Energia will have Cheapest Gas and Electricity [updated 29 march]

Ogham

Early in 2014 it looks like we will have another energy supplier - Energia. It looks like they will undercut all the other providers (for now) - see http://www.moneyguideireland.com/energia-residential-gas-and-electricity-prices.html

TheDriver

Like all the other suppliers, I wonder what the catches are i.e. service charges etc. I have found that all the promised savings never seem to materialise plus their customer service has been poor enough at work so I wonder would you end up in an airtricity style of arrangement.....Skeptical

Ogham

That link has the figures worked out .

paddyp

TheDriver wrote: »

Like all the other suppliers, I wonder what the catches are i.e. service charges etc. I have found that all the promised savings never seem to materialise plus their customer service has been poor enough at work so I wonder would you end up in an airtricity style of arrangement.....Skeptical

I have found airtricity excellent to deal with, had to call them about 5 times staff were good, ordered a new meter was fitted in 2 days by esb. Our special price ran out in october I just called their customer options team and they added it on again for another year with no contract. Cant complain.

Full rates here apparently:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=183947

CreepingDeath

Ogham wrote: »

Early in 2014 it looks like we will have another energy supplier - Energia. It looks like they will undercut all the other providers (for now) - see http://www.moneyguideireland.com/energia-residential-gas-and-electricity-prices.html

Like all new comers to a market, they'll have cheap prices to start with to grab market share... then slowly raise the prices up as time goes on.

L1011

I'd rather saw my leg off than deal with any of the alternative energy suppliers (other than Flogas) from my experience with them. Energia do have the experience of the NI consumer market behind them, but then again, Airtricity have Scottish & Southern behind them...

listermint

As with insurance, surely it pays dividends to migrate between all of them depending on their offers ....

I dont really get the whole stick for life with one supplier out of some faux loyalty thing. Do whats best for your pocket.

whiskeyman

^^
This.
same apparently goes for a lot of services, whether it be utility, communications / TV / insurance etc...
Once your contract is nearly up, get quotes from other suppliers and ring current supplier saying your moving unless you offer better.

stimpson

Which reminds me - I've been with Bord Gais for electricity for a year now. Time to look around again.

irishpancake

MYOB wrote: »

I'd rather saw my leg off than deal with any of the alternative energy suppliers (other than Flogas) from my experience with them. Energia do have the experience of the NI consumer market behind them, but then again, Airtricity have Scottish & Southern behind them...

I dealt with all of them, Electric Ireland, Bord Gais, Airtricity...never had a problem with switching back and forth, and will do it again now with Energia.

There should be no billing problems, and no definitely no physical interruption of supply.

DMcL1971

Shop around every year. I was told that those Energia rates will definitely go back up after year one. In fact I was told there is no discount (not even DD or paper bill) in year 2. Though I find that hard to believe.

ted1

As they havn't launched yet and prices could change. Surely this isn't a bargain alert

irishpancake

ted1 wrote: »

As they havn't launched yet and prices could change. Surely this isn't a bargain alert

Potential Bargain Alert??

Unless the other suppliers react, in which case, the alert has worked!!

emo72

There never seems to be price reductions with utility companies. So much for competition driving prices down.

ted1

irishpancake wrote: »

Potential Bargain Alert??

Unless the other suppliers react, in which case, the alert has worked!!

You can't sign up, so its a not a current bargain the OP has suffered premature bargain alertication

JohnnyChimpo

Is the annual standing charge an upfront payment or is it rolled into the bills across the year?

oldyouth

Be careful of early exit charges when switching providers. I got badly stung on a business account due to the agent for Company X misleading me over them. Luckily, he had done the same to a number of people, so they accepted our word are credited me

DMcL1971

emo72 wrote: »

There never seems to be price reductions with utility companies. So much for competition driving prices down.

The problem is that most of the alternative suppliers we talk about are not actually providing you with a different product. They are only re-selling the product of the original supplier which they are paying wholesale rates for. For instance, if you move your landline phone to another provider, you are not getting a different physical service. It is the same Eircom phone line, telephone exchange and network. You are just receiving your bill and customer service from another company. They pay Eircom the wholesale rate for the calls and charge you an amount greater than the wholesale rate but cheaper than the Eircom retail rate.

