Alternative Energy Suppliers

jor el

eden_my_ass wrote: »

As far as I'm aware they might not be allowed by the regulations to try to poach you back in the official account ending contact...but you may get some marketing in the future perhaps.

That, and they have nothing to offer over BG or Airtricity. What are ESB going to do, "Please come back to us so we can charge you 10% more, but you get all these benefits, like, eeeh....... big bills?". Their prices are controlled by the regulator, so they cannot compete.

My letter said I was switched over on April 10th, which would be 6 weeks from application. The letter telling me this, was dated May 3rd, and arrived last week. I'll await my first bill to see the difference.

Lizzykins

I switched a couple of weeks ago with a Bord Gais guy who came to the door and did all the paperwork on the spot. Got a letter from ESB yesterday from ESB confirming account had been closed. Today get closing bill AND a letter from EBS Networks welcoming me as a customer?
Before I ring them has anyone else had this?

rameire

yes, everyone does.

Alun

Signed up online on the 19th of February and just got the letter from Bord Gais today (dated 6th May).

helimachoptor

Got a letter on Monday, should be switching over on 27th May.

jeni

took same for me over 2 months - hope its worth it

harsea8

has anyone actually got a bill yet? I switched a while back and when I called BG up to find out about when to expect my first bill, they told me that it would be mid-june. Just wondered if anyone else already has a bill from BG and, if so, can they confirm that there is definitely a >=10% reduction from ESB?

Dellas

Fnergg wrote: »

Let Bord Gais and Airtricity compete with the ESB on a level playing field. They are both big boys (Airtricity is owned by the powerful UK company Scottish and Southern) and should not need to be protected from the ESB. Real competition would benefit all customers and not just those with the wherewithal to switch.

Regards,

Fnergg

Yes I agree. All of these new companies should offer the same payment options as ESB. Payment cards where you can throw money off your bill at a newagents etc...

foggy_lad

Eurorunner wrote: »

13% cheaper on unit electricity price - so long as you agree to direct debit and bill leveling (they average out your bills throught the year - but in effect you pay for what you use at the end of the day).
Bord Gais - is 14% - but only for those who are existing bord gais customers.

I've gone with airtricity and will review rates again next year and stick with them only if they're still offering the cheapest rates.

people must remember that the bill levelling thing could leave you with an end of year bill shock of thousands if they get their estimates wrong!

coward

Switching to Airtricity.
10 days from filling in online application to receiving final ESB bill and notice of closure.

Lmnover

Hi
Just wondering whether anyone has made the switch to airtricity and if so was it worthwhile? would they recommend it?

Heard from several people that airtricity are very hard to deal with but the discounts they are offering are appealing......

cormie

I've switched. Cheaper and good to know I'm supporting a renewable energy system. I don't know what the people you were talking to mean by hard to deal with. The switch was painless, 5 minutes online. I signed up when they were I think 10% cheaper than ESB, then about 4 days later they were advertising 13% cheaper, so I rang to ask if I still got the 13% rate (I did ) and that's pretty much the only time I've needed to speak with them, everything else they took care of themselves. Painless.

dudara

Threads merged

dudara

jimoc

jor el wrote: »

That, and they have nothing to offer over BG or Airtricity. What are ESB going to do, "Please come back to us so we can charge you 10% more, but you get all these benefits, like, eeeh....... big bills?". Their prices are controlled by the regulator, so they cannot compete.

My letter said I was switched over on April 10th, which would be 6 weeks from application. The letter telling me this, was dated May 3rd, and arrived last week. I'll await my first bill to see the difference.

From a vague memory I have of an interview with the head of ESB from The Last Word a few weeks ago, ESB actually WANT to lose your custom.
The problem they have now is that they are still considered a monopoly in this country and therefore fall under control of the regulator.
Its only when they have dropped below 50% of the customer base will they be able to set prices without regulation.
So the faster people switch, the faster the prices will come down to normal competition levels.

Of course I could be wrong, since I cant find a link or anything about that interview now, but I do remember hearing it.

PeteK*

Wow a lot of 60 days.

Ours took about 2 weeks.

Edit:


I checked the dates ... took TWO DAYS!

