Switching electricity providers this year?

My contract with Electric Ireland ended a few weeks ago, they emailed to say I would then default to their Value Reward plan which is an 8.5% discount off standard rates with no contract.

They followed up then with a phone call offering a 10% discount for a 1 year contract. I declined to see if they would improve their offer but they did not. The agent confirmed that what he was offering was the same as the Electric Ireland 10% discount for existing customers on Bonkers.

There is nothing better available at the moment for me. I will get EI’s €50 credit in January and if nothing better is available then, either with EI or elsewhere then I will probably take EI's 10% for 12 months.
 
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!
 
We went with the energias EV plan (didn’t even show up on bonkers), at 47.77 day and 13.77 night. Standing charge is also low at €297. We do have an ev and by charging the car, running our dishwasher, washing machine and immersion at night we average 70% night rate. With a heat pump can you not increase the temp say 2 degrees on night rate and then lower it again in the morning?
 
Energia extended my last annual contract for "loyalty", seems to be their new incentive.

So maintaining my former day/night rates of 47.77 and 22.99.

Standing charge is 297.
 

Much lower night rate for the EV plan (Tesla?).

Presumably cause usage is so much more.
 
I
I looked into this and was told you have to verify you have an EV to use it. If you look at this rate there is a ceiling on usage beyond which you pay a higher rate. No idea if it's sufficiently high not to need higher rate if you have an EV. Standing charges given tend to be the lower Urban rate but like I said are much higher for rural.

However I did make the mistake of assuming you could get a Day/Night rate with a smart meter. You cant it seems as Day/night rates need a specific Day/Night meter. That said I did find a smart rate that gives the same as the Day/night rates I found, is also without the peak 2 hours high peak rate. better still this tarrif has what is called a 'night boost' rate between 2-4am of just 12.65c /kwhr, so we can probably put disherwasher/washing machine on timer, with the heatpump coming on full for that time as well.
 


I don’t remember selecting I had an EV and definitely didn’t get an email or phone call to confirm. Even if you don’t I see no real issue telling a white lie. I am urban but don’t see a rural standing charge on their website but maybe I’ve over looked it.

There is a higher rate if use more than 3,000kWh day usage & 2,000 kWh night usage every two months. That would mean 12000kwh on night and 18000 kWh on day a year which is a massive amount.

Since we got the EV we use almost the same amount of energy for the car as we do for the house, 8000kwh per year total.
 
I just contacted Energia and the rep told me something I didn't know. I assume this would go for all suppliers.

As much as our contract is up today. The 41% discount we had will remain in place until the end of the current billing period which is Jan 19th.

This would make it crazy to switch until near then.
 
Ask them if they can change your billing cycle to get a bit more time! obviously this is a tongue in cheek suggestion.
 
RedOnion said:
Yes, but you need to contact them to do it. Theres a contact form on their website, rather than waiting to get through on the phone.
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Just off the phone there to electric ireland. Told me I cannot offset a credit balance on electric against gas. Could they be wrong ? Is there a link to contact form you mention above ?
 
Roro999 said:
Just off the phone there to electric ireland. Told me I cannot offset a credit balance on electric against gas. Could they be wrong ? Is there a link to contact form you mention above ?
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Sorry, I have mislead you. I had overpaid electricity and underpaid gas when I was closing my account. They refunded my electricity overpayment to my bank account, and then took a DD for the amount of the gas bill. I know the credit arrived in my account a couple of working days after I requested it.
I'm not sure if they would refund if the credit came from the government credit.
 
Ok thanks Red Onion.
 
With the price of gas lower than pre war,
Is it worth waiting to see will prices drop

Seems to be little or no value at the moment in switching.
Especially the standing charges which are wildly different.
 
Hi,

Currently paying .444/unit less 41% discount for Elect, not in contract.

Supplier is Energia.

€215.35/Standing Charge(.59/day)

Are there better rates out there?
 
jpd said:
bonkers.ie
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Finally decided to run my out-of-contract EI plan and electric consumption through Bonkers and it seems the best deal is EI's Energy Saver 10% plan. I'll ring EI and request this today. Thanks for the prompt.
 
mct1 said:
Finally decided to run my out-of-contract EI plan and electric consumption through Bonkers and it seems the best deal is EI's Energy Saver 10% plan. I'll ring EI and request this today. Thanks for the prompt.
Click to expand...
All arranged now. They couldn't have been more helpful.
 
mct1 said:
All arranged now. They couldn't have been more helpful.
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My contract with EI ran out too, but I seem to be still getting roughly 8% discount with this description in my latest bill - Your Savings(Dual Fuel/DD/Online Billing)

My thinking was I'd stay out of contract and see what other offers may appear over the next few months, if any.
Not much point locking in to another 12 month contract for the sake of a couple of %.

Am I right? Or is the EI offer on top of the discount for Dual Fuel/DD/Online Billing?
 
mct1 said:
Finally decided to run my out-of-contract EI plan and electric consumption through Bonkers and it seems the best deal is EI's Energy Saver 10% plan. I'll ring EI and request this today. Thanks for the prompt.
Click to expand...
Wihile I was getting that, approx 10 days ago, on Bonkers - I made minor amendments to usage estimates for both fuels, and now In setting an offer from Flogas as being the best (it includes a fixed rate deal and €300 cashback, so a net saving of circa €170 over the year).

Ragdal's question about whether others will reduce their rates, given the reduced cost of gas and power on wholesale markets, has also been on my head, but then I wonder if I might end up waiting a few months, given there's no pressure on supplies to drop prices (and miss our on my Flogas discount, in the meantime, during what's likely to be the most expensive months of the year etc)
 
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