Why should you switch your energy supplier?

Perhaps their supplier should make sure they are on a cheaper one, get rid of different tariffs and also award customer loyalty which never seems to be rewarded these days!

Likewise Sophie, I am happy with OVO and see no reason yet to switch.

I also looked at Ovo about 6mths ago – but didn’t know anything about them – so ‘chickened out’

Thanks for that clarification, Sarah. I had not realised I was being so heavily subsidised.

If heavy advertising, Which? campaigns, TV programmes, press and other media, the efforts of Ofgem, word of mouth, relatives’ recommendations, e-mails from their suppliers, bold statements on their bills, and all the other prompts, have not stirred people to switch away from an SVT I don’t know what will. It must have a lot to do with a not unreasonable concern that a fixed-price/fixed-term contract [coupled with the exit penalties] will work against them at some point in the future. And, as some of us here keep saying, if everyone switched to the cheapest deal the economics would change and pricing would be very unstable, plus the cost of switching would impact on prices eventually.

John, I couldn’t agree more. It seems most people could move but choose (deliberately or by default) not to bother. What more can, or indeed should, you do for them? There will always be people who need help to find the best supplier, and assistance to do it, of course.

The total savings associated with changing from SVT are not credible.

@sarah-ingrams, thanks for the link Sarah. I understand the usefulness of a satisfaction survey and am happy to help fund it. My concern was primarily the duplication of the CMA’s work in assessing why people didn’t switch. It seems to me once an authoritative piece had been published it would be more appropriate to report its findings. Unless you disagreed with the CMA findings or had something to add.

I had the same thing from GB Energy, although it does not affect me as I’m on a fixed tariff for another year. Their email said:
“Important changes to your account.
Dear *********,
Since January this year, the price of oil has increased by more than 70%, which also means the cost of the gas and electricity we buy has increased too.

Although we’ve resisted changing our prices to date, this has meant that for the first time, we’re having to increase the rates that we charge you for your energy by 7%.”

Energy – gas or electricity – depends on a number of factors but as far as I know oil is not directly one of them. This 40% increase is nonsense. If you look at oil prices anyway they are still very low compared to recent years. Have you seen the pump price increase much yet? I saw a local one at 106.9 why do they always end in .9?)

Thanks for that Malcolm.

Making all fuel prices end in 0.9p per litre is evidence that the setting of the price is not the result of an honest calculation based on input costs [as the companies claim] but an artificial construct (a) to see what the market will bear, and (b) to respond to local competition.

With domestic energy prices it would be good if Which? would challenge the companies that are using the price of oil as a reference point to justify raising their gas and electricity prices. It is rank dishonesty and a good reason for switching.

Seems unlikely that the energy companies would be so stupid to quote a percentage increase if there was no truth to it. Looking at spot oil prices currently is not really a guide to the price in 3,5 or 10 years or whatever mix of long-term contracts you sign up for.

Energy providers could of course decide to chance the firm and rely on spot-prices totally however this is not very sensible given a sudden spike in oil would send the business to the wall in short order. As oil has been remarkably cheap for some years the odds would suggest that long term pricing may well be higher.

Another factor may also be that the cheapest oil/gas comes from unstable regimes and placing your entire strategy on buying from that one source would be risky.

Just for those who may not know there is an interdependence between oil, gas, and coal as you can generate power using all three. A price increase in the cheapest will bring into play other factors . Just to make it more complex there are the downtimes for servicing that would restrict the power available from particular sources.

Bear in mind that nuclear and wind power charges cost more and if their is pressure for companies to utilise wind power than we pay a subsidy for that and installed capacity is increasing year on year.

i am sure somewhere on the Web this is explained in better detail but it seems almost a shame that we spend so much time on energy costs without the benefit of such an overview to help contributors with the big picture.

Which? does have a stated mission to inform and educate consumers so perhaps it could look at this aspect for Conversations. As a contribution here is a link to the Wikipedia article on the lamented CEGB:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Electricity_Generating_Board

As this is out today and relevant to how electricity is generated and where our supplies come from:
visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-where-from/

Oil accounts for less than 1% of UK electricity generation. Gas 30%, coal 23%, nuclear 22%, renewables 25%.