The same is true for energy suppliers. Everyone is reselling gas services provided by Bord Gais or electricity services provided by ESB. Therefore the only room for competition is in playing with the small gap between wholesale costs and retail rates.

The only place there should be real competition is in the mobile market because there are separate physical networks with different running costs. So there should be different prices between Vodafone and O2 and Three. However the virtual mobile operators are only piggybacking on the other networks.

DMcL1971

JohnnyChimpo wrote: »

Is the annual standing charge an upfront payment or is it rolled into the bills across the year?

The standing charges are spread across the bills throughout the year.

DMcL1971

ted1 wrote: »

You can't sign up, so its a not a current bargain the OP has suffered premature bargain alertication

Energia are test marketing at the moment. That means they are actually signing up customers. But they have only chosen to advertise this in certain areas. If everything goes alright they plan on doing the full marketing blitz in January.

But I agree it is a bit early to make this a bargain alert as they may well change the rates before January.

ted1

DMcL1971 wrote: »

Energia are test marketing at the moment. That means they are actually signing up customers. But they have only chosen to advertise this in certain areas. If everything goes alright they plan on doing the full marketing blitz in January.

But I agree it is a bit early to make this a bargain alert as they may well change the rates before January.

They may change prices and their competitors may also change there's on e they launch,

Bear in mind board gais are actively looking for a buyer so need to keep their client base up.

Electric Ireland are about to strike and may need to bribe people with lower prices.

Airtricity, I still recommend to avoid.
In the original link the price saving was 14 euro a year on Bg which is about 1% cheaper, hardly a bargain. The original link also uses EIs standard price which no one should be on as you need to move around once your discount is gone

unkel

MYOB wrote: »

I'd rather saw my leg off than deal with any of the alternative energy suppliers

Why? The only thing they do is read your meter and send you the bill.

I couldn't give a toss what it says on top of the invoice. I go with the cheapest supplier as soon as my contract is finished

CAVEAT: do not trust anybody comparing prices, the info is often false or incomplete. Do all the calculations yourself! Will take a few hours every year, but well worth it.

L1011

unkel wrote: »

Why? The only thing they do is read your meter and send you the bill.

I couldn't give a toss what it says on top of the invoice. I go with the cheapest supplier as soon as my contract is finished

CAVEAT: do not trust anybody comparing prices, the info is often false or incomplete. Do all the calculations yourself! Will take a few hours every year, but well worth it.

They don't even read the meter - ESB Networks / BGE do that.

The issue is the sending the bill bit. Every single one of them are utterly incompetent with that, and with ceasing contracts, etc.

DMcL1971

From an alternative service provider you receive the exact same product. What is different is the billing, customer service and collections. So though I agree with unkel that price is important. MTOB is also correct in that you might get incorrect bills, or poor customer service or aggressive collections staff.

I try to go with the cheapest unless they have p***ed me off in some way. Then I leave. Vote with your feet as they say. The first thing discussed in the weekly management meeting in these companies his how many new customers did we sign this week. The second is how many customers did we lose.

roboshatner

Who is behind them Who owns them ?

Heroditas

roboshatner wrote: »

Who is behind them Who owns them ?

Viridian, who also own Power NI, the main domestic supplier in the North.
Viridian were one of the bidders for Bord Gais this year.

_Whimsical_

They are only claiming that they'll be 14 euro a YEAR cheaper than Bord Gais.
90 cheaper than ESB mind you.
Overall I can't see BG losing customers or entering a price war.

ted1

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

They are only claiming that they'll be 14 euro a YEAR cheaper than Bord Gais.
90 cheaper than ESB mind you.
Overall I can't see BG losing customers or entering a price war.

Off electric Ireland's standard rate, which no one should be paying

unkel

DMcL1971 wrote: »

What is different is the billing, customer service and collections.

