Energy Provider Recommendation

Have just received notice that my energy tariff is due to change in June. I'm currently with E-On and have had issue with their Smart Meters with the 3rd now going dumb. We also had to get the Ombudsman involved so to be honest would like to move.

Can you recommend anyone who is EV friendly? I have a wall mounted charger which is not controllable by any app. You either switch it on or off with a key and assume it stops charging when my battery is charged.

Thanks,

Andy

Hi, if you don't have a working smet2 meter then your choices are limited.
Most EV tariff are cheap over night for 4 to 7 hours.

"EV Friendly" normally means a time of use tariff so half hourly readings become essential.
Does your meter have communication problems?

Regardless of your meter I'd switch to Octopus, they sorted my issues by fitting new meters into a very difficult setup - their engineer was brilliant.

I did however have to wait 6 months for the visit as they were super busy in other areas, but it was worth it.

If you want to take advantage of cheaper night rates to charge (you can still do this with your dumb charger, just needs more input from you), it's definitely worth switching to octopus go as long as your charge for approx. 6 hours plus per week.

Have had a look at Octopus but currently they are deterring new customers and recommending to stay with current provider. Not sure to go with their new fixed rate or chance it with a variable.

In response to Alb the meter is not sending a reading to E-On or connecting to my usage monitor. Wonder if there is an easy way of re-booting it?

My wall box is a non-tethered BP-Pulse

Andy Dykes said:

Have had a look at Octopus but currently they are deterring new customers and recommending to stay with current provider. Not sure to go with their new fixed rate or chance it with a variable.

In response to Alb the meter is not sending a reading to E-On or connecting to my usage monitor. Wonder if there is an easy way of re-booting it?

My wall box is a non-tethered BP-Pulse

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Hi re octopus if you ring them thay are likely to sign you up

Andy Dykes said:

In response to Alb the meter is not sending a reading to E-On or connecting to my usage monitor. Wonder if there is an easy way of re-booting it?

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They can reboot the comms hub remotely but that isn't always successful in which case it needs an engineer visit.

Andy Dykes said:

Have had a look at Octopus but currently they are deterring new customers and recommending to stay with current provider. Not sure to go with their new fixed rate or chance it with a variable.

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As northcote said ignore website message and ring them to discuss your needs, I don't think they'll switch you onto standard variable but would switch you onto Go it similar.

Andy Dykes said:

Have had a look at Octopus but currently they are deterring new customers and recommending to stay with current provider. Not sure to go with their new fixed rate or chance it with a variable.

In response to Alb the meter is not sending a reading to E-On or connecting to my usage monitor. Wonder if there is an easy way of re-booting it?

My wall box is a non-tethered BP-Pulse

Click to expand...

If you phone them up make sure you still give them a referral code to get £50 off your bill.

Octopus happily taking on new customers, they’ve (as have most) made it a little bit more work to switch - maybe to deter the odd person. It’s easy to switch via a website, but when you have to talk (or email) it puts a little barrier.

You can switch to their standard variable tariff (flexible octopus), or Go/Go Faster - I’d reccomend Go or Go faster - even though the day rate is more expensive - if you’re actively charging a car, you only need to charge for about 6 hours a week to break even.

If you load shift (washing machine/dishwasher etc into the cheap tariff time) , you save even more money! My car should be arriving this week and even on Go it’s cheaper than the variable as I’m shifting as much high energy devices into the cheap period! With time of use tariffs it’s all about getting the average cost per kWh down. When the car arrives, my average cost per kWh will probably be closer to 11p rather than the standard variable which is 28p at the moment.

I’ve attached an email from octopus stating you can be directly switched onto flexible octopus from your existing supplier too!! So it can be done! Probably makes financial sense at the moment too - even if you’re on a standard variable with your existing supplier!

johnnyc said:

If you load shift (washing machine/dishwasher etc into the cheap tariff time) , you save even more money!

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I totally agree !.
We have a hot water storage cylinder and have always used the gas boiler to provide heat for the daily hot water.
The cylinder is fitted with an emersion heater, but has never been used in about 20 years.
It is purely there as a back up, if we encounter problems with the gas boiler.
However, after the recent 53% increase in April the price of energy predicted to rise again by another 30% in Oct / November, I have looked at the situation more closely.
I have decided to install a timer device to our emersion heater and then turned off using our gas boiler, to provide hot water for day use.
A few days ago I had a visit from our friends from the DNO who have now upgraded our main cut out fuse from a 60 Amps to much larger 100 Amps.
Now I can safely shift as much load as possible into that cheaper off peak rate window.
Car charging / washing machine / emersion heater etc can all be all in use between 1.00am and 6.00 am window ( Not ALL in use every single night of course ).
I figure using the 3.6 Kw emersion heater for about 3 - 4 hours on off peak at 5p / kWh is WAY cheaper than heating hot water from our gas boiler now.
I consider that the delay timer ⏲ was a good investment at £12 I am think !.