Oil prices and gas prices in Aug have certainly increased significantly since January – but they also fell sharply from last Aug to Jan. Today they are 7% lower than this time last year. Did you have a letter telling you about that, and how your energy prices would fall?

Natural gas -$/mmBTU: Aug ’15 = 2.8, Jan ’16 = 1.6, Aug ’16 = 2.6
Oil – $/barrel -Aug’15 = 50, Jan’16 = 28, Aug’16 = 45

I’m sure this is not the whole story but forward buying evens out volatility in energy prices.

For real-time energy consumption, this is a good site:

http : // www . gridwatch . templar . co . uk / index . php

As usual, remove the spaces…

One report (caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/Intermittency_report.pdf) says (I’ve taken extracts):
 The average capacity factor of all monitored wind turbines, onshore and offshore, across the whole of the UK, was 29.4% in 2013 and 28.8% in 2014.

 The monthly average capacity factor varied from 11.1% (June 2014) to 48.8% (February 2014).

 The time during which the wind turbines produced less than 10% of their rated capacity totalled 3,278 hours or 136.6 days over the two year period.

 The time during which the wind turbines produced less than 5% of their rated capacity totalled 1,172 hours or 48.8 days over the same period.
………………………
 There is no correlation between UK wind turbine output and total UK electricity demand, with output often falling as demand rises and vice-versa.
Therefore, based on the above, there is no case for a continued increase in the number of wind turbines connected to the Grid, or for the associated subsidies for wind energy, since this is an ineffective route to lower carbon dioxide emissions.”

But I hasten to add it is just one report. Intermittency is the big problem; storage would help a little.

Now that Peter is one of the best bits of information anybody who is poor/ on benefits /OAP (on low income ) could get . I had this the previous year but good for you publicising it.

It’s a good point, Peter. No point in taking a tariff with a warm home discount if you pay more than £140 above the cheapest tariff that isn’t in the scheme.

Looking at a medium user for their electricity bill only , in my area Atlantic and Ebico would charge more that £140 above the cheapest offer. So 13 of the 15 would be worth using. 3 of the “Big 6” are the cheapest.

Looking at the cheapest tariffs for a medium dual fuel user has 7 of the 15 offering WH discounts that are also in the cheapest tariff group. The cheapest are npower, SSE, SP, First Utility.

So important to do your homework.

It is not only about cost, though, is it, but whether electricity is produced when we need it. If wind is unreliable then there will a limit to how much is worth installing. We need a balanced mix. Tidal power is predictable, green, no pollution (except during construction), may well be costly for the engineering but initial cost may be outweighed by long term “durability” and less reliance on foreign supplies.

Although wind power generation is “unreliable” in isolation, the wind is always blowing somewhere around our coasts as well as in inland areas so if there is enough installed capacity we can quickly harness more renewable energy by this method. Obviously this implies some built-in redundancy and sub-optimal efficiency but turbines not spinning will last longer and serve us well into the future while we build up alternative superior capacity.

Although the UK still generates nearly a quarter of its energy requirements from coal, the coal-powered stations are being closed down over the next few years and I think the run down will gather pace as the cost of importing coal and trundling it round the country to fewer plants will prove uneconomical. The availability of more wind-power generation could tide us over until more nuclear, shale gas, or tidal production is available.

Actually, John, the wind isn’t always blowing somewhere. You’d probably be surprised at just how still the entire UK can become when there’s a large dollop of High Pressure sitting on us, and that can remain for weeks at a time. Wind energy is almost certainly the least effective (and least Green) way of generating electricity. Most green way is Nuclear Fusion, if it ever happens, followed by Hydro generation, conventional Nuclear power, solar (getting better every year), Tidal (but proving notoriously tricky), Wind, Gas, Oil and coal.

The twin issues with wind are unpredictability of fuel supply and manufacturing process. Even Iceland, with a seemingly inexhaustible fuel reserve, still has to harness it to produce electricity, and it’s the harnessing and infrastructure that cost a lot.

The list is perhaps debatable but the key element that changes the equation is storage of energy which if it can be accomplished for electricity could make a vast difference to the economics of each technology.

