Energy Suppliers
- Thread starter craig_t
- Start date
But in context of 1.5 million customers per year (may be less as that is the current number), that 61,000 customer over a 4 year period is just over 1% of accounts.
Moved from bulb to ESB Energy, I am now paying 11.62p/kwh for leecky and 2.19p/kWh for gas. higher standing charge on the leecky but I can live with that because I use a lot of it. I have saved a lot during lockdown because I have been at home for the past 5 month so using more would have been more expensive if I stayed with bulb, the downside is using more means I`m not overpaying slightly to build up a surplus for the winter which I normally like to do. I was really happy with bulb when the running was good I got about 7 or 8 referrals and that paid for my winter gas usage for one of the years I was with them but I recon I am saving at least £200 from this switch.
Is anybody with Green? Looking to join them soon and would appreciate some feedback about a company I've never heard of before, but are one of the cheapest providers being offered to me right now.
If you wish to refer me, how do referral codes work on OcUK? The last time I posted my referral code, the post was deleted.
If you wish to refer me, how do referral codes work on OcUK? The last time I posted my referral code, the post was deleted.
Is anybody with Green? Looking to join them soon and would appreciate some feedback about a company I've never heard of before, but are one of the cheapest providers being offered to me right now.
If you wish to refer me, how do referral codes work on OcUK? The last time I posted my referral code, the post was deleted.
It’s all there in post 1 mate
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Jan 2014
- Posts
- 3,861
They don't do referrals, if you're referring to Green. (there are others out there like Green Energy etc.)Is anybody with Green? Looking to join them soon and would appreciate some feedback about a company I've never heard of before, but are one of the cheapest providers being offered to me right now.
If you wish to refer me, how do referral codes work on OcUK? The last time I posted my referral code, the post was deleted.
Thanks, I wanted to be absolutely sure.It’s all there in post 1 mate
I'm happy with what I'm seeing from Green just now, I'd hoped that by using a referral code it would benefit somebody on here as well as myself.
iv been trying to move to octopus for months now, only responses i get are they are busy but will contact me back asap
speaking with sse atm as they have now put in the smart meter which the display has died.... but since i have the meter i should be able to move once i get the bill down
out of interest how much do most of you use kw/h a year
sse have predicted my usage as 27k so they are after 500 a month now, start of the year they reduced my payments down to £160 and gave me a refund as we somehow used less than expected, i know lockdown has sent my usage up higher, but still this seems insane, smart meter shows me using around 300 month and thats while we are charging the car at home instead of at work, so i get that
iv had aircon on this last month on occasion, but that push to 500 was before the ac being used
they have me down as using over twice as much energy as last year for the same quarter plus the price jump since my contract ended in may and went from i think 16p a unit to 19p
speaking with sse atm as they have now put in the smart meter which the display has died.... but since i have the meter i should be able to move once i get the bill down
out of interest how much do most of you use kw/h a year
sse have predicted my usage as 27k so they are after 500 a month now, start of the year they reduced my payments down to £160 and gave me a refund as we somehow used less than expected, i know lockdown has sent my usage up higher, but still this seems insane, smart meter shows me using around 300 month and thats while we are charging the car at home instead of at work, so i get that
iv had aircon on this last month on occasion, but that push to 500 was before the ac being used
they have me down as using over twice as much energy as last year for the same quarter plus the price jump since my contract ended in may and went from i think 16p a unit to 19p
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Mar 2004
- Posts
- 15,990
- Location
- Fareham
iv been trying to move to octopus for months now, only responses i get are they are busy but will contact me back asap
speaking with sse atm as they have now put in the smart meter which the display has died.... but since i have the meter i should be able to move once i get the bill down
out of interest how much do most of you use kw/h a year
sse have predicted my usage as 27k so they are after 500 a month now, start of the year they reduced my payments down to £160 and gave me a refund as we somehow used less than expected, i know lockdown has sent my usage up higher, but still this seems insane, smart meter shows me using around 300 month and thats while we are charging the car at home instead of at work, so i get that
iv had aircon on this last month on occasion, but that push to 500 was before the ac being used
they have me down as using over twice as much energy as last year for the same quarter plus the price jump since my contract ended in may and went from i think 16p a unit to 19p
Your figures sound pretty nuts to me.
Assuming you are talking about electric, 27k kw/h a year equates to 74 kw/h a day. Which is a constant average draw of just over 3kw's 24/7/365. Unless you are running a mini data centre or a weed growing operation, you shouldn't get anywhere near that usage. Even aircon won't use that much.
5k k/wh of electric per year is probably considered to be on the high end of things, which is roughly where I am tbh, approx 14 kw/h a day due to being at home more than usual right now.
