Having just spend the last 4 hours going through the providers I though I would share a couple of things.
We are about to come off a contract with Energia that had a 41% discount.
All providers seem to be offering a ten percent discount at best, but you need to pay attention to their kw/h rates as the variate alot. Flogas says it offers a 20% discount and €150 cash back but this is off a rate that is off the charts high (69c/kwhr for eg). Although the the cashback may mitigate some of this, it's excessive in my view.
There is a push out there to get people on tariffs that are night and day, but that also have an incredibly high rate for the (7-9pm) peak time. Some also have rates that have a simple night (11pm-8am) night rate and dayrate (8am-11pm) that in my view are better value, as they are a bit cheaper without the high peak rate added on top. So there are basically 3 rates, a 24 hr rate, Day and night rate and (so called) Smart rate, that has peak (7-9pm rate) on top of the Day/Night rates. Bord Gais don't do the Day and Night only rate, instead they have a convoluted 'smart' rate that give free usage on a weekend day of your choice. It's difficult to quantify the savings if any there.
The most important figure you need is your usage in kw/hrs for the last year, or even any average 12 month period. Your current provider can give you this if you can't calculate it. It may be on your bill some where. If your usage is lower than average then some providers will suit better than others. Perhaps with a lower standing charge maybe. Standing charges vary hugely not to mention the big difference between rural and urban standing order charges.
They all use the figure of 4200 kw/hrs as the annual average house hold usage to give you an estimate cost. If you are using a price comparison website like bonkers, make sure you click 'No' or 'view all plans' where it has the option 'only show available for sign up', as otherwise you will only get providers they can sign you up to, and not others that may be cheaper.
We have a heat pump and MPRV so I thought I should call up our provider to get an accurate figure. We were told our usage was 7,365 kw hours for the last 12 months. This is high but we don't have oil or gas bills on top.
In our case, even though Electric Ireland has a high standing order fee of €484, it's lower unit rate for (Day 43.68 and Night 21.55) is cheapest at €3156 per year. SSE with S/O of €377 and (Day 44.34 & Night 27.52) making total of €3229 came second. Their 24 hr rates would cost €3391 and €3499 respectively.
**All the companies that offer day/night rate as well as 'smart' rate split your usage, for the purpose of an estimation into a 50/50% split. I don't think this is real world so I split ours 67%/33%. I don't see how we could have half power usage between 11pm to 8am unless your lifestyle specifically lends itself to that.
There are 2 year contracts out there but not sure with such a small discount it's worth it unless you feel things will worsen even more. All I would say is it's important you do your own calculations on this as your level and type of usage are important to know to accurately make a judgment. SSE, Electric Ireland and Energia have pretty clear websites where Bord Gais and especially Flogas I found more cryptic. I also used Bonkers.ie and Switcher.ie. Bear in mind all this is a snapshot in time and rates may change.
If there is anything I am missing please add it on here. I'm all ears!