For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 8
User avatar
By Flying_john
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1869729
This is the third time now my energy supplier has gone to the wall and then some other company has taken over and put me on their expensive tariff - British gas this time.

I'm interested in recommendations for a low price Economy 7 tariff - have to charge the car at night for best economy , but don't want a "so called" EV tariff as my calculations don't show these few hrs at lowish rated compare with 8 hrs of E7 to be good value.
I use about 3500 day units and 4500 night units per yr and 2100 gas.

Whose your favorite ?
#1869732
Octopus, then once your smart meter is active you can opt into Go Faster which lets you have 3, 4 or 5 hours of cheap energy at a time of your choosing.

Maybe time to move on from E7...

You probably don't actually -need- 8 hours of cheap energy every night, and are probably paying over the odds for this privilege...
Colonel Panic liked this
By avtur3
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1869744
Octopus ... they are the only energy supplier recommended by 'Which' ... which to my way of thinking is significant.

We've been with Octopus for 2 years, they are not the 'absolute' cheapest but they certainly are at the right end of the spectrum. They remind us about Smart meters but don't tell lies that we must have them fitted.

We don't have an electric car so not bothered about their offers (but well known You Tuber EVM, a tight **** Yorkshire Man swears by them)

We have an Aga cooker which exaggerates our seasonal usage but Octopus have been very willing to work with us on our payment plan.

I would say that contactability and responsiveness are far more important than absolute bottom price. The catalogue of failed new comer suppliers to this market is there for all to see.

Octopus are not perfect, we recently had a clerical error sneak in to our account where they wanted to charge us double for our previous years electricity usage. It was a dreadful shock to find an unexpected invoice for £1200 on our account, but they were very responsive, and the matter was cleared up within 48 hours.

Our annual usage is 5,000 kwh electric and 30,000 kwh gas :shock:
#1869806
I'm currently on Bulb's "Smart" tariff which is cheaper all the time except 4pm to 8pm peak.
I currently don't use the electric car enough for their EV tariff to make sense.

They provide access to an app (Samsung smart things) which only works half the time, and isn't tariff aware so pointless. In home display also doesn't show different tariff rates.

Customer service - mediocre. They have just put gas rates up by 25%, and their smart meter is currently broken (gas works, electricity doesn't), so I'm likely to move to Octopus.
#1869836
johnm wrote:These are not energy suppliers in most cases they are just billing systems with various margins and overheads

Unless you are a large business, all the people you deal with are just billing systems.
That billing system will have a contract with a meter reading company, a network operator to get power to your building and a supplier to put energy into the grid on your behalf.
This is what allows you change billing company without changing meter, and to have multiple billing companies in a region.

Some of the big companies do all of the bits (such as Scottish Power) but internally they are fully separated. Sometimes you can see the separation (eg SP Energy Networks, SP Renewables, SP Retail), sometimes it's hidden.

If you are a commercial organisation, you can select all of the different parts yourself. Domestic, it's just the front end billing company you choose.
TravellerBob liked this
#1870123
johnm wrote:These are not energy suppliers in most cases they are just billing systems with various margins and overheads



But whose "billing system", offers the best per unit rate(s) at what daily charge.

There ought to be a simple Tariff table:-
Co Name, Day Pence / Kwh, Cheap Rate P/Kwh, Daily Charge, Discounts.

Then you can simply plug in your annual usage and get a total cost per year and make a decision.
(No I don't trust comparison sites).
johnm liked this
#1870145
In theory there should be nothing wrong with comparison sites - they generally make their money by getting a referral fee after doing the simple maths for you, after keeping track of all the tariffs.
Question is whether you can be bothered doing the research and maths yourself.
Comparisons get much harder when you have different tariffs at different times, whether you want a variable or fixed, and if you care about customer service, additional information on websites or apps about your usage.

I found most follow each other on price rises, so not much point in jumping as soon as one happens, as by the time the switch has happened the new supplier has raised their price.
#1870150
I'm very happy with Octopus Energy.

I have the EV 5p rate for a few hours each night and I pay a DD each month wot I owe. I like this, as payment plans in the past have tended to be weighted to the supplier meaning they have more of my money in their account.

But the biggest reason I like Octopus is their Customer Service - it's absolutlely first class. Everyone I've spoken to over the years has come over as young, bright, fully competent on their systems, friendly and I know I'll get into trouble for this - speak clear unaccented English I can understand. (BTW Pod Point are the same)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 8