Are electricity price plans with free units Saturday or Sunday a gimmick?

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Up Rovers

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Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone can give me advice about Bord Gais and their 15% discount and free Saturday or Sunday. Its 100 units free per month to be used between 9 to 5 whichever day you choose on your plan. Are these free days a gimmick or do they make financial sense? A lot of our heavy usage can be done at week-ends so it may make sense. The overall units are cheaper with El Irl but not by a lot. We have a smart meter.

Looking online it would appear that El Irl don't do these offers any longer.

Thanks.
 
"Free" days of weekend electricity use happen as I write in Spain. The deals differ from provider to provider. Engage in a bundle and you could have discounted daily electricity charges at particular times also. I must add I've not seen any decent difference in my bills there. Furthermore, the electric companies can change your "deal" at any time and even without informing the customer. It's only a matter of time that hourly pricing will be implemented in Ireland.
 
Up Rovers said:
A lot of our heavy usage can be done at week-ends so it may make sense.
Click to expand...
Really? I’ve analysed own household usage patterns and there is maximum 10% I could shift and that is all washing machine and tumbledryer use.

Cooking, lighting, heating, devices, etc, account for the vast bulk of consumption and can’t be shifted around.

For me the deal above would make sense more for a holiday home.
 
I’m not sure if it’s a gimmick but you need to make sure you take advantage of the free day. I have a free Saturday and find myself pretty much doing all the washing drying etc that day. Charge cars all day etc. seems I waste a day of my life for the free electricity day
 
Does this plan charge a higher unit rate for the paid periods compared to a plan without the free Saturday or Sunday units ?
Is there an increased standing charge for this plan ?
 
S class said:
Does this plan charge a higher unit rate for the paid periods compared to a plan without the free Saturday or Sunday units ?
Is there an increased standing charge for this plan ?
Click to expand...

No increased standing charge as the Bord Gais charge is cheaper @ €281 and El Irl dearer @ €302.92.

Bord Gais are cheaper by 1.21 cent on the Day rate but more expensive on the Peak rate by 5.43 cent and a lot more expensive by 8.43 cent on the Night rate.
 
S class said:
Does this plan charge a higher unit rate for the paid periods compared to a plan without the free Saturday or Sunday units ?
Is there an increased standing charge for this plan ?
Click to expand...
Typically, yes it does mean higher usage rates for the 6 non free days. Standing charges are €300 annually approx, on these free day tarriffs, which is similar to non “free day” tarriffs.


I looked at them closely, when they came out, and decided, definitely not for me, for a few reasons:

Its a smart meter tarriff, which are way too expensive

The so called “free day” is quite restrictive, as it lasts only 8 hours, who wants to stay at home on a Sat/Sun, and do 6 loads of washing, people with small kids maybe, but its too restrictive, for most people.

The 6 non free days, generally have higher rates than a non free day tarriff, or higher peak rates.

There is also, a cap/limit on how much you can use on your “free day”, eg Bord Gais is 100kw per month, after which - the non free day rates kick in.
This means, it would not even charge, the vast majority, of EV’s each week.

The Bord Gas T & c’s say:

“9) Fair Usage Cap on Free Energy units – there is a Fair Usage Cap on the monthly allowance of Free Energy units. This cap is set at 100kWh. Any excess units used above 100kWh will be charged at the Saturday or Sunday Day unit rate.”
 
It's more hassle that it's worth.
You would be at a loss if you had a weekend away break.
 
I suspect that the free Saturday or Sunday unit plans are designed to alter customer behaviour i.e. move some of their electricity usage from peak to non-peak times.
 
This is how the tariff is structured, weekdays on the left, weekends on the right. It seems it goes from expensive to free as follows: red, orange, green, white.

Wkdays%20and%20Wkends.jpg
Free%20Time%20Sat%20or%20Sun.jpg

For me this is useful for someone who works shift patterns or has a holiday home.

It would absolutely not suit my household where we cook between 5 and 7 and have a pretty typical work and school regime.
 
Last December I was in this situation with Bord Gais and decided to activate the smart meter and went with the free electricity on Sunday plan
It took a good bit of number crunching to work out if it was going to viable as I didn't have my usage from previous years due to changing suppliers and that I've spent a good bit of time in Spain during the winters and last year Mrs C was with me for three months
Anyhow I finally got a yearly usage figure and reckoned I'd save a couple of hundred Euros over the year by switching on the smart meter

On my last bill Feb/Mar, 59 days and 8 Sundays we used
Day 369 kWh
Night 252 kWh
Peak 51 kWh
Free Energy 194 kWh
Total energy used 866 kWh

Had I stayed on the standard meter that usage would have cost us €375 but with the smart meter and the free time €288
So a saving of €87 for two months but it does come with a cost or as the say "there's no such thing as a free lunch"

Our Sundays have turned into quite a busy day for household duties as we use as much of the allowance as we can
The washing machine goes on 3 or 4 times, the dishwasher, the oven goes on for baking and the roast dinner is ready by 5pm
We plug in an electric heater to help with the drying of the clothes but now that summer is here the washing line will be used
My biggest enjoyment of the day is reserved for the immersion which gets left on from 9 till 5 so no gas used to heat our water

But I will say having done this for the last 4+ months it is becoming a bit of a pain in the backside and can't see ourselves signing up to this next year so will have to look at what other offers are available at the time. I was tempted to go with the EV plan but there's €140 additional ASC which I thought would wipe out most of the savings but now I think I could make it work with the added bonus of freeing up our Sundays
 
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Cervelo said:
My biggest enjoyment of the day is reserved for the immersion which gets left on from 9 till 5 so no gas used to heat our water
Click to expand...
Having grown up in the 80s I def appreciate this and love seeing the little red light on all day Sat :)

And getting the laundry done in one day so it is not sitting around and not putting away things multiple times a week, kids tracksuits for school have to be tumble dried as they take forever to dry on the line.

