Energy alternatives
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions
Lots of us are feeling the pinch from higher energy bills. You can use our downloadable letters to write to your energy company and ask them to reduce their charges.
Another quick and easy way to save significant amounts of money, is to simply switch energy provider or tariff. Now, more than ever, is a good time to keep an eye on exactly who supplies your energy.
More choice
What many of us perhaps don't realise is that there's even more choice out there than we'd thought. Some 99 per cent of us get our energy from one of six companies, the so called 'big six'. These are British Gas, EDF, E.ON, npower, Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy. However, there are several other names out there, many who also belong to the big six as well, but there are eight companies which are independent. They can't always compete on price, but switching to one of these smaller companies might have other benefits. We've invited several families from Berry Hill, Gloucester to find out what switching has to offer. On hand to give advice is Alison Morrison from Switch with Which? - the energy switching site.
The Stalley family discovered that switching could save them a significant amount of money. British Gas currently supplies them with both gas and electricity on a price scheme capped until 2011. By switching to npower's Duel Fuel tariff, they could save just under £400. Some capped price schemes may require you to pay an exit fee when you try to switch. Even taking into account that fee, the Stalleys stand to make a saving in the region of £300.
The Elsmores are also with British Gas. However, it might be tough for them to make considerable savings as they don't like paying by direct debit and that's usually the cheapest way to pay. Alison explains: One of the big issues with monthly direct debit is that the energy company will estimate how much they think you'll use over a year, so what you have to do is continually stay in touch with them, then you won't suddenly discover that you owe them lots of money or them holding onto a lot of your money."
Smart meters
Alison informs the Elsmores about one of the smaller, independent companies, First Utility. It offers smart meters to its customers as standard. Smart meters are supposed to cut your energy usage by 15 per cent. The meter collects precise readings every 30 minutes. It knows exactly how much energy you use, therefore helping the company charge accurately and the family pinpoint ways to cut energy use, and spend less. Alternatively, they could also save over £100 by changing tariff with British Gas which ends up presenting a dilemma for the family.
Pre-payment meters
Pre-payment meters are usually the most expensive way to pay for your energy. The Powell family use pre-payment and have felt the rises in energy prices in a very immediate way. One of the independent companies, Ebico, may be able to help. Uniquely, Ebico operates as a not-for-profit company, using the money it saves through customers that pay by direct debit to even up the costs for all its customers. So customers pay the same price regardless of how they pay their bill. Ebico could save the Powells over £40 per year. However, the Powells stand to make a much bigger saving through moving to EDF where they could reduce their yearly bill by over £350.
Planet-saving alternatives
Not everyone is interested in purely saving money though. What about saving the planet? All the big six offer green tariffs but three companies make that their main selling point. As the Lanfear family discover, they may not be able to save you much money, but Green energy, Ecotricity and Good Energy all offer a planet-saving alternative.
Saving hundreds of pounds
Alison summarises the event: "We've seen today hundreds of pounds that can be saved for example with the large energy companies. It's not surprising that they have dominated in the way that they have. But it's definitely worth looking at the smaller energy companies as well to see if there's something that they can offer them that's slightly different."
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~37~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
I have been told that British Gas also do the Smart Meters and were one of the main runners to push for them to be introduced. Where was their publicity? And I would say if you can, look at the Online Tariffs. I am saving loads!! My friend has a prepayment one with British Gas too!! I was never a fan but the savings offered are great!
Complain about this comment
So who are the little 8?
You don't list them in this article . . .
Complain about this comment
I fail to see the link for those of us in Northern Ireland . . . .
Complain about this comment
Last year I tried to change energy suppliers to have both my gas and electricity with one company. My gas transferred but my electricity did not. I have since discovered I can have any electricity supplier I like as long as it is Scottish Power because of the type of White Meter heating I have. I therefore cannot change supplier and am completely at SPs mercy as regards pricing, and also have no choice as regards the tarrif I am on. The only way I could save money is by going on to direct debit but I am loathed to do this as when I was with British Gas they tried to charge me £25717.51 for gas! Competition, what competition?
Complain about this comment
Energy Advice.
