With the on-set of the annual inflation busting round of energy price hikes, it has reminded me how difficult it is to make a price comparison between the various energy suppliers. I don't know if I trust the comparison sites because if I enter my annual consumption for gas and electricity, I get different recommendations depending on which comparison site I use. How can this be? I suspect that it is because the sites negotiate a commission from the energy suppliers and that commission varies. Maybe they steer you towards the energy company which offers the most attractive commission?
Last year, I created a spread sheet into which I could enter my precise annual energy consumption for both gas and electricity. I then created columns for price per KWh (two tier where necessary) and Standing charge (if applicable). I then set about finding out how much each energy company charge per KWh so that I could enter the numbers into the spread sheet.
Three things became quickly apparent. Firstly, the energy companies don't make the £/KWh easy to find for their tariffs. It is possible with a bit of effort and when I did eventually find the figures, I was surprised to see that the cheapest tariff wasn't necessarily the headline one. And finally and perhaps the most surprising was that there was very little difference in annual cost between all of them (based on each companies cheapest tariff). Despite some using two tier pricing and others using a flat rate plus standing charge, there was less that 0.4% between the cheapest ones across the various companies.
For the final prices to be so close when they are all using different pricing structures can't be a coincidence. I suspect that there is collusion and price fixing at work here and this suspicion is based on the energy companies proactively hiding the unit cost of their energy and mixing it all up in a ridiculous array of tariffs.
Why don't the government act here and force them to have one tariff, the best £/KWh that they can offer? I suspect that the government's response will be that we are all far too stupid to understand the principle of buying energy by the unit. When I buy petrol, I effectively buy energy by the unit (£/litre) and I haven't died of stupidity. How ridiculous it would be if one garage charged x£/litre for the first 20 litres and then y£/litre for the remainder. Then if you drive down the road you see a garage selling petrol for x£/litre flat rate, but you need to commit to paying the garage 20p per day regardless of whether you purchased any petrol, to get that particular rate. This is exactly what the government are allowing these bandits to get away with. At least with the present petrol pricing system, you can see the unit energy rate and if you don't like it, you can drive on to the next garage. The same should happen with domestic energy, if British Gas put their unit price up, one mouse click should instantly transfer the customer to another provider.
I can't see this happening though whilst Mr Half Buttock face Cameron and the Nasal Gonk Miliband have influence. Energy provision in this country is a complete con and it was all started by Thatcher.
Last year, I created a spread sheet into which I could enter my precise annual energy consumption for both gas and electricity. I then created columns for price per KWh (two tier where necessary) and Standing charge (if applicable). I then set about finding out how much each energy company charge per KWh so that I could enter the numbers into the spread sheet.
Three things became quickly apparent. Firstly, the energy companies don't make the £/KWh easy to find for their tariffs. It is possible with a bit of effort and when I did eventually find the figures, I was surprised to see that the cheapest tariff wasn't necessarily the headline one. And finally and perhaps the most surprising was that there was very little difference in annual cost between all of them (based on each companies cheapest tariff). Despite some using two tier pricing and others using a flat rate plus standing charge, there was less that 0.4% between the cheapest ones across the various companies.
For the final prices to be so close when they are all using different pricing structures can't be a coincidence. I suspect that there is collusion and price fixing at work here and this suspicion is based on the energy companies proactively hiding the unit cost of their energy and mixing it all up in a ridiculous array of tariffs.
Why don't the government act here and force them to have one tariff, the best £/KWh that they can offer? I suspect that the government's response will be that we are all far too stupid to understand the principle of buying energy by the unit. When I buy petrol, I effectively buy energy by the unit (£/litre) and I haven't died of stupidity. How ridiculous it would be if one garage charged x£/litre for the first 20 litres and then y£/litre for the remainder. Then if you drive down the road you see a garage selling petrol for x£/litre flat rate, but you need to commit to paying the garage 20p per day regardless of whether you purchased any petrol, to get that particular rate. This is exactly what the government are allowing these bandits to get away with. At least with the present petrol pricing system, you can see the unit energy rate and if you don't like it, you can drive on to the next garage. The same should happen with domestic energy, if British Gas put their unit price up, one mouse click should instantly transfer the customer to another provider.
I can't see this happening though whilst Mr Half Buttock face Cameron and the Nasal Gonk Miliband have influence. Energy provision in this country is a complete con and it was all started by Thatcher.
) there is goverment legislation that would stop us doing that.