This tariff works for us right now as we tend to be dashing in and out during the week evenings so no big meals cooked and we are in and out all day Sat as we have local activities so can manage to get things on and off to max use of the free units. So like anything it is household dependant and schedule dependant.
 
Cervelo said:
On my last bill Feb/Mar, 59 days and 4 Sundays we used
Day 369 kWh
Night 252 kWh
Peak 51 kWh
Free Energy 194 kWh
Total energy used 866 kWh
Click to expand...
If I read this correctly you used 48 units on average per Sunday? And 12 units on every other day? That's quite an impressive shift in usage patterns in response to price!

At the same time it does seem to have been accompanied by a big change in lifestyle. I'm sure it works for you but I doubt it would scale across the system.
 
Cervelo said:
Last December I was in this situation with Bord Gais and decided to activate the smart meter and went with the free electricity on Sunday plan
It took a good bit of number crunching to work out if it was going to viable as I didn't have my usage from previous years due to changing suppliers and that I've spent a good bit of time in Spain during the winters and last year Mrs C was with me for three months
Anyhow I finally got a yearly usage figure and reckoned I'd save a couple of hundred Euros over the year by switching on the smart meter

On my last bill Feb/Mar, 59 days and 4 Sundays we used
Day 369 kWh
Night 252 kWh
Peak 51 kWh
Free Energy 194 kWh
Total energy used 866 kWh

Had I stayed on the standard meter that usage would have cost us €375 but with the smart meter and the free time €288
So a saving of €87 for two months but it does come with a cost or as the say "there's no such thing as a free lunch"

Our Sundays have turned into quite a busy day for household duties as we use as much of the allowance as we can
The washing machine goes on 3 or 4 times, the dishwasher, the oven goes on for baking and the roast dinner is ready by 5pm
We plug in an electric heater to help with the drying of the clothes but now that summer is here the washing line will be used
My biggest enjoyment of the day is reserved for the immersion which gets left on from 9 till 5 so no gas used to heat our water

But I will say having done this for the last 4+ months it is becoming a bit of a pain in the backside and can't see ourselves signing up to this next year so will have to look at what other offers are available at the time. I was tempted to go with the EV plan but there's €140 additional ASC which I thought would wipe out most of the savings but now I think I could make it work with the added bonus of freeing up our Sundays
Click to expand...
Haven’t crunched the numbers in detail but our experience is similar. Suits our lifestyle to do most of the washing, cooking (meal prep for the week), showers for the kids etc on Sunday so we are getting close to maxing the free electricity every month. Unfortunately we are using more on the other days than Cervelo. Especially with showers - three kids playing sport (average 11 sessions per week) need to be unsmellified regularly!

Used the tumble dryer a lot during the winter on Sundays so might not be as much saving now with the clothes being dried outside.
 
misemoi said:
Having grown up in the 80s I def appreciate this and love seeing the little red light on all day Sat :)
Click to expand...
Yes for me it's help alleviate some residual childhood trauma of having been caught out more the once for leaving the immersion on
Seconded only to the inquisition of the phone bill, kids don't realise these days how easy they have it ;)

NoRegretsCoyote said:
If I read this correctly you used 48 units on average per Sunday? And 12 units on every other day? That's quite an impressive shift in usage patterns in response to price!

At the same time it does seem to have been accompanied by a big change in lifestyle. I'm sure it works for you but I doubt it would scale across the system.
Click to expand...
According to BG we use anywhere between 10 to 15 units a day probably averaging 12/13 units and Sundays around the 30 mark when there are 4 Sundays in the month and around 25 when there are 5
On a money value once we're below €5.87 a day the smart meter is cheaper than the standard meter pricing

For us it wasn't a huge lifestyle change as there is only two of us here but would suspect for a family of four or five it would be
 
I reckon the washing machine and dishwasher are the two biggest consumers of electricity in our house (we don't have a tumble dryer). Anything that heats water is power hungry. I've no interest in spending my weekends doing loads of washing though.
 
Up Rovers said:
Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone can give me advice about Bord Gais and their 15% discount and free Saturday or Sunday. Its 100 units free per month to be used between 9 to 5 whichever day you choose on your plan. Are these free days a gimmick or do they make financial sense? A lot of our heavy usage can be done at week-ends so it may make sense. The overall units are cheaper with El Irl but not by a lot. We have a smart meter.

Looking online it would appear that El Irl don't do these offers any longer.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hi, we have that deal and I imagine they rely on people not really using it as much as they mean to but I am pretty determined and squash everything I can into that time period. When I checked the bills, we were getting about 23 euros worth of free electricity per month. All clothes are washed and dried on a Sunday and the dishwasher is not run on Saturday with 2 runs on a Sunday instead. Usually take advantage and do long electric showers on Sunday too. During winter, I can run an electric heater in the kitchen as it’s a very cold room. However, I don’t have children in school anymore so that might impact this.
 
These price plans def only appeal to those who are happy to shift use into the free day...probably minority of customers. I suspect though as solar makes inroads, smart meters are installed and people switch to electric cars that people will become very aware of how their usage impacts their bills, while others will always value the convenience of not thinking about time of day and happy to pay a premium for that convenience. And the old trope of the parents giving out about leaving lights on will switch to parents giving out about using dishwashers in peak times.
 
So let me get this right, there are people who work hard Monday to Friday in their day job and fit all of the usual other stuff that happens during the week and then spend the vast chunk of Saturday washing and drying and ironing and killing themselves squeezing a week's housework into eight hours, all to save a few cent per unit?

Life is too short for that sort of carry on.
 
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