Fnergg

jimoc wrote: »

From a vague memory I have of an interview with the head of ESB from The Last Word a few weeks ago, ESB actually WANT to lose your custom.
The problem they have now is that they are still considered a monopoly in this country and therefore fall under control of the regulator.
Its only when they have dropped below 50% of the customer base will they be able to set prices without regulation.
So the faster people switch, the faster the prices will come down to normal competition levels.

Of course I could be wrong, since I cant find a link or anything about that interview now, but I do remember hearing it.

More or less correct. It is not known though how many customers ESB has to lose before the Regulator decides its dominance is sufficiently reduced. It could be 50% or it could be much lower than that. So yes, if ESB wasn't losing customers to other suppliers the regulatory shackles would remain in place indefinitely. That would be bad for customers and bad for ESB.

Lest anyone thinks differently, ESB's prices aren't higher because it is unable to match Bord Gais'/Airtricity's prices - they are higher because it is not allowed by the Regulator to match them.

Regards,

Fnergg

JB04

Has anybody got a bill from BG yet? I would like to know the unit price of the electricity.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

JB04 wrote: »

Has anybody got a bill from BG yet? I would like to know the unit price of the electricity.

Just go to their website. The Unit prices are all there!

veryangryman

jor el wrote: »

Took over two months for mine (Bord Gais), it's finally gone through now though.

Mine also took a couple of months.

If you supply a rmeter eading it can be done quicker though. Otherwise they have to wait until ESB adjust their readings or something like that...

darc

signed up on the day it went live, was switched over on 4th March.

1st bill arrived last week.

Bill was 2 pages as it covered old rates & new rates (May 1st) and then they apply the discount.

So the usage is billed at the same tariff as ESB and then the 10%, 2% & 2% discounts are shown seperately.

Bill for 2 months in 4 bed house was €150:D main use = lights,(mostly energy saving) laundry, dishwasher, elec shower, tv, computer.

Jan/Feb ESB was €270, but they were 2 dark & cold months so substabtial additional useage was a factor.

eden_my_ass

veryangryman wrote: »

Mine also took a couple of months.

If you supply a rmeter eading it can be done quicker though. Otherwise they have to wait until ESB adjust their readings or something like that...

You'll find that BG in particular will not take these readings for some while now, I heard from more than one supervisor on the sales line that they were not obliged to, your existing operator was. While you can always give a reading to your existing operators this was in fact an untruth in the case of switching as specified by the regulator, but shure what point are rules in modern Oireland, they only get in the way!

hellboy99

Got the BGE bill today @ €163, my ESB bills were usually round €200, so a saving of €37 and the next bill will be cheaper again because of the rate drop last month

Aldee84

I switched on day 1 of "the big switch" and it was immediate. I cannot understand why people are switching to a Scottish company (airtricity) who are claiming to give 13% when it's actually hard work to get it. For instance direct debit is a must,e billing is another must and then you have to go read your own meter which is nonsense. Also their offer ends on January 31st next year. Bord Gais are giving at least 10% for 12 months from whenever you switch then 5% for years 2 and 3. I received my bill several wks ago and saw my 14% discount clearly and I am very happy and would recommend it to anyone. What difference does change over time really make???none.

eden_my_ass

Aldee84 wrote: »

I switched on day 1 of "the big switch" and it was immediate. I cannot understand why people are switching to a Scottish company (airtricity) who are claiming to give 13% when it's actually hard work to get it. For instance direct debit is a must,e billing is another must and then you have to go read your own meter which is nonsense. Also their offer ends on January 31st next year. Bord Gais are giving at least 10% for 12 months from whenever you switch then 5% for years 2 and 3. I received my bill several wks ago and saw my 14% discount clearly and I am very happy and would recommend it to anyone. What difference does change over time really make???none.

I "switched" on day 3, and it was not immediate. It took almost 80 days, lots of phone calls, lies from the sales team, refusal to follow regulations, and miserable communication. From what I've heard Airtricity has been consistently smoother in their transition....so the change over time cost me two months of savings....and a fortune in phone calls and lost time.