We are familiar with the pumping of water to a higher to create the fast release power at two sites in Wales. What is needed are similar ideas for electricity storage that do not require mountains. Compressed air in mines, heating materials to high temperatures that could then release it to drive turbines, are some large scale examples.

An alternative in a world of electric vehicles is that there could be vast amounts stored in the parked cars at home all over the UK and these could be signalled when not to be re-charging or indeed perhaps assist to even out the house load. This however seems a little flawed as infinite charging cycles is not a feature of current batteries.

Wikipedia is very useful on Wind power and it reports that:
” Solar power tends to be complementary to wind.[104][105] On daily to weekly timescales, high pressure areas tend to bring clear skies and low surface winds, whereas low pressure areas tend to be windier and cloudier. On seasonal timescales, solar energy peaks in summer, whereas in many areas wind energy is lower in summer and higher in winter.[nb 2][106] Thus the intermittencies of wind and solar power tend to cancel each other somewhat. “

Wind power generation will always be supplemental to the baseload but I don’t think its relative inefficiency should inhibit further expansion. Offshore turbines offer the best hope of capturing windforce even in calmer conditions. When electricity demand is light, as in the summer months, wind power can make a significant contribution. If we were facing a more certain future of baseload power from nuclear and hydro-electric plants I would advocate back-pedalling on wind investment but we have the technology, we have the installation infrastructure, and implementation is relatively quick. There are also export markets on our doorstep. We cannot make the availability of windforce match energy demand hour by hour but perhaps we could put more effort in to making demand more closely follow availability and also develop energy storage systems.

Solar energy production is also supplemental and is contributing more and more both on the domestic and the industrial scale although there is still a long way to go before all new buildings are designed with harnessing the sun’s energy in mind. I had expected office and commercial buildings [both new build and adaptations] to lead the field but there seems to be too much tension between the owners/developers and the occupiers to progress it. Because they are largely unoccupied at night they seem to be ideally suited to solar power for a portion of their energy demand.

Continued energy demand reduction offers enormous potential to further reduce generating capacity requirements. Some of this is going on quietly and steadily with the substitution of LED lamps for public lighting on roads [street lights, traffic signs and signals], railways [carriages, station lighting and signals], as well as in schools, hospitals, industrial, and commercial premises. New electric trains, while increasing demand for electricity will reduce oil consumption to compensate, will be lighter and have more efficient motors, and will have regenerative braking capacity in order to return some power to the grid. Unfortunately the private motor car is not participating much in this revolution.

This talk of “little wind ” will come as a great shock to those living in the North of Scotland which is the area that I first posted about where the biggest intensity of windfarms are there is always high winds there especially up near the Orkney+Shetland islands the same area designated as the ultimate area for sea power due to high tidal action . Its obvious not many people have visited Scotland.

I quite agree with you Duncan. Those of us who live within spitting distance of the North Sea can also vouch for wind strength even on the best of days – and the turbine arrays are sited some miles off the coast where the conditions are even more bracing. Nevertheless, Ian is probably right that there are some flat calm days when a feather would hang in the air and there is not enough force to turn the huge blades even a fraction . . . or do they have a starter motor to overcome the inertia and get the rotation going?

It is also possible, of course, that sometimes there can be the wrong kind of wind – too fierce, and likely to damage the turbines [but they probably have governors to prevent excessive dynamism].

There you go John , the Secretary of State for Energy seems to agree with my constant approval of wind farms .He has just given approval for the Hornsea Project Two by Dong Energy , which is owned by the Danish government . Now if only it was owned by the British government/ British company ? Change of heart by the new Administration c/o TM ?

Wonder what’d happen to us if electricity were abruptly to stop working? Our entire lives and existences are built around a concept about which we still know surprisingly little.

Ian-Its a phenomenon of the physical world we live in (while we are alive ) like static electricity and lightning . The voltage is the EMF (electromotive force ) while the current is the amount of stored energy that is combined to output power in wattage depending on the load resistance . If you are going into the meta-physical you need to go into the molecular level for an answer .Lightning occurs when liquid and ice particles above freezing collide and build up large electrical fields causing a difference in electrical potential between earth and sky. You have got to go into sub-atomic particles for a full explanation.

