Switching electric/gas providers (see first post for links)

Why you trying to avoid a smart plan ?

As an exercise, using my latest bill from Flogas I put my units consumed into all three of their available plans, Smart, D/N and 24hr smart (the fixed ones), because they charge the same standing charge on all these plans it makes comparison very straightforward. All three were exactly the same, I couldn't believe it, well to be totally precise, the 24hr plan was one euro cheaper.

A more useful exercise would be to compare the non-smart & smart plan pricing. Standing charges & unit prices for the non smart plans are higher than the smart plans.

I switched from Electric Ireland to Flogas at the end of November. Couple of questions that maybe other users might know the answer to.

I never received a notification that a bill was available, only went to check when I got a notification from Revolut of an upcoming DD. Do they normally send you a bill or notification?

On my bill it's 67% actual and 33% estimate. I have a smart meter and have never had an estimated bill or needed to manually enter my readings since switching to a smart meter a few years ago. Is this normal?

I always get an email to say bill is ready for checking, double check your email under profile (top right) then check your spam folder, if its there and marked spam flag it as not spam and see if the nex one goes to your inbox, if not then try adding donotreply@flogas.ie, customersupport@flogas.ie, info@flogas.ie to your address boox, that can help emails bypass the spam folder. If your email is outlook or hotmail though its a crap shoot, microsoft just randomly blocks emails entirely without notifying you.

Not sure about the estimate could be because they are waiting for final read from electric ireland or something like that. First port of call for me would be to register with esb and download the meter data to see if the connection is dropping out: https://www.esbnetworks.ie/services/manage-my-meter/view-my-smart-meter-usage

I'm electricity only and use three times what you use no provider is any cheaper than Flogas.

It looks like your meter has stopped communicating with esbnetworks. Have you checked your meter to see whether it is showing any signal strength (similar to the signal strength bars on your mobile phone). It should be visible on the bottom right hand corner of the meter display.

No nothing new installed or put near the meter, just seems to have gone offline on a Sunday morning about two weeks after switching. I’ll try find the key for it tomorrow and check the meter.

I'd love to share your optimism but I can't see prices ever dropping here, at best they'll continue their sneaky practice of leaving the base rate unchanged and increasing or decreasing the percentage discount to new customers. I signed up to the BG EV plan in July 24 the rates were, 23.38, 32.60, 17.63 & 5.96 for D, P, N & EV 2-5 am, the rates today with their whopping 20% discount are, 33.16, 46.25, 25.01 & 8.45, these fcukers couldn't care less about customers they'll always have an excuse to charge us what they like, competition my bollox we were actually better off when it was the ESB monopoly.

With EI, gas has fallen 23.6% since Novemeber 2023. Electricity has fallen 19.34%.

As prices have stabilized and we've seen increases of the levies customers must pay, I don't see massive changes.

The government own EI and have a massive influence on the market. I don't quite understand the attitude that "i can't see price ever dropping here" when they have done several times over the past 2 years and the government own the largest supplier in the country.

Private companies will charge what they can is akin to water is wet. On the domestic supply side, they're not making a killing owing to competition on the generation side, they can but that's due to market design.

https://www.electricireland.ie/residential/news/detail/electric-ireland-announces-residential-gas-reduction-and-electricity-remains-unchanged

Unit rates have fallen for people. The unit rates 2 years ago were significantly higher for a lot of the population. Those who got the BWG deal were very much the exception to the majority of the population. Your example isn't proof of that, its one example. Nothing more.

I agree with you that I don't see price dipping much further at all. We have increased levies etc. which will cancel any potential rate reductions. However, your narrative (in my opinion) is very wide of the mark. The Government own EI and that allows us to enforce competition across the sector. In 2024, Electric Ireland made a profit of €89 million. Considering they serve in the region of 1 million customers, a €90 profit (or a margin in the region of 5%) a year is indicative of competition working.

By standard do you mean it's a non smart meter? Deals on the old type D/N meter are getting very scarce.

With 68% night don't think you'll beat it with a standard meter. Depending on how much of the night consumption is charging If you went to smart you might be able to save a little if you can do all your charging in the evening window.

domestic 11,731kwh? 😯 I'd email estimated annual usage detail to a small provider like Waterpower and ask them if they can beat/match that – We can offer a free, no-obligation, quote. Just email us a copy of your bill and include your contact details.

You've nothing to lose by being proactive and ask a supplier for a quote.