If you pay by direct debit (this is usually the cheapest option - they one I tend to choose) you'll never have to worry about collections

Stinicker

emo72 wrote: »

There never seems to be price reductions with utility companies. So much for competition driving prices down.

Competition has increased prices and the overall price was allowed artificially increase to the regulators so as to give the illusion of competition in the market-place. Opening the Energy market was an EU directive and it makes no sense as the Electricity and Piped Gas are natural monopolies as is the Telecoms like Eircom.

There should be no competition in the gas, electricity or telecom market, these should be state owned and state controlled with the prices set low to provide affordable products to the people. Profits derived from such should then be reinvested back into the network and used to ease the taxation burden on the public.

Eircom should be state owned and controlled and the money earned used to roll out FTTH to the entire island. Bord Gais Energy should similarly be investing in profits into expanding the network and new green generating capacity.

The fact is that competition allows these vital utilities to fall into private vulture capitalists hands where offshore foreign owners will set the price and then extort the Irish consumer, corrupt traitor Fianna Fail being totally wholly complicit in this, eg. corrupt Ray Burke signing away Irish Oil and Gas for nothing.

The billions profit generated should not be allowed go abroad and basically Competition exists to rip-off the customer and run down the utility companies into the ground with lack of investment.

Satriale

nice one OP. did the numbers and swapped to bord gais this evening after reading this thread. I should have E96 more next year.
I also signed up my email for marketing from energia, so ill swap again when they spam me they are hitting the market. thanks for reminding me to stop being so complacent with that shower.

TireeTerror

Energia have a strict social media policy and I am not permitted to divulge any information on forums. I already mentioned to them the possibility of me contacting Boards to investigate a potential boards.ie exclusive offer.

If the mods allow it, and this can be discussed by them with me in private if they wish to, I can sign up anyone to Energia right now as I'm heading the pilot scheme and have been for several weeks.

Payment for the pilot must be by direct debit and savings, like most other suppliers, are guaranteed for 12 months from transfer.

I am fairly sure this will need to be cleared by admin at Boards first though.

ted1

Stinicker wrote: »

Competition has increased prices and the overall price was allowed artificially increase to the regulators so as to give the illusion of competition in the market-place. Opening the Energy market was an EU directive and it makes no sense as the Electricity and Piped Gas are natural monopolies as is the Telecoms like Eircom.

There should be no competition in the gas, electricity or telecom market, these should be state owned and state controlled with the prices set low to provide affordable products to the people. Profits derived from such should then be reinvested back into the network and used to ease the taxation burden on the public.

Eircom should be state owned and controlled and the money earned used to roll out FTTH to the entire island. Bord Gais Energy should similarly be investing in profits into expanding the network and new green generating capacity.

The fact is that competition allows these vital utilities to fall into private vulture capitalists hands where offshore foreign owners will set the price and then extort the Irish consumer, corrupt traitor Fianna Fail being totally wholly complicit in this, eg. corrupt Ray Burke signing away Irish Oil and Gas for nothing.

The billions profit generated should not be allowed go abroad and basically Competition exists to rip-off the customer and run down the utility companies into the ground with lack of investment.

Rubbish a private company may pay buy the electricity at the same price as a Public one but the private company may have To only add in 10% in over heads a Public one may have to add on 50% in over heads.
Our electricty is dear because of the fuel mix we have compared to other countries.

Money for the upkeep and development of the lines and infrastructure is provided for by TUOS and DUOS charges, so it's not an issue.

Electricity in Ireland is bought and sold on the SEM so there are different ways to generate it and a number of different companies doing so ,e.g energia own and operate huntstown, Esb own and operate money point , BG own and operate the one by white gate , SSE have a number of wind farms. The 500mw interconnector from the uk provides energy from a different market.

So bar the transmission lines there is no monopoly in the electricity market,.

nightster1

stimpson wrote: »

Which reminds me - I've been with Bord Gais for electricity for a year now. Time to look around again.

apparently they give the best elec deal at the mo

SCOOP 64

Direct debit is what puts me off changing supplier,when the bill comes in at moment i pay it off weekly over the phone until its paid for,never can pay it in one go, but I'm properly paying to much for Electricity as i have not got a clue about rates etc...
Been with Electric Ireland for 11yrs now.