But that’s where things have stalled. We know what it does, and we’ve created labels for its characteristics but there’s a lot about how electricity actually works we still don’t know. Bit similar to how we don’t really know how two-wheeled bicycles stay upright. Funny old world.

And bumble bees shouldn’t fly. We know enough about electricity to make it work for us. And I thought we knew enough about gyroscopes to understand bicycles, and how to get to space with some accuracy. If only we had an equal understanding of the meaning of life though.

We seem to be the only species that has developed artificial aids to help us progress. Ants and bees keep going without electric light or smart phones. We used to.

Do you mean the physical meaning of life or the spiritual meaning of life Malcolm ? Riding a bike is balance the equilibrium between you and the centre of gravity of the wheels , the pressure applied by your hands on the handlebars controls it . Bees have a much faster wing beat to keep them in the air than even smaller insects like a fly. I am sure in the past I posted the meaning of life on Which and it was hard to accept by people for moral/ scientific/ religious / PC reasons . IF not I have certainly debated it elsewhere even on highly political websites nobody likes reality as I keep saying here but many elsewhere understood what I was saying and getting at even on those types of websites , but I hesitate to reiterate it here as I am sure it would cause offence to many and a lot of posts marking me down. Such is the reality of life in the year 2016 due to programming of humanity but it doesnt really matter we all die Malcolm , dont we ?

duncan, Meaning of life – I’m sorry I haven’t a clue. Cycle balance is not simple and down to a number of factors. including a gyroscopic effect and using steering to help keep the centre of mass over the wheels, I understand. Bees do fly – its the means of explaining it that was difficult. But we manage to understand enough about electricity, and other things, to make use of them.

Our lives would be immensely disrupted if we lost our electricity supply for a long period, as would loss of a commercial food supply. I wonder how many are capable of self-sufficiency? A case for private solar and wind power perhaps?

Exactly as our now long departed regular poster on Which ( much to my regret ) has running his power from , maybe this will entice him back Malcolm ?

I hope he’s not “long departed” duncan. 🙁

They’ve learnt a lot about bikes over the past ten years, since they’ve been researching them to death. “We have relied on trial-and-error engineering to construct stable bikes that aren’t prone to toppling while in motion. Explaining how they work mathematically requires around 25 variables, such as the angle of the front forks relative to the road, weight distribution and wheel size.” But although they thought they knew experimentation has revealed some interesting things.

When researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Stout at Menomonie attempted to build ‘un-ride-able’ bikes, they couldn’t, which led to a fascinating conclusion that the human equation was far more complex than they’d imagined.

Ian, one possible view of that world is given by the recent scifi movie Transcendence.

Most physical manifestations of electricity can be explained using the work of that Scottish genius James Clerk Maxwell.

That is, of course, subject to being able to understand and use his famous set of equations.

Go to Which?Switch who should show all suppliers and all tariffs. No need to go anywhere else.

I’d like to see a totally independent site with no payments made to the site operators if you switch through them. I switch direct to the supplier anyway. I wonder why Ofgem don’t set up such a service.

Heamoor Stooge: yes you are chasing clouds. While international companies are allowed to purchase the majority of shares in our utility companies then Great Britain will always be susceptable to being held to ransom by potentially enemy states; whether they be european or in the wider world. Having French and Chinese investment in our nuclear power generation is not a sensible way to fund it. Why not issue Power Bonds instead of the Bank of England printing more money (quantative easing) and throwing that money into the bottomless pit of the banking system and the pockets of bond traders.

Well said Andy !

Barry, I don’t know if you’ve used Which?Switch. I put in a medium user (3100 units elec, 12500 gas) and under “how would you like to pay” check direct debit and quarterly variable.

This gave the cheapest BG as £1030, but 8 other suppliers cheaper, down to npower £745.40. Even Sainsbury were there at £852, and they are a BG “White label” – reselling BG but the responsible provider is still BG.

Which say ( which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/guides/smart-meters-explained/getting-a-smart-meter-installed/ )
“If the smart meter installed isn’t compliant with the official roll-out specification, the supplier would need to upgrade your meter between 2016 and 2020 to bring it into the DCC communications system. The national campaign for the roll-out, Smart Energy GB, says it believes this upgrade can be done remotely and will not require an extra visit.”

Why on earth Smart Energy GB need to waste taxpayers money on expensive Gaz and Leccy cartoons beats me. What does it tell you about smart meters? Or about Smart Energy? Just perhaps they see us all as children. The facts about smart meters are far from convincing. 🙁

Last paragraph Malcolm , quite right . It is advertising policy to show adverts that are aimed (patronizingly ) at the lowest grade of Gallup Polls scale of public intelligence . To them they think they get their “message ” across to the widest audience , this now applies right across the advertising board , and honestly , makes me livid , if I could get a hold of those “chancers” I wouldnt be responsible for my actions . They are to blame for helping “brainwash ” the public into buying rubbish products that last a year, if you are lucky , and then break down or offer things or beauty products that are in the realm of the World of Disney , it beats me how seemingly intelligent people fall for those products obviously I dont have a “herd instinct ” brain.

Smart meters are one of the biggest cons out in my opinion. A complete waste of money which would be better invested in building more capacity.

duncan, I think its just a stock solution from overpaid marketing people to put expensive campaigns on expensive media. I am not being sold anything; smart meters are being foisted upon us (free of charge – apart from paying for them through our future bills). So why do I need some mindless animated cartoon that explains nothing?

Unfortunately, principles come at a price, Elizabeth. Since all the electricity we consume comes through the same cables from whichever power stations are operating and feeding into the grid at the time it is impossible to avoid using nuclear power-generated electricity no matter which company you buy your electricity from. Some suppliers only buy fuel from certain more ethical sources which they feed into the grid but that gets mixed with power from all the other sources; it only represents a small proportion of the total supply, and overnight the predominant power source is nuclear fuel because the nuclear power stations provide the baseload of the UK’s energy resources since it cannot be switched in and out [as gas, oil, and coal can]. All the Big Six power companies rely on nuclear fuel for a portion of their supply even if they might not generate it themselves, and most of the smaller companies could not trade without buying nuclear-generated power at some point.

I’ve tried numerous times to get a bill, but cannot get one ??????? There is not even the option. All you can do is provide your own readings, but no matter what you submit the direct debit stays the same and they only tell you your annual usage. Al I want to know is how much do I owe today ? Eon can do this , why can’t first utility.

Stella I am on First Utility,s website on another browser , in Smart bill I have a sample statement of -previous balance and payment received with the total monetary amount in both cases in the rhs column in Summary. Below it on the same bill -s-new charges (payment type DD ) both for gas and electricity in the rhs column below is the final total so I dont understand how you can not get access to that- look at- first-utility.com/energy/understanding-your-bill. I should add that a statement period is included-IE- from xxxx- to-xxxx-4 monthly period.

The main saving by switching is moving from a standard variable tariff to a fixed price fixed term one. This lasts at least 12 months. I’ve been on such tariffs for years now, changing to the best one each year if necessary. I have saved substantially.

Your saving =someone else’s loss and it wont be suppliers. Change the name the game’s the same…Unregulated markets lead to parallel pricing and prices set by least competitive companies cost structures. All this switching malarky requires folks to be online, requires regular updating and renewal of passwords requires interminable waiting on call centre phones and so on and so forth. Perfect survival of the fittest. We have allowed the creation of a false and unfair market to prevail in daily necessities like utilities to the detriment of many in society

Yolanda, I prefer contracts without exit penalties; you can select this option when using the energy comparison site Which?Switch. If the fixed price deal you signed up to was reasonable it may well be best to wait until it expires before switching. If, by switching, you could save significantly more than £60 then it would be worthwhile. However, looking at a medium user you may well be on a decent deal. I’d check. You need your annual usage for gas and electricity (you can estimate this) and your post code.

Have you thought of a fixed price contract with any supplier Michele ? Dont take BG as the “industry standard” on the “way to go” for electricity , I am with Co-op Power (Midlands ) and I am in my second year with them as I talked with them beforehand to get a fixed price for my energy supplies and negotiated the same deal as the year before.