Switching gas suppliers
13 October 2021 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeIt's that time of year again... my current gas supplier's contract is ending, and I have to decide whether or not to roll over onto their recommended 'cheapest like-for-like' option or not.
Last year I very nearly chose to switch my gas over to Ecotricity's new 'green gas' supply, alongside their longstanding electricity supply. Only they totally failed to respond to my contact until long after the two-week switch window had closed, which was not very good commercial strategy on their part as they lost a potential customer (and not particularly reassuring in terms of general competence). They said they would take a note of the contract times involved and contact me again when my new contract had expired, but I'm really not holding my breath for that to happen. So far it hasn't.
I've always known that using an 'alternative' supplier would be more expensive, and since the tariffs are going up anyway (by so much that the standing charge and unit rate on the 'best buy' tariff I'm being offered are both more than the standard variable tariff from the same company -- presumably it's a best buy because they're expecting the variable rate to go sky-high before the end of the fixed-rate contract), I thought the difference might be less painful.
But the Ecotricity prices are way higher than anything British Gas are offering. For comparison, British Gas are talking about putting the standing charge up by less than a penny and the per-unit charge by nearly 2p and increasing the annual bill by 30% in the process; the increase up to the level of Ecotricity's current charges is more than twice that, and the fact that the standing charge is 20% higher hits particularly hard since I use so little gas. And while I thought they offered a 'dual-fuel' discount for having both gas and electricity from the same supplier which would offset that a bit, they don't seem to.
I can theoretically afford it (the gas bill is one of the lowest recurring utility bills I have to pay), and perhaps I should. I'm not sure the middle of an energy crisis is a good time to switch energy suppliers, however, even though Ecotricity claim to be in pretty good financial shape as the smaller suppliers go -- boasting that 90% of their future supply is already 'hedged' -- and I'm already exposed to their potential collapse since I get my electricity from them.
I suspect that if I were signed up to another electricity supplier and considering a switch their electricity rates would also seem insurmountably high, but as it is it's just an accepted cost of living -- like the fact that meat takes a long time to grow and is expensive, and hence you don't buy the costly cuts (£95 for a piece of prime steak?) and you pad the cheaper ones out with lots of accompaniment. Buying factory-farmed meat in order to save pennies is a poor bargain both for the planet and from the eating point of view. I have a piece of not-especially-cheap rare-breed Berkshire pig's liver defrosting in the fridge at this moment, left over from when I bought a chunk on 18th September, and several portions of chopped venison from the £8 I invested a couple of weeks ago. A little goes a long way.
But by far the easiest thing to do is simply to sign up to the expensive new fixed contract with its exit penalties and go on using as little gas as possible; getting signed up with British Gas in the first place was a complete nightmare that took weeks and weeks to sort out, and I have more than enough other problems going on at the moment. Ecotricity are also increasingly hassling me to use their website/app to submit meter readings, which is a worrying trend; how long before they withdraw the current service altogether in favour of compulsory automation?
So.. yet again, I don't think I shall be switching. Now I just have to find the energy to actually deal with the existing tariff confirmation process, instead of blogging about it... I currently have three cheques now waiting to be signed/posted, from matters that have accumulated in the course of the past week. It just always seems too difficult to tackle, or too late at night, or there is something else more urgent that must be done first, or it might as well wait for Monday when the post actually goes :-(
Last year I very nearly chose to switch my gas over to Ecotricity's new 'green gas' supply, alongside their longstanding electricity supply. Only they totally failed to respond to my contact until long after the two-week switch window had closed, which was not very good commercial strategy on their part as they lost a potential customer (and not particularly reassuring in terms of general competence). They said they would take a note of the contract times involved and contact me again when my new contract had expired, but I'm really not holding my breath for that to happen. So far it hasn't.
I've always known that using an 'alternative' supplier would be more expensive, and since the tariffs are going up anyway (by so much that the standing charge and unit rate on the 'best buy' tariff I'm being offered are both more than the standard variable tariff from the same company -- presumably it's a best buy because they're expecting the variable rate to go sky-high before the end of the fixed-rate contract), I thought the difference might be less painful.
But the Ecotricity prices are way higher than anything British Gas are offering. For comparison, British Gas are talking about putting the standing charge up by less than a penny and the per-unit charge by nearly 2p and increasing the annual bill by 30% in the process; the increase up to the level of Ecotricity's current charges is more than twice that, and the fact that the standing charge is 20% higher hits particularly hard since I use so little gas. And while I thought they offered a 'dual-fuel' discount for having both gas and electricity from the same supplier which would offset that a bit, they don't seem to.
I can theoretically afford it (the gas bill is one of the lowest recurring utility bills I have to pay), and perhaps I should. I'm not sure the middle of an energy crisis is a good time to switch energy suppliers, however, even though Ecotricity claim to be in pretty good financial shape as the smaller suppliers go -- boasting that 90% of their future supply is already 'hedged' -- and I'm already exposed to their potential collapse since I get my electricity from them.
I suspect that if I were signed up to another electricity supplier and considering a switch their electricity rates would also seem insurmountably high, but as it is it's just an accepted cost of living -- like the fact that meat takes a long time to grow and is expensive, and hence you don't buy the costly cuts (£95 for a piece of prime steak?) and you pad the cheaper ones out with lots of accompaniment. Buying factory-farmed meat in order to save pennies is a poor bargain both for the planet and from the eating point of view. I have a piece of not-especially-cheap rare-breed Berkshire pig's liver defrosting in the fridge at this moment, left over from when I bought a chunk on 18th September, and several portions of chopped venison from the £8 I invested a couple of weeks ago. A little goes a long way.
But by far the easiest thing to do is simply to sign up to the expensive new fixed contract with its exit penalties and go on using as little gas as possible; getting signed up with British Gas in the first place was a complete nightmare that took weeks and weeks to sort out, and I have more than enough other problems going on at the moment. Ecotricity are also increasingly hassling me to use their website/app to submit meter readings, which is a worrying trend; how long before they withdraw the current service altogether in favour of compulsory automation?
So.. yet again, I don't think I shall be switching. Now I just have to find the energy to actually deal with the existing tariff confirmation process, instead of blogging about it... I currently have three cheques now waiting to be signed/posted, from matters that have accumulated in the course of the past week. It just always seems too difficult to tackle, or too late at night, or there is something else more urgent that must be done first, or it might as well wait for Monday when the post actually goes :-(
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 11:14 am (UTC)I'm with them, but for the ethics, not the customer service. It did get very poor during Covid.
Why not get a smart meter? We don't have to take meter readings any more.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 11:18 am (UTC)Or maybe that was when the water company said they couldn't fit a water meter?
no subject
Date: 2021-10-14 10:55 pm (UTC)