Now that the electricity suppliers have settled on their new rates, how much can you save on your annual bill if you’re prepared to opt for a new offering?
Quite a bit. If you were on the least competitive rate available and you switched to SSE Airtricity’s two year contract, paying by direct debit and getting your bills by email, you could save about £120 in the first year. That saving drops to around £48 in the second year. If you decided to leave the contract early you would incur a penalty of £40 in the first year and £20 in the second year.
So who’s offering this least competitive rate of just over 18 pence a unit of electricity? Why it’s SSE Airtricity. This is the supplier’s standard default tariff for customers who are not on any form of introductory or welcome back contract and who don’t want to pay by direct debit and who prefer to get their bills by post. It’s not alone. Power NI levies an identical charge for customers who are on the same conditions. But arguably the SSE Airtricity offering is the less attractive and for this reason. The company demands a a £200 deposit for customers not on direct debit tariffs, including of course this default offering, while Power NI does not.
For customers who have keypads and are thus on pre pay deals, the cheapest offering is again provided by SSE Airtricity. It’s only available for a year however. The saving on moving from the dearest tariff to this SSE Airtricity deal is just over £90 a year for those using the standard amount of electricity.
So who’s providing the most expensive keypad rate? Why once again it’s SSE Airtricity. And this time it is alone. Power NI’s equivalent tariff is cheaper.
And lastly you may remember seeing a reference recently to a saving of close to £160 a year from moving off the absolute dearest tariff to the very cheapest. Well that was then. What was once the most expensive tariff has been withdrawn. You can’t avail of that level of saving no matter where you move from and to whom.