Lowest standing charge for electricty supplier?

By that I mean the amount they charge you regardless of how much you use. Have a place where we turn off the power when we leave (& dont use that much in winter) but still getting a bill of c€50 even with no or nominal usage.

(I'll get around to doing some research myself shortly - and will post here- but great if anyone has looked at this lately).

Switched to Airtricity during the week from Bord Gais.Had used my two years of discounts with BG. On the day of switch,i had reverted to BG'S standard residential tariff.
Note that someone leaving Airtricity or Electric Ireland would get better rates from BG than i would as a current customer.

Current tariff Bord Gais. unit charge 15.79c/kWh 37.6c/day standing charge

Switch to Electric Ireland unit charge 14.41c/kWh 38.57c/day standing charge
This unit rate includes -4% DD, -2% ebills, -5% switch discounts. (1 yr contract)

Switch to Airtricity. unit charge 13.61c/kWh 41.44c/day standing charge (46.37 from 1/4/12) This also includes discounts for DD and ebills.
This is the one year option.There is also a two year option where the standing charges are the same but the unit rates are (Yr 1 13.3c/kWh, Yr 2 14.56c/kWh).

All providers have a €1.63/month PSO levy

In my case, based on my last few bills,I was slightly better off going to Airtricity with their lower unit charge than EI with their lower standing charge.This calculation was made using Airtricity's new April higher standing charge for all of the bill.
I figure EI will probably follow on with increases later in the year.
These unit prices aren't locked in, based on 24 hour rural tariff and all figures used are exclusive of Vat

So was it easy enough to switch - might look at airtricity would like to get some up to date reviews from current customers as some of the previous reviews were very poor

Switched to Airtricity about 6 months ago. Very satisfied to date. I receive an e-mail reminder every 2 months to read the meter & input reading on-line. This ensures that bills are accurate. No complaints!

Luckycharm said:

So was it easy enough to switch - might look at airtricity would like to get some up to date reviews from current customers as some of the previous reviews were very poor

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Apart from the fact that i had to tell the sales rep that she was quoting me for urban rates rether than the rural rates that i asked for,the switch at this point has gone ok.I gave a current meter reading and i'll update later on as regards the actual changeover regarding bills etc.

Thanks for that guys. I think the house I'm talking about is on nightsaver, so I think I need to suss that out too.

The accepted wisdom used to be that that was only value if using it a lot - which I'm not - so if I'm on it I guess I should get off it ASAP. (not like me to be vague/slack on these things ....... "Must try harder" as the teachers say!!)

Just a quick note on this- switched to Airtricity from Bord Gais for electricity recently. The unit charge is 14% cheaper. And they had a big push a few months ago with people all over my estate for a few days knocking on doors

Got my 1st bill last week and overall, it's marginally up. Why? - the standing charge with Airtricity is higher (36.94c per day) v's Bord Gais (28.20c per day)....31% higher. I stupidly never thought to check this and got suckered in by the unit rate discount.

I emailed them on it and was told it's laid out in the terms and conditions of the contract I signed up to! So my fault for not fully briefing myself on this...but once the year is up, I'll definitely be moving on

Delboy said:

...Got my 1st bill last week and overall, it's marginally up. Why? - the standing charge with Airtricity is higher (36.94c per day) v's Bord Gais (28.20c per day)....31% higher. I stupidly never thought to check this and got suckered in by the unit rate discount.

I emailed them on it and was told it's laid out in the terms and conditions of the contract I signed up to! So my fault for not fully briefing myself on this...but once the year is up, I'll definitely be moving on

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Getting a lot of calls lately from irritating girl in Airtricity. Not pressuring per se but overly familiar, like I knew her and had asked her to ring me back. At one call, she got the young lad and pestered him about when I would be in etc. Glad I did not fall for the patter. However, we have a huge usage cost so will look into the figures again, but I will ring them!

I got caught on that too with Airtricity, really annoyed with myself, had a nice sales guy, he swore they were the cheapest, I should have known better!

It's worth checking out the following before moving supplier:

http://www.bonkers.ie/