/

https://peoplesenergy.co.uk/

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Bulb are good, until they install a smart meter. Then they seem to be downright awful.

Had no end of issues with mine since it was installed. If you look at their forum you’ll get an idea of how many others are having problems too.

Yeah don’t bother with Smart meters regardless of supplier it isn’t saving any money, just saving you submitting 12 times a year.

The whole trying to reduce energy usage is a downward spiral. It just ends with them increasing the prices to cover the fact less is used, they aren’t about to start making less money for their shareholders. You don’t need a device to tell you turn off lights when you aren’t in the room.

I don’t agree with this part. If you have daily readings you can really understand what you’re spending and with an in home display you can see which appliances use significant amounts when the usage jumps.

I do agree with you though that if everyone uses less they’ll increase the prices to compensate - it’s just happened in NI with (SSE?).

The first thing you should be doing with any energy supplier, is make sure your meter readings are up to date and correct.

Your energy supplier should provide you with a usage summary every 12 months. Use this to put your actual usage into your comparison site. That way you should be able to see any projected savings. Unless you are going for a fixed deal, bear in mind that these are projections, and no one knows which suppliers are going to increase (or decrease) prices, or by how much.

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Whilst it’s true you can see current usage, it doesn’t really mean anything once you realise you shouldn’t leave your electric fireplace running when you don’t need its pretty irrelevant. You reach a point where you can’t sensibly reduce it anymore. You need heat, you need light, you need to wash clothes, you can’t exactly turn off the fridge. Although great for stat/gadget geeks in just adds an unnecessary complexity to life and worrying about 20p here and there.

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They’ve just offered to install one for me! Maybe I should rethink!

I asked them if they would if I was switching to them but got the response that they were prioritising existing customers first so couldn’t give me an exact time to when they would install one for me if I switched - so I went to octopus because its compatible with my existing one from Shell Energy.

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I’m sure there are people who haven’t had problems, but there does seem to be a worrying number who have.

When my meters were installed I they weren’t able to remotely read the readings for nearly 2 months, though the IHD seemed to be able to read the gas meter. Then all of a sudden all seemed well, my online account was showing automatic readings every day for a month.

However my next bill showed ‘estimated’ readings, and despite several emails to them with the correct readings, they are yet to adjust the account or even reply to my messages.

They are saying on their forums that all supplies are having similar issues with smart meters, which may be true, but I’d certainly recommend having a good read through the posts on there before you decide to go ahead!

Yep. 18% last year and 12% I think this year