Regarding your prices why are you sat there paying more? just go online and do a comparison, put (sensible) usage figures in for gas and electric, and switch online to a provider that charges you less. It's the same supply you get, you are just being ripped off by not switching to a different tariff. You don't need to ring anyone or talk to one particular company.
MSE Cheap Energy Club will pay a little cashback on most switches as well, not much but better than nothing.
im sat in a 2k debt atm with sse since i was not aware of the massive price increase required...
dont have the cash to get out of that hole atm with the extra out goings to cover the increased cost
but ill move asap over the octopus when i can, hopefully not long
we do have a lot of electric use items, for example we dont have mains water, so that requires separate pumps to run, along with pond pumps, electric car, hot tub, my very low wattage pc...
but double kwh from same time last year seems odd, then add the price jump to 19p per unit just hit me hard, so running away asap lol
dont have the cash to get out of that hole atm with the extra out goings to cover the increased cost
but ill move asap over the octopus when i can, hopefully not long
we do have a lot of electric use items, for example we dont have mains water, so that requires separate pumps to run, along with pond pumps, electric car, hot tub, my very low wattage pc...
but double kwh from same time last year seems odd, then add the price jump to 19p per unit just hit me hard, so running away asap lol
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Mar 2004
- Posts
- 15,990
- Location
- Fareham
Still sounds insane, maybe evaluate cutting out what you can (hot tub isn't really necessary for example) until you get on top of this.
Are you sure your meter readings are accurate? Are your bills based on actual readings instead of estimates? Look at a recent bill and see what it says for previous reading vs more recent one, and make sure both are actual reads instead of estimates. It should say something like what mine has:
Super Saver August 2020 B3
07 May 2020 Customer read: 7372
05 Aug 2020 Estimated read: 8711.3
Electricity units used 1339.3 = 1339.3 kWh
Unit rate 1339.3 kWh x 13.080p £175.18
Standing Charge 90 days x 19.570p £17.61
Super Saver August 2020 B3
05 Aug 2020 Estimated read: 8711.3
16 Aug 2020 Customer read: 8861
Electricity units used 149.7 = 149.7 kWh
Unit rate 149.7 kWh x 13.080p £19.58
Standing Charge 11 days x 19.570p £2.15
So my kwh value on 07 may 2020 was 7372 units (actual value not estimate), and my read on 16 Aug 2020 was 8861 (again, actual value). Therefore in about 100 days I used 8861 - 7372 = 1489 kwh units. 1489 / 100 = 14.89 kwh per day real world usage over that time period.
If their estimates are far higher than actual usage, then you should submit actual meter readings to them and align the bills properly and work out what is owed properly.
To owe them £2k based on actual readings your DD must have been set way too low for way too long. I am just leaving Scottish Power with a balanced owed of £240 to them, my DD was £60/month, so in the last year or so I've probably been underpaying them by about £20 a month.
On closing my Scottish Power account I have the option to setup a payment plan, to pay the balance off over 24 months if I want to. I don't know if SSE have the same kind of thing, but assuming you can setup a payment plan I would switch away and then pay off SSE using a payment plan. Have you spoken to SSE about the debt? if you stay on the expensive tariff you'll just be owing them more money all the time you are using them.
On the new provider setup a sensible DD that actually covers your usage and doesn't leave you owing them lots of money down the line. I have set mine at £80/month as I don't really want to owe money each time I switch contract annually.
Why are you switching to Octopus btw? have you compared prices? Are Octopus definitely the cheapest option for you? Don't be blinkered by signup bonuses and cashback rates. Ongoing cheapest price is normally king.
Your smart meter must have a real time usage statistic on it. Display that and keep an eye on it. My power draw is quite high in the background (using around 250-300w all the time) as I have a NAS running 24/7 amongst other things, but if yours is showing a large power consumption you can try and switch stuff off to see what is using it. One of the biggest culprits are things like immersion heaters, do you have one, and is it on?
Are you sure your meter readings are accurate? Are your bills based on actual readings instead of estimates? Look at a recent bill and see what it says for previous reading vs more recent one, and make sure both are actual reads instead of estimates. It should say something like what mine has:
Super Saver August 2020 B3
07 May 2020 Customer read: 7372
05 Aug 2020 Estimated read: 8711.3
Electricity units used 1339.3 = 1339.3 kWh
Unit rate 1339.3 kWh x 13.080p £175.18
Standing Charge 90 days x 19.570p £17.61
Super Saver August 2020 B3
05 Aug 2020 Estimated read: 8711.3
16 Aug 2020 Customer read: 8861
Electricity units used 149.7 = 149.7 kWh
Unit rate 149.7 kWh x 13.080p £19.58
Standing Charge 11 days x 19.570p £2.15
So my kwh value on 07 may 2020 was 7372 units (actual value not estimate), and my read on 16 Aug 2020 was 8861 (again, actual value). Therefore in about 100 days I used 8861 - 7372 = 1489 kwh units. 1489 / 100 = 14.89 kwh per day real world usage over that time period.
