Swapping to Sainsbury's energy

A question about : Swapping to Sainsbury's energy

So doing the review on the energy club and Sainsbury's is by far the cheapest at the moment by roughly Ј400 or so.

At the moment I am on BG Fixed till Nov 2015 with a Ј60 exit fee.

BG have a new product fixed till Feb 2016 which is similar to Sainsbury's (since BG are selling it anyway) Its approx Ј10 more a year than am paying but no exit fee.

So if swap to the new fixed product with BG which normally happens straight away, would I then be free to leave to Sainsbury's with no exit fee.

Am using 20,000kWh for Gas, and 10,500 for Elec.

What features would I lose from my smartmeter?

Best answers:

• Yes, swapping to a tariff (if they let you do an internal switch with no penalty) with no exit fee then switching away is an option to avoid exit fees. Just check after the switch has been made about the exit fees just to be sure.
  I would assume if a company did not support a smart meter, it would just act as a standard "dