Electricity Suppliers - advice?

[JP_]

I was happy with EON for a while, I moved to them initially because they were the cheapest (I was BG dual fuel) but prices just kept going up, until I was paying more than I paid BG.
Then I moved house and had both EON and BG, so changed to bulb.

The Bulb customer admin is handy, very easy to change your monthly DD - I have dropped mine in anticipation of using less gas this month, although it's still a bit chilly out!

 

[JohnW2]

The Bulb customer admin is handy, very easy to change your monthly DD - I have dropped mine in anticipation of using less gas this month, although it's still a bit chilly out!

Same with E.ON - one can change the DD amount online as ofdten as one wants to (I think) - within limits (down to 80% and up to 140% of the E.ON-'recommended' amount). That's what I did in anticipation of their possibly taking the DD soon after I switched away from them (which, in the event, they didn't) - so I reduced the amount for that DD (had it been taken) to the lowest I could.

Kind Regards, John

 

[SimonH2]

I don't really understand what these 'greener tariffs' really mean. In a literal sense, it presumably means that they buy their wholesale energy from 'greener' producers - but the electrons providing electricity to a consumer's installation know nothing about that (they know only about 'the grid'). In the final analysis, the limiting factor is the amount of 'greener'/'sustainable' energy that we can currently produce - that would not magically increase just because suppliers wanted to buy more greener energy!

Correct on every point - it's just greenwash.
Now, if it was a genuinely green tariff then the supply would be interruptible - when there isn't enough wind etc to supply "green tariff" customers, then some of them get cut off (or priced into usage reduction through temporary price rises). Exactly what so called smart meters are designed for I don't see anyone offering such a tariff in the foreseeable future.

 

[JohnW2]

Now, if it was a genuinely green tariff then the supply would be interruptible - when there isn't enough wind etc to supply "green tariff" customers, then some of them get cut off (or priced into usage reduction through temporary price rises).

A tariff which resulted in one being 'cut off' when there was inadequate wind, sun or whatever would obviously not be acceptable to consumers.

As for "... or priced into usage reduction through temporary price rises" that, conceptually, is the way we will have to go with energy from any source, unless/until supply appreciably increases and/or people 'voluntarily' (i.e. without financial pressures) reduce their usage.

As for attempts to control demand by 'temporary price rises', I think it is little more than science fiction to believe that 'real-time' variations in energy cost (across tens of millions of installations) would be practicable in the foreseeable future.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

As for attempts to control demand by 'temporary price rises', I think it is little more than science fiction to believe that 'real-time' variations in energy cost (across tens of millions of installations) would be practicable in the foreseeable future.

Kind Regards, John

I doubt the present technology will be capable of that for a long time, but they do have the tech to 'talk' to each meter once per day. That once per day might allow them to update energy costing and time periods for the following 24 hours usage.

 

[JohnW2]

I doubt the present technology will be capable of that for a long time, but they do have the tech to 'talk' to each meter once per day. That once per day might allow them to update energy costing and time periods for the following 24 hours usage.

Precisely - which is why I believe that thoughts of anything approaching 'real time' changes in charges are just fanciful, and will remain so for a long time to come.

I'm also far from convinced that changes anything like as frequent as daily would achieve very much. The only 'legitimate'; reason for such changes would be an attempt to persuade people to change their usage patterns, and the majority of people are not going to 'stay glued to their meter' on a daily basis to see "when today's cheap and expensive periods are going to be" (even if the meter knows that)!

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The only 'legitimate'; reason for such changes would be an attempt to persuade people to change their usage patterns, and the majority of people are not going to 'stay glued to their meter' on a daily basis to see "when today's cheap and expensive periods are going to be" (even if the meter knows that)!

They could easily set up alternative charges for weekdays versus weekends, the indoor displays are capable of advising consumers of the present unit cost.

 

[SimonH2]

One of the basic specification features of the "smart" meters is to allow short term price changes - and (in the minds of some of the loons pushing these things on us) that will allow near real time demand management. Grid controller forecasts that were going to run out of reserve around tea time on one of those very cold December days when there's no wind and demand is at it's peak - just signal the smart meters to up the price for the next couple of hours so people getting home from work won't want top brew up or have a cooked tea We all believe that fairy story don't we boys and girls
Apparently the industry has a term for how long it takes the in-home display to be put aside - it's called "time to drawer" and is apparently around a week for many users.

Aside from people not looking at the display, or having tossed it in a drawer, there is another problem with this ... In their infinite wisdom, the people setting the standards failed to mandate any way for the user to see what future prices are going to be. The display must tell them what the current price is, but the basic display doesn't allow the user to see what the price will be in half an hours time - though some suppliers' more advanced units do.

And for good measure, if the users sets the display to show cost rather than units - then the cost is shown excluding VAT

MOD: This thread has now moved off topic, which is to an extent being covered in an alternative thread. Please continue this conversation in that thread. This one I feel has concluded.