PaulieC

Good luck signing up with energia. They weren't able to transfer my gas, still waiting for a callback after two weeks (they said an hour)

bk

DMcL1971 wrote: »

The problem is that most of the alternative suppliers we talk about are not actually providing you with a different product. They are only re-selling the product of the original supplier which they are paying wholesale rates for. For instance, if you move your landline phone to another provider, you are not getting a different physical service.

Actually, that isn't true it is much more complicated then you make out.

For instance, with VDSL broadband, yes, other companies like Vodafone and Digiweb use Eircoms phone lines and DSLAMS as far as the exchange, but at the point the data is handed over from the Eircom network to the other operators network, where they use their own fibre back haul, routers, etc. they would also have their own international back haul agreements, INEX pairing agreements, call termination agreements, etc.

Vodafone for instance, uses the BT Ireland network. They only pay Eircom for wholesale access to the Eircom phone line, they save significant money by not using the Eircom network.

With MVNO mobile operators like Tesco Mobile and 48 months, it is similar. Yes they rent access to the radio towers from O2, but from there they then use their own back haul network, routers, etc. that is why when 48 months went down for a day a month ago, O2 wasn't effected, the failure was in 48months own network, not o2's

Finally the power industry is similar, while they all obviously use the ESB network, most of them also have their own power plants where they can buy power from cheaper then the ESB, they can also come to different pricing agreements with power plants from other companies for different rates.

So they aren't just buying wholesale from the ESB, it is much more complicated then that.

bk

Stinicker wrote: »

There should be no competition in the gas, electricity or telecom market, these should be state owned and state controlled with the prices set low to provide affordable products to the people. Profits derived from such should then be reinvested back into the network and used to ease the taxation burden on the public.

I disagree strongly, there are two problems with government owned services:

1) it puts too much power in the hands of unions, who if they go on strike, can cripple the country, so they then feel invincible and you end up with a situation where you can't fire lazy employees and where they can constantly demand wage and pension increases.

With lots of smaller private companies, there is much less possibility for strikes and thus disruption, due to no one company having a monopoly and thus wages are kept reasonable and therefore costs.

2) government companies who have a monopoly tend to have little in the way of innovation or customer service focus. They seem more designed to keep employees happy, then creating new innovative products that the public wants.

Bus Eireann is a great example of this, for years they ran only 6 buses a day between Cork and Dublin, one every two hours, with the last at 6pm!! And taking almost 5 hours. Between the two largest cities in Ireland!!

Then you had the private operators, Aircoach and GoBE enter the market, offering direct non stop services that take just 3 hours and which run every hour almost 24 hours a day!!

And guess what they are almost jam packed, way busier then BE ever was, showing that there was a demand for this service which BE could never be bothered delivering.

Another obvious example is the rip off prices Aer Lingus charged us for years before Ryanair entered the market.

There are plenty of other examples of this, if it was government run, I don't think we would have UPC offering 200mb/s services, some of the fast in Europe or 48 months offering unlimited calls,texts and 5GB of data for just €20 per month.

I do agree a small bit with you, the government is better at building infrastructure but not running it. A good example is the LUAS, built and owned by the government, but run and operated under contract by a private company, who most of the employees work for.

I like the approach they are taking with the electricity market, separating ESB into three companies, network, power gen and retail. Power gen and retail should be privatised, but I agree that network should stay semi-state owned, with a minimum of employees, instead contracting out to private companies where needed.

Similarly the same should have happened with Eircom, it should have been split into a network and residential arm. Residential should have been privatised, while the network arm kept under government control, with minimum employees.

zagmund

TireeTerror wrote: »

Payment for the pilot must be by direct debit and savings, like most other suppliers, are guaranteed for 12 months from transfer.

Note the subtlety - the discount is guaranteed, not the rate.

For example, say a standard unit costs 10c and you get a 13% discount for signing up, getting bills by email, having both fuels, etc . . . The cost for month 1 to you is 8.7c per unit including the discount.