If their estimates are far higher than actual usage, then you should submit actual meter readings to them and align the bills properly and work out what is owed properly.
To owe them £2k based on actual readings your DD must have been set way too low for way too long. I am just leaving Scottish Power with a balanced owed of £240 to them, my DD was £60/month, so in the last year or so I've probably been underpaying them by about £20 a month.
On closing my Scottish Power account I have the option to setup a payment plan, to pay the balance off over 24 months if I want to. I don't know if SSE have the same kind of thing, but assuming you can setup a payment plan I would switch away and then pay off SSE using a payment plan. Have you spoken to SSE about the debt? if you stay on the expensive tariff you'll just be owing them more money all the time you are using them.
On the new provider setup a sensible DD that actually covers your usage and doesn't leave you owing them lots of money down the line. I have set mine at £80/month as I don't really want to owe money each time I switch contract annually.
Why are you switching to Octopus btw? have you compared prices? Are Octopus definitely the cheapest option for you? Don't be blinkered by signup bonuses and cashback rates. Ongoing cheapest price is normally king.
Your smart meter must have a real time usage statistic on it. Display that and keep an eye on it. My power draw is quite high in the background (using around 250-300w all the time) as I have a NAS running 24/7 amongst other things, but if yours is showing a large power consumption you can try and switch stuff off to see what is using it. One of the biggest culprits are things like immersion heaters, do you have one, and is it on?
we have only just moved over to the smart meter, but before that i used to give them the readings and have lots of pics from back when i was checking it few times a day
its mainly due to them saying to reduce our monthly payment from 180 down to 160, then our usage has jumped big time, along with the price hike its a bit of a smack
our background use is about 1kw during the day with solar running, so about 2-2.5kw in the evenings
im guessing they have just evaluated again since the contract ended and our usage had jumped to come up with the 500 figure, since its actually 517 without paying off any current debt :/
in theory its a 25% hike on unit price, plus they jump in use
those cars have a 72kw battery, so it can easy pull 30-50kw a day by itself atm, should drop back down to around 5kw when lock down actually ends
our water system will pull atleast 5kw with taps running, which can carry on for awhile to get pressure back up and refill the tank, depending how much is used
its mainly due to them saying to reduce our monthly payment from 180 down to 160, then our usage has jumped big time, along with the price hike its a bit of a smack
our background use is about 1kw during the day with solar running, so about 2-2.5kw in the evenings
im guessing they have just evaluated again since the contract ended and our usage had jumped to come up with the 500 figure, since its actually 517 without paying off any current debt :/
in theory its a 25% hike on unit price, plus they jump in use
those cars have a 72kw battery, so it can easy pull 30-50kw a day by itself atm, should drop back down to around 5kw when lock down actually ends
our water system will pull atleast 5kw with taps running, which can carry on for awhile to get pressure back up and refill the tank, depending how much is used
im now in process of moving to octopus for their agile tariff
comparison sites do show others are cheaper for me, however i do have a high use throughout the night so im trying to reduce my usage between 4pm-8pm which would then mean ill be paying a max of 11p a unit, down to 5p looks common, bad weather reduces it further, so the other night it would have been free here due to the wind
i need to find out if the tesla can do scheduled location charging, if so then charging outside of those hours will make a big diff
comparison sites do show others are cheaper for me, however i do have a high use throughout the night so im trying to reduce my usage between 4pm-8pm which would then mean ill be paying a max of 11p a unit, down to 5p looks common, bad weather reduces it further, so the other night it would have been free here due to the wind
i need to find out if the tesla can do scheduled location charging, if so then charging outside of those hours will make a big diff
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Mar 2004
- Posts
- 15,990
- Location
- Fareham
Yeah I think it's the right move to shift tariff to something cheaper.
You should be able to pay the outstanding balance off with SSE over a period of time, especially with covid going on.
You should be able to pay the outstanding balance off with SSE over a period of time, especially with covid going on.
Associate
- Joined
- 5 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 1,213
Does anyone have an Octopus referral they can use with me?
Permabanned
- Joined
- 9 Dec 2010
- Posts
- 7,438
I'm having an absolute nightmare with Tonik Energy. Anyone else here dealt with them before?
sent you mine by trust. Nothing but praise for them really. Waiting on a smart meter still as no appointments in my area with Covid still apparently but it’s easy enough to do readings with the app.