Working out the best Electricity / Gas Plans

Sully

My partner has recently moved from a large house she was sharing since 2011 to a single bedroom small bungalow and is on the look out to sew who is best for electricity / gas. Never before have I found it so confusing and mind boggling as to finding out the best rates.

I would have assumed you go to the website of the providers and picking the best plan based on;

- Length of Contract
- eBill or Paper Bill
- Direct Debit, Cash or Cheque
- All in One or Seperate out.

In our case here;
- 12 Months
- eBill
- Direct Debit
- Either or; originally it was All in One but will do Gas/Electricity separate if the saving is there.

Am I taking the right approach? Because from what I can see, Airtricity are the cheapest for Electricity and Flogas are giving the best Gas rates (though Flogas are not stating that their plans will change in October whereas Airtricity are).

Electric Ireland seem to have a reputation of being the most expensive out of everyone, but I was unable to understand their rates compared with others.

I looked at Bonkers.ie but its asking me to put in various information including the monthly cost of our existing bills and then recommends completely different providers. Not sure why it would do that, because the rates are more expensive than the above approach.

Any thoughts?

TouchingVirus

Looking at price per kWH is a start for electricity. Take the discount for DD, ebill etc off the per kwh price. Work from there. In my own experience I don't think Airtricity aren't great at the minute, I'm looking to switch from them.

Ogham

Don't assume standing charges are the same for all suppliers - they aren't.

For a quick compare - look at MoneyguideIreland http://www.moneyguideireland.com/electricity-prices
They seem to have all the recent increases in the calculations.
Bord Gais for Elec and Flogas for Gas seems to be the best according to them.

Lawrence1895

I always find this website very handy

http://www.bonkers.ie

DoesNotCompute

Most plans are too complicated, especially trying to factor in dual fuel discounts, plans with no standing charges but with higher rates per unit than plans with standing charges, and then you have plans where a lower rate only kicks in after you use up a certain amount of units. I just use www.compare.ie or www.uswitch.ie

With regard to your comment about Airtricity being the cheapest - that may be true, but you have to take into account what level of customer care they provide. There are some right horror stories on here about that particular company and how frustrating they are to deal with.

Ogham

DoesNotCompute wrote: »

Most plans are too complicated, especially trying to factor in dual fuel discounts, plans with no standing charges but with higher rates per unit than plans with standing charges, and then you have plans where a lower rate only kicks in after you use up a certain amount of units. I just use www.compare.ie or www.uswitch.ie

Those 2 sites you mention don't do any comparisons on fuel at all ! Don't know why you mention them or how you could have got anything useful off them??

Sully

Bonkers makes no sense. Cant get my head around it.

Compare.ie and Uswitch.ie are not giving me any info.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Poochie05

Also bear in mind all of the electricity suppliers are increasing their prices this month (I think from 15 October) so make sure any decisions you make are based on the new prices.

jimmycrackcorm

Sully wrote: »

Bonkers makes no sense. Cant get my head around it.

Compare.ie and Uswitch.ie are not giving me any info.

I entered the amounts from my most recent gas and electricity bills and bonkers showed me the difference between the suppliers for the same.