Lovemyev said:

I totally agree !.
We have a hot water storage cylinder and have always used the gas boiler to provide heat for the daily hot water.
The cylinder is fitted with an emersion heater, but has never been used in about 20 years.
It is purely there as a back up, if we encounter problems with the gas boiler.
However, after the recent 53% increase in April the price of energy predicted to rise again by another 30% in Oct / November, I have looked at the situation more closely.
I have decided to install a timer device to our emersion heater and then turned off using our gas boiler, to provide hot water for day use.
A few days ago I had a visit from our friends from the DNO who have now upgraded our main cut out fuse from a 60 Amps to much larger 100 Amps.
Now I can safely shift as much load as possible into that cheaper off peak rate window.
Car charging / washing machine / emersion heater etc can all be all in use between 1.00am and 6.00 am window ( Not ALL in use every single night of course ).
I figure using the 3.6 Kw emersion heater for about 3 - 4 hours on off peak at 5p / kWh is WAY cheaper than heating hot water from our gas boiler now.
I consider that the delay timer ⏲ was a good investment at £12 I am think !.

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I might be going a step further than that now! I was going to put a switch on - but I’m now looking at a mixergy tank!! Although they seem to be super insulated - so my wife may not like it as she won’t be able to use the cupboard as an airing cupboard anymore Haha!

johnnyc said:

I might be going a step further than that now! I was going to put a switch on - but I’m now looking at a mixergy tank!! Although they seem to be super insulated - so my wife may not like it as she won’t be able to use the cupboard as an airing cupboard anymore Haha!

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Good shout !.
A timer switch at £12 is a good investment, while going through the thinking process !.

Lovemyev said:

Good shout !.
A timer switch at £12 is a good investment, while going through the thinking process !.

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Definitely agree here!!

Jomarkh said:

Hi, if you don't have a working smet2 meter then your choices are limited.
Most EV tariff are cheap over night for 4 to 7 hours.

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You don’t necessary need a SMETS 2 meter a SMETS 1 correctly enrolled into the DCC should work.

I would also recommend Octopus - the customer service we got from them was great.
We got moved to Octopus as SoLR and there were a lot of issues with transferring our account (shortly before the old supplier failed, we'd only recently moved from traditional to smart meter but the old supplier hadn't updated the national databases for change of meters and that led to all sorts of issues like wrongly estimated final bills even though I had given the true final readings, getting the smart meter to communicate with Octopus, etc., etc.). I dealt with the same person throughout who co-ordinated the internal specialist teams inside Octopus so didn't have to keep explaining everything which was brilliant. It all got sorted but was just a bit of a grind over a few months.

Remember to do the maths. It isn’t all about getting a few cheap charging hours. You need to compare the cost pkw for the rest of the day and the standard ding charge and the gas charges. Compare those expected costs with say they standard rates and you’ll have a better idea if it’s actually cheaper. I think a few people may be surprised?

Rufus T Firefly said:

Remember to do the maths. It isn’t all about getting a few cheap charging hours. You need to compare the cost pkw for the rest of the day and the standard ding charge and the gas charges. Compare those expected costs with say they standard rates and you’ll have a better idea if it’s actually cheaper. I think a few people may be surprised?

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I’d agree with you that you need to do the maths - but in most instances - if you can load shift - you can near enough (without car charging) be in equal footings with the standard variable tariff.

We managed to get onto the December Go - which is comparable in price to our fixed 22p tarrif from British Gas. The new go tarrif is near enough equal to the standard variable without car charging (if you can load shift), but if you add car charging, you can get your AVERAGE Price per kWh down to probably 12p.

Don’t forget to look at your gas price too - we were fixed with British Gas on 3p/kWh - but the good thing with octopus go is that as it’s only electric - we were able to keep our British Gas gas tariff!

Also - referrals really do help - I’ve just had my first ‘bill’ for go, which is from Feb to May and it was £83. I’ve referred a friend and I’ve had my joining up referral - which equalled up to £100 - so…essentially my electric since February has been free, with another £17 credit.

Do the maths, see if you can load shift, get your average price per kWh down use a referral code and you’ll save money! But you need to look at it as a ‘total energy package’.

Absolutely mimic this, for my situation looking at it in a black and white scenario, I need to charge 6 hours per week to break even on paying the extra during the day over the standard variable tariff.

If I load shift or charge more than 6 hours a week then Go will save me money over the 12 months fixed price.

Of course, being on Go, if the standard variable increases in September/October as they predict, then the savings will be even greater.

My fixed rate tarrif runs out June I've looked at edf and octopus both have pros and cons