Then the supplier goes to the regulator and says "I need more money to give to my shareholders, so let me increase the price". The regulator agrees and allows them to up the price of a standard unit to 11c. Your discount is now applied to this new price and you pay 9.57c for month 2.

That has been my experience with multiple suppliers.

z

snubbleste

Energia are claiming they offer 15% off if you sign up for 1 year.
http://www.energia.ie/Price-Plans

There exists a box for a promotion code. Anyone have a code?

snubbleste

snubbleste wrote: »

Energia are claiming they offer 15% off if you sign up for 1 year.
http://www.energia.ie/Price-Plans
There exists a box for a promotion code. Anyone have a code?

BordGáis works out cheaper for me according to www.uswitch.ie

Ogham

They are not the cheapest - the OP was based on pilot scheme prices - but they have increased these for teh launch. They are one of the cheapest - but Flogas are still cheaper for Gas and Bord Gais are almost the same as Energia for Electricity.

Figures Here: http://www.moneyguideireland.com/energia-residential-gas-and-electricity-prices.html

ted1

The market isn't regulated.

The prices aren't great, I punched the numbers into excel and with the discounts I'm on from E.I they came out dearer.

The tariffs they display fail to mention PSO and Carbon tax.

kn

Because of high standing charge unless you are among the larger cohort of electricity consumer I do not see how you are going to do any better than the others (ps I am talking lecky only, no gas where I am).

Ogham

snubbleste wrote: »

Energia are claiming they offer 15% off if you sign up for 1 year.
http://www.energia.ie/Price-Plans

There exists a box for a promotion code. Anyone have a code?

I saw an Energia code here - but it says it might be withdrawn if too many use it because it's "secret". http://www.moneyguideireland.com/discount-alerts

djmj

Promo code: TOMCRUISE
which will get you an overall discount of 21% off their electricity rates and 20% of their gas for a year. That will work out as the lowest priced energy at the moment. (Warning – this code was valid at 7pm on Jan 30th – but we wouldn’t be surprised if they withdraw it if loads of people start using it)
http://www.moneyguideireland.com/discount-alerts

I think is a bug because if you put promo code TOMCRUISE and after this you will put TOMCRUISE1 and you will press enter couple time discount is going up and gas and electricity will be free

TireeTerror

Ogham wrote: »

I saw an Energia code here - but it says it might be withdrawn if too many use it because it's "secret". http://www.moneyguideireland.com/discount-alerts

That will be removed, that was our staff discount code! Thanks for pointing this out.

dubrov

bk wrote: »

Finally the power industry is similar, while they all obviously use the ESB network, most of them also have their own power plants where they can buy power from cheaper then the ESB, they can also come to different pricing agreements with power plants from other companies for different rates.

So they aren't just buying wholesale from the ESB, it is much more complicated then that.

Not really true. All suppliers buy electricity wholesale at the same pool price and it is this wholesale price which is the main factor in deciding consumer prices.

It is true that many supply companies also have generation and they could put offsetting fixed price agreements in place outside the market. If they did it cheaper than the fair wholesale price all that would really happen is that profit is moved from the generator arm to the supplier arm. It makes more sense to leave the profit in the area that is actually generating the profit.

If company A can generate cheaper than company B it does not necessarily follow on that company A will sell it on for cheaper than company B

celticbhoy27

TireeTerror wrote: »

That will be removed, that was our staff discount code! Thanks for pointing this out.

will it be honoured by those of us who were quick enough to get it?

TireeTerror

celticbhoy27 wrote: »

will it be honoured by those of us who were quick enough to get it?

I am not sure. This code was meant for staff use only and somehow it has been leaked.

I've contacted Energia to let them know, although its out of office hours, so no doubt no action will be taken until the morning.

If I find out anything regarding it, I will post up and let you know.

We do not have a verified rep on boards, so I would like to remind you that I am posting from my own personal boards.ie account and representing myself only.

Soarer

TireeTerror wrote: »

I've contacted Energia to let them know

That's the Boardsie spirit! :rolleyes: