Gas and lec switch....

exocet

grungebob said:

no issues with BG, have duel fuel deal, four bed house mrs at home with little one all day and my bills are only £60/mth for both elec and gas plus get around £300 back end of each year.

If you want to take issue with the power industry aim your frustrations at the National grid and their biased buying of KW.
Power stations provide daily updates on their ability to generate, the state max output, max peak and their flexibility for certain hours of the day, they then offer the grid a price/KW. After everyone has offered a price you then get to see what other stations have offered. The NG do not buy the cheapest KW each time, they dont even choose the most stable/efficient stations there seems to be a bias towards certain stations that really needs investigating from some external body.

sure there are some days when there's a unexpected frequency shift in the grid ( one or two of the in crowd stations trip or go on outtage or as has happened this week a couple of France's stations go down) and the NG themselves send out invitations and prices /KW for the rest to accept but thats rare.

My issues with BG are that they are the only utility that I have ever had issues with. Many years ago I moved into a mates house (he'd emigrated) and I needed a place for 6 months before I moved into a new house. The big mistake I made was to pay the gas bill when it arrived.....turns out I shouldn't have done that because despite settling in full for gas supplied to the property (£600 I can recall), it wasn't my bill to pay. A month later I received another bill.....in my name for a similar amount.....do you think I could get them to accept that I had paid / transfer the funds from one account to another?? It took months and I ended up with bailiffs issuing threatening letters etc etc. When I finally moved into my new house....BG were incumbent, guess what - taking over the account was a complete nightmare not far off the same experience as in the rented house. Moved away from them and vowed never to return again.

Over the last 10 years I have changed suppliers about 3 times, no issues with any of them. Last year I transferred to "Sainsburys Energy" - only to find out it's BG in sheeps clothing. They couldn't get the meter readings right - took 5 attempts, their Website for Meter Submissions isn't fit for "Mobile Device Access" etc etc.

On the infrastructure thing - the UK is particularly exposed from what I can see. We don't have any gas storage facilities of any note (I think we closed another one down recently)? I think we have around 30 days of reserves available (under normal weather patterns - less if a freak cold spell occurs). Germany by contrast has 3 months.....as such we buy more of our Gas at "Spot Market Rates" which tend to be higher during cold spells / peak demand. End result, we pay more for our gas compared to many EU countries?

ESBlonde

hootsmon said:

Roland said:

Do you use a lot of electricity, or were you coming from a really bad deal?

no.....naggin' wife

The odd thing here is that it's not even your wife!

ESBlonde

It is my understanding that the smaller independents offer better intro rates. the idea of remembering to switch or negotiate each year is a bummer. the fact that most of the time your DD has them owing you whereas under the old/current scheme you get 3 months 'free' credit unless they vastly over estimate a bill (you can ring an actual through.

New digital metering should enable actual instant charges to be accurate. The idea that the utilities take money up front like some demonic finance house seems just odd to me.

I've got solar panels and thats enough faff without all the rest of it. Energy costs are pretty managable chez ESB.

olafgarten

exocet said:

olafgarten said:

We were with Scottish Power for a while but then decided to switch to Sainsburys as they were cheaper. The next day we got a call from Scottish Power telling us they would cut our bill in half. 

A quick "heads up". Sainsburys Energy is actually British Gas....along with their terrible billing and customer service. I know this because I too switched to them last year....it was a calamity! 

I know, but we haven't ever had issues with British Gas in the past. 

Nitefly

57Deluxe said:

some of those newcomers offering really low deals have proven unsustainable and some have gone tits-up...

And the reason for that is that, until they have > 250000 customers they don't have to comply with certain OFGEM obligations, which the "big 6" all do have to comply with.  Hence corners are cut, etc.

starwarsnosebleed

Ive been with Ovo for gas and electric for about 3 years now, and it seems very expensive now.
i might have to look into the 'uswitch'

i swear if my gas bill gets any higher, im changing my house name to 'Auschwitz'.