I'm glad you had a nice experience, but that doesn't speak for us all. Hence why I started this poll to look for others experiences.

p.s. for your 14% discount, you HAD to use direct debit and HAD to be an existing customer, just like me....so I fail to see your pointing that Airtricity are demanding without balancing the fact that BG have conditions too.

discostu1

I was talking to a mate over the weekend who told me that his brother, who has one of those card meter jobs, you know the yokes you buy a 5e card and stick it in the meter.I think ESB put them in if you are in "difficulties" with paying. Anyway this guy signed up to BGE as he felt he really needed to make savings and was told basically, thanks but no thanks we dont want you.
It would be a pity if the section of society who most need to save a few bob are debarred from doing so. Anyway maybe this is just a story

jor el

discostu1 wrote: »

Anyway this guy signed up to BGE as he felt he really needed to make savings and was told basically, thanks but no thanks we dont want you.
It would be a pity if the section of society who most need to save a few bob are debarred from doing so. Anyway maybe this is just a story

This has nothing to do with Bord Gais though, as those meters are different to the standard ones, and Bord Gais cannot interfere with the meters as installed by ESB Networks. He'll need to get the ESB to replace the meter with a standard one first, before he can move to Bord Gais.

I'd doubt they told him that they didn't want him. They simply can't take his custom until he changes the meter.

discostu1

This has nothing to do with Bord Gais though, as those meters are different to the standard ones, and Bord Gais cannot interfere with the meters as installed by ESB Networks. He'll need to get the ESB to replace the meter with a standard one first, before he can move to Bord Gais.

I'd doubt they told him that they didn't want him. They simply can't take his custom until he changes the me

What I gather is that these meters are put in when someone owes ESB a debt, rather than cutting them off ESB Supply put them in in extreme cases and collect the debt off the meter so you buy a card for 5e and you get 3e of leccy and 2 quid comes off the debt. Now dont get me wrong if I was BGE I dont think I would want a lot of these guys either, apparently he pays in the local Spar. Not sure if BGE have any 3rd party payment options

Fnergg

discostu1 wrote: »

..What I gather is that these meters are put in when someone owes ESB a debt, rather than cutting them off ESB Supply put them in in extreme cases and collect the debt off the meter so you buy a card for 5e and you get 3e of leccy and 2 quid comes off the debt. Now dont get me wrong if I was BGE I dont think I would want a lot of these guys either, apparently he pays in the local Spar. Not sure if BGE have any 3rd party payment options

BGE/Airtricity would run a mile rather than take on such customers. Their business model is predicated on getting as many as possible good payers and preferably get them to sign up to direct debit as well. And that makes perfect sense to me. I´d be doing the same in their position.

The poorer people in our society - and they are growing in number every day - have no choice but to stay with ESB who are forced by the Regulator to charge higher prices than its competitors so as to encourage competition in the domestsic market. As you say, these customers could do with a price reduction but the ideologues in the Regulator´s office couldn´t care less about that - their agenda is to reduce ESB´s dominance at all costs and to hell with the social impact.

And if you are a customer with BG/Airtricity and you get into financial difficulty due to losing your job or whatever don´t expect to get the same service as you would get from the ESB. They will no doubt help you out with a payment arrangement or two but they will then tell you to go back to the ESB.

The token meters you speak of are a godsend to the people in chronic financial difficulty as they enable the customers to pay for their electricity as they use it and hence avoid disconnection of supply.

I can confidently state that BG/Airtricity will never use them as they will avoid having such customers.

Regards,

Fnergg

_Whimsical_

A laptop with the unencryted bank details of 75,000 customers who made the "Big Switch" was stolen in Dublin 12days ago. The Deputy Data Protection Commisoner was on RTE news telling people who applied to join Bord Gais in the last 4 months to be vigilant and check their accounts for unusual transactions. According to him there was sufficent data on customers who applied for direct debit to make them vunerable to identity theft ,unauthorised bank withdrawls or someone taking out a loan in their name.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0617/bordgais.html

rameire

chilly wrote: »

A laptop with the unencryted bank details of 75,000 customers who made the "Big Switch" was stolen in Dublin 12days ago. The Deputy Data Protection Commisoner was on RTE news telling people who applied to join Bord Gais in the last 4 months to be vigilant and check their accounts for unusual transactions. According to him there was sufficent data on customers who applied for direct debit to make them vunerable to identity theft ,unauthorised bank withdrawls or someone taking out a loan in their name.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0617/bordgais.html

there goes our 14% discount.