Low cost power

[Ian]

My recently completed self build in Wales is used as a holiday home mainly at weekends.

 

The building is only small (net 71sq.m) and with the intermittent use my electric usage is very low so the £100 annual standing charge is inevitably a very large percentage of my overall bill. I've therefore been looking around for a supply option which doesn't have the standing charge element.

 

I thought this may be of interest to those of you who, like me, have low electric demand.

 

This weekend I've switched to Scottish Power's "PowerUp" tariff. The idea is that you pre-pay for your power up to a year in advance. The further ahead you pre-pay the lower the kWh unit price. If you buy a 6 month package the unit price is only about 0.5p/kWh more than the standard variable rate but the big advantage is there's no standing charge. I should therefore save about £90 a year.

 

Ian

Edited June 19, 2017 by Ian

[Crofter]

Interesting. I know a lot of people are in the market for a low standing charge tariff for the duration of the build, as the little amount of elextricity used can be dwarfed by the standing charges.

[PeterW]

3 hours ago, Crofter said:

Interesting. I know a lot of people are in the market for a low standing charge tariff for the duration of the build, as the little amount of elextricity used can be dwarfed by the standing charges.

 

Yes - reason why most end up with Ebico I think during the build as it's the most accessible zero standing charge supplier. 

 

@Ian are there any penalties for using more than you prepay in terms of the rate you get ..?

[Ian]

@PeterW

I was already with Scottish Power which made the switch of tariff a very easy decision.

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

@Ian are there any penalties for using more than you prepay in terms of the rate you get ..?

 There's no penalty for using more power than you have prepaid for. They keep supplying you with power after the pre-payment amount has run out and they give you 14 days to buy another pre-payment package before they put you on the more expensive variable rate tariff.

 

They estimate your annual usage and I bought 2 x 6 month packages (these are the cheapest unit rate) which should, in theory at least, last me significantly longer than 12 months as my winter usage should be less than their estimate.

 

You effectively pre-pay for a block of kWh of power and if it runs out early you buy another block at whatever the going rate is at the time. If it lasts longer than they estimated then it lasts longer - there's no penalty.

 

FAQ here: 

https://www.scottishpower.co.uk/powerup-support/faqs#threefaq