For all those on Direct Debit - send meter readings to your provider on last day of every month and on the day they announce price increases. This means that you are in control and they cannot back-date increases and you can challenge letters demanding increased direct debit payments. It also forces them to send you an upto date bill - particularly whne done on-line.
Complain about this comment
Tonights programme championed use of price comparison websites to switch energy supplier. My experience recently is that such recommendations on some sites may not be based on factual information but more to do with just encouraging more switching each of which is rewarded by the energy companies on a commission basis. I have documentary evidence of such a practice and decided not to switch supplier. I was offered a 30% saving which turned out to be simply an arbitrary reduction in my monthly direct debit and bore no correlation to the price of gas from either company. Watchgdog may wish to investigate further.
Complain about this comment
which aggregator or website were you using to compare prices
Complain about this comment
After tonight's show it will certainly stir me into action to reviewing my service providers. I'm currently with Eon for both gas and electric and I also pay by direct debit - It suits me to do that. But why, when they advise you annually of next years' monthly payment, they don't tell you the basis of their calculation. It just comes as a lump sum statement. Surely it is not beyond their means to advise customers how they have calculated the new sum?
Complain about this comment
Great show tonight...as always. Really good bit about switching energy providers, I'm going to have a look at that myself. Paul Heiney must have nerves of steel, confronting these 'rogues'. Good on ya Paul!!
Complain about this comment
CAN GAS&ELECTRICITY USER SEND COMMENTS WITH THE RATES THEY PAY FOR THEIR DOMESTIC GAS AND ELECTRICY USAGE and any discounts given to them power companies.
EDF CHARGES FROM 25 JULY 2008 ARE AS FOLLOW:
EDF GAS CHARGES PER QUARTER: The first 670 Kwhs are charged at £0.07350
THEN THE OTHER Kwhs are charged at £0.03209
EDF ELECTRICTY CHARGES PER QUARTER: The first 225 kWhs used are charged at £0.01796 THEN the others kWhs are charged at £0.01232
EDF OFFERS DISCOUNTS AS FOLLOW:
DUAL DISCOUNT: £8.40
DIRECT DEBIT DISCOUNT £42
SELF READER DISCOUNT £36.40
ALL DISCOUNTS ARE INCLUSIVE OF VAT of 5%.
Complain about this comment
I am with EDF. My gas bill has risen by 75.71% including VAT at 5%. I used to pay £0.04183 including VAT at 5% for the first 1465 Kwh..
Since 25 July 08 they charge me £0.07350 for the 670 Kwh. This is an increase of £0.03167 per Kwh. .
I am a low consumer,as I don’t put the heating on every day during the winter as I don’t have the money to pay for it so EDF is penalising me by increasing my gas bill by 75.71%. on my firtst 670 Kwh used per quarter. This is TAKING FROM THE POOREST who cannot afford to have the heating when is most needed in the winter.
If I use more than 670 Kwh for quarter then they charge me £0.0.3209 in the pound So because I am a lower user they have increase the RATE in £ at which the first Kwh used are charged and they have reduced the quantity of Kwh we can use. Making it imposible for lower users to save any money.
I phone EDF and They told me they my gas rate has only increased by 22% but this is not what my bill shows me. My last quarter from AUG TO NOV 2008 I used 441 Kwh based on the previous rate of £0.04183 including VAT at 5% I would have paid a total of £18.44 including VAT at 5%.
If add a 75.71% to £18.44 it would equal to £32.40 which is the bill EDF charged me under they new Kwh rate of £0.07350.
If I work backwards and I calculate £32.40 divided by £0.07350 equals 440.81 Kwh used. Rounded up to the nearest penny it equals 441 Kwh.
When I phone EDF they told me the gas have only gone up it by 22%. Clearly this is not my maths tell me.!!!
Complain about this comment
Regarding websites which advise savings from energy companies - try several, because some do not just give basic price as a result, but also take 'customer care' into consideration.
Complain about this comment
It's understandable that Watchdog's focus should be on the price of electricity, but I feel two very important points were missed in this programme.
