Switching electric/gas providers (see first post for links)

Aside from SSE I believe any providers that announced increases in the last five months or so have also increased the standing charge along with the unit rate. Also SSE held off until May to apply the gov. Credit in my case which amounted to €176 plus 9% vat or €8 shy of the €200. As an old crank I have queried this with them. Every little helps and all that.

Not a spoofer, but is gullible and believes anything he reads or hears from people who haven't a clue.

I've a smart meter. My bill last month was €102. (Lower than last year's €284 bi-monthly bill for May/June. Washing machine, dishwasher & immersion are timed to be on overnight. Tumble dryer if required is used first thing in the morning before the time switches.

Always tend to have dinner about 8, so the 5-7 peak doesn't affect me.

Simply change a few things and they can be huge savers for you

Are you on a smart plan or is that just from having the smart meter installed?

That chart would suggest to me that there are a huge number of people with EI on 5.5% discount rates when they could be getting much better deals from other providers. The important thing is to switch every 12 months if you can't negotiate a good deal with your current provider.

I find plenty of people who work in places that haven't a clue about things that are not a direct part of their work.

Mechanics generally do not know about fuel when they say a certain "brand" is rubbish when all the fuel comes from the same refinery and from the same giant storage tank no matter what the "brand" on the forecourt. Likewise an electrician may not know or understand the technology behind a smart meter and how accurate it is. They probably read something about the 1st generation meters that were installed in some UK homes that conflicted with LED bulbs. None were installed in Ireland.

As I said, it works great for me and easy to time the heavy use parts to 2-4am and have 9c per unit. Other plans will work better for other people as we're not in the house during the day.

yeah - this is one of my concerns about smart metering encouraging people to switch their usage to the dead of night. On an individual level it might not increase your risk by much, but nationally, statistically it could lead to more night-time house fires. If your tumble dryer goes on fire at 3pm, you'll more than likely get out of the house. At 3am though...

Log on to their websites

Just off the phone with Energia as my contract is up on Friday. I had already done a comparison on Bonkers and Airtricity with their 33% discount off their standard rate were working out more or less the same price as Energia with my current 41% discount. So the aim was to maintain the 41% discount to stay with them but after a bit of back and forth the most they are giving is 30%. It started at 10% then 25% then 'can I put you on hold and talk to my manager' and he came back with 30% and that sounded like it was the max he could give.

For reference the renewal offer was 30% off the below unit rates

Day 0.3976 (inc Vat)

Night 0.1908 (inc.Vat)

Standing charge was 296..40 a year

When he realised he was losing me to Airtricity he did say about Airtricity that 'oh they put their prices up in April but we dont have any plans to put up our prices'. (Energia put up their prices in May). Which surprised me given these phone calls are recorded and we all know there is going to be yet another price hike next month or soon after.

Anyway its Airtricity for me on Friday, the silly annual dance with the power companies continue on.

I would ring them up tomorrow because you'd think you would get some sort of email from them confirming you are in a new contract, right now it doesnt sound like you are. Check your spam first though in case the email went there

Same thing happened to me, same story.

They offered me 25%. SSE Airtricity had 33% and their day/night rates and standing charges were way cheaper. Energia rang me twice to offer 35% and 37% and they were still dearer than Airtricity. I changed over to Airtricity

I switched (i thought) to the flogas dual fuel offer, but on receiving yet another electric ireland gas bill, that they had nt changed me over to gas. then when i received my first electric bill, which was through the post and not online, was told that somehow the cashback offer of 220 had not been applied to my account.

I wonder how many other people that switched due to it being recommended on bonkers.ie as the best saving , didnt get the cashback applied to their account?

My first bill was for 70 which as a single household in the summer , seems a lot. The girl at flogas said she would pit a hold on my direct debit unitl they had applied the cashback , but i'll be on to them again this week and if they havent done that, i'll be leaving .

I switched to Flogas electric recently, had no problems at all. They (or SSE) overall had the lowest price based on my average low usage, incl standing charge 280 and cashback 220. Kwh prices are eye-watering though: Day 34.57c Night 16.82c

Some providers do not apply the cash back until after the first DD is drawn down and or within 60 days. I am currently with Airtricity since the end of March I have queried why it took the bones of 5 months to apply the credit in my case. I am also querying why it took them 2 months to apply the gov. Credit and have suggested that this was done so they could take a bigger chunk of the €200 as a result of the vat reduction.

Cancelling the service would probably lead to a reconnection fee down the line.

The Government credit was €200 inclusive of VAT which is €176.21 excluding VAT. When announced by the Government the VAT rate was 13.5%. By the time many people were credited the money the VAT rate had reduced to 9%. If you ckeck your bill you will probably find you were credited €176.21 or thereabouts. Which means everyone got the same amount credited irrespective of the VAT rate applied at the time the bill was issued.

Thanks I made the switch back in June, so plenty of time to apply the cashback. They have breached the terms of contract so they can whistle for the disconnection fee.