I always shopped around for the lowest price energy deals. I used OVO for a while, but ended up with Symbio who were offering a KWh for 10p. This was two years ago by the way. I only use electricity, as I got off the gas “grid” fourteen years ago when prices doubled overnight. I’ve had a multi-fuel stove as the only heat source ever since, and it was a good move in retrospect. So, I’m with Symbio, paying around 10p per KWh, but paying a direct debit of £79 a month, which is too much, but I keep a close eye on the amount of units I use, so I wasn’t too bothered.
Last year, twenty nine of the smaller energy suppliers went bust, and, Symbio was amongst them. I was transferred to Eon and immediately found myself on 19p per KWh, nearly double what I was paying to Symbio. I was transferred to a variable tariff with no direct debit, in other words the most expensive tariff on a standard meter. I decided to keep a very close eye on my usage and try to get the units down as much as possible. I was using around 350 units a month at that time. I also didn’t create a direct debit as I knew that Eon would charge over the odds, they all do it. Energy companies love to have your money in their accounts, and there are literally, billions of poundsworth of “customer credits” making interest for them on any given day.
Now Eon, like all energy companies really, have a very nice online payment system. Paying money in to offset your debit (your bill), is very easy. Symbio eventually paid the money they owed me into this account and it showed up as a credit of £196. So, I can manage my account online and make sure I only pay what I owe. I then got to work on reducing my electricity usage. I mentioned I don’t have gas, but I replaced my electric cooker with a LPG one which I run on a medium sized propane bottle (currently £34 for 19kg). I also replaced my electrically heated water (immersion heater) with a small LPG water boiler. This provides hot showers for me and my wife. I turned down all the fridges and freezers, which does save quite a bit of electric. Now, of course, we have to pay for gas, but, we don’t have standing charges and I’m not scared to use the oven or take a longer shower if necessary. When a gas bottle runs out, I buy another and the unit cost is way below the 29p per KWh I’m currently paying, soon to be 50p per KWh in October.
The next step in my journey will be to use solar panels to charge leisure batteries up. I need to find a way to power my large freezer “off grid”. My electricity usage is now around 160 units a month, but, even that will cost £75 plus standing charge once the 77% increase to the energy price cap kicks in from October. I don’t have a SMART meter and I can’t see the point in having one. Very few charge by the half hour and when they do, as in Octopus’s Agile tariff, there’s no cheap electricity to be had anymore. So, I doubt I’ll be paying by dorect debit again. I got sick and tired of the constant wrangling over what I should be paying. It’s quite easy to multiply 160 units by the cost of a KWh and add in the standing charge. It’s not rocket science. I doubt the Government will take action to solve the high price of energy units, so, it’s best, in my opinion, to take action to reduce your usage and pay only for what you use.
Emergency! Small business will not survive at 60p per KWh and £3 daily standing charge
UK Energy Policy: We need nationalised energy supply, or solar panels on every rooftop in UK