The first is that one of the fundamental reasons us Briton's are exposed to big price swings (usually rises) is that we produce very little of our own energy. We have to compete in world energy markets, and as fossil fuels deplete and consumption increases - those prices inexorably rise. The answer is for us to become Energy Independent again, by producing the power we need, from our own resources. The UK has enough wind energy to power the country 3 to 4 times over, it's our new North Sea Oil - except it will never run out. By choosing the right green tariff consumers can help make this happen.
The second point missed is one that Watchdog's presenter Julia was struck by when interviewing me - the fact that you can buy green electricity for the same price as the Big Six charge for what we call 'brown' electricity - the conventional stuff. That's no premium for going green. it's a shame that this surprising fact, which your team thought the public would be interested to know - didn't make the final edit.
[Personal details removed by Moderator]
Complain about this comment
I recently changed suppliers to Eon thinking it would be cheaper than my current suppliers. I am on a prepayment meter both both gas and electricity. Whilst the amount of electricity I use is roughly the same, the amount of money used to top up the gas meter is a lot higher than I was paying, mostly due to the amount they take after I use the emergency gas facilities. Surely this is not right as I know we pay a higher rate on prepayment meter. It is making life very hard especially at this time of year. My wages are not great with no prospect of an increase in the near future due to current national financial crisis.
Complain about this comment
The Utility Warehouse has a 5% cashback debit card. I have one and get around £20/month knocked off my utility bill!
Complain about this comment
not mentioned was Equigas.....a supplier who has a opolicy of fair pricing, no inflated charges for having a prepayment meter. I don't but now use them so that other people get a fairer deal. Also interesting was the "ethical" family, that is until the numbers came up!!!
Complain about this comment
I am shocked that an article on the BBC Watchdog website can refer to a "duel fuel" tariff- for Heaven's sake, where are the rapiers?
Complain about this comment
Every user of electricity or gas has a meter which reads use in a very simple way. Why then are utility companies permitted to charge anything other than one rate for each unit used? The current method of paying the premium rate for the first few hundred units, before it is reduced, penalises those who can ill-afford it. Time this lack-lustre government dictated that sales will only be sold at one price per unit in line with meter readings - but do not hold your breath! Perhaps Watchdog could champion the question to both government and the utility companies?
Complain about this comment
Interesting that the Big 6 get such a mention and the smaller companies don’t merit it. I am a landlord with a number of student lets for which I have to pay utilities. You can understand that I am careful to make sure I am getting a good deal and I was amazed at what I saved when I changed to the Utility Warehouse. I won’t mention who I was with before but I got promises of fixed prices that didn’t happen on some of the houses and made me very annoyed. Especially when I had to phone a premium rate number time after time to try and resolve it. Eventually I gave up and moved the whole lot to UW where I have to say, the service has been first rate. I also tried the comparison websites and was at first disappointed that I didn’t find UW recommended. After some investigation I found out that as they don’t pay commissions to the sites they wont get mentioned! That was a real eye-opener I can tell you. To top that, the distributor that signed me up told me of a little trick, which I tried, and after a few attempts found out it was true….. Whilst I haven’t done it for a while, I went onto one of the better-known comparison sites and plugged in all the info for my own home. The site recommended I switched away from my old supplier to another and I went back into the site pretending I was already with them but with the same usage figures. Guess what! Another company was recommended. I tried again, plugging in all the same data but pretending I was with the third supplier. This time I was truly shocked as the site recommended the first one that I had said I was with in the first place. The reality about commissions being paid on recommendation hit home and I put my own home over to the Utility Warehouse straight away. Since then I have also switched my broadband and phone line over and the savings are staggering. I honestly don’t know if anyone else can match the pricing but I have had two ‘door-knockers’ call and when I say who I am with they don’t even bother trying. That’s good enough for me.
Complain about this comment
The utility warehouse is really good. As Philstone1 said, I have the cashback card, that gives 5% back from my shopping and petrol spend each month. This total is taken off my utility bill each month, which just makes things even better.
Complain about this comment
Beware of signing up with smaller suppliers. A few years ago, after a USwitch search, I signed up with [one]. It was a really good company until it went bust, taking my £10's worth of Direct Debit credit with it.
Complain about this comment
In answer to cookiehascrumbled, suffice to say it was one on the BBC list as approved by Consumer Direct. Since I complained to the website they have changed their calculations and it now appears to be accurate and based on actual price comparisons. As such it would be unfair to now name them I feel. Nevertheless other sites may still be inaccurate so a Watchdog investigation may still turn up some surprising results.
Complain about this comment
Just watched the programme about switching suppliers.What the programme doesnt tell you and i only found out after switching is that once the companies have got you to switch to them,after a couple of months they suddenly tell you that your payments have got to go up as you are not paying enough to cover your usage.So please beaware that you may seem to be saving money by switching to them,in the long term you may end up paying more than you actually where then when you first switched.
Complain about this comment
At the end of the show they announced that "First Utility" energy supplier, had reduced their prices by 20% that same day. There's no evidence of this on their website, & on the phone to them i was quoted the same rates as a week back!. A further search on the internet has shown up nothing. Ihere's no evidence anywhere "that i can find" of any announced reduction in their fuel prices!. Except of coarse for the statement being made on watchdog. what is going on?.
Complain about this comment
I am surprised with all this talk of energy prices and switching suppliers, no-one has recommended reading our meters and finding out for ourselves what our consumption actually is. All too often supplier instalments are based on estimated "readings" and not actual usage.
Please viewers, read your meters and find out for yourselves how much gas and electricity you actually use. Add together 4 quarterly bills, add a percentage increase for the future and divide by 12 for your legitimate monthly instalment.
Complain about this comment
Hyperpoppet81 - you're right about British Gas Offering smart (electricity)meters, but this is only to industrial and commercial users at the moment. They were one of the first, but also offering smart meters to businesses are Npower and SSE. There will be residential trials over the next couple of years, and recently there was government mandation for all 27 million electricity meters, and 20 million gas meters to be smart by 2020.
Be wary of any companies claiming to offer smart meters which do not send the consumption data to the supplier for settlement. They will give you information on a nice, shiny in-house display, but unless the readings are sent to the supplier remotely for settlement, you'll still get estimates unless you call in with your reading (which you can do now from your existing dumb meter).
Complain about this comment
Re the Watchdog section on Energy on Monday night. I would like to ask about thosse of us with British Gas that followed the advice given to cap our gas and electricity until 2011. If the prices go down considerably where does that leave us. There was a lot of hype about capping the prices and now it is about to go down. What is going to be done for those of us who will then be paying over the odds.
Complain about this comment
After watching your show I found that my electricity supplier (southern Electric) changed my direct debt from £23 a month to £91 a month after they applied estimation to my account around mid June. When I spoke with them the estimation was still over by 1000 units and that’s after 4 months usage!! I was horrified as to how they can change that amount by. Saying that when I complained, they reimbursed the difference which was in the three figures as I’m hardly at home and use gas for heating, I suppose handy for Christmas but makes you wonder how they hit their revenue targets, wonder if and who gets paid commission on this??
Complain about this comment
I have just changed back from NPower to British Gas. I pay by Direct Debit to both. Apart from my potential saving for Dual Fuel of £90.00 per month I have received cheques for a total of £260 for overpayment on my NPower account as of 31st October 2008 (based on 12 months consuption of both Electricity and Gas).
How on earth can the Utility companies justify this level of overcharging on my fuel bill by direct debit.
No wonder they are making massive profits. I would have preferred a lower Direct Debit payment and allowed me to invest in the Interest.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
whilst you may caluclate price differences when adding up unit rates and charges, the companies have the "hidden cost" of standing charge... when this is added on to what you may see as a very good deal in terms of unit rates, there is usually no difference at all.... be wary of sales people who only show you the unit rates...and take some responisbility for your own energy usage, and submit your own meter readings to your supplier.
Complain about this comment
Green Energy is not green nor its power effcient be it through a wind turbine or a solar panel.
Industry and government seems to have hood wincked itself and will not be told how in fact technology works. It can`t be Earthed and so those so called Eco houses are full of electropollution. something we don`t want.
Along with it being more expensive its like being asked to being asked to pay a £100 to save a penny. If you live there longer you might save something.
Ultamatly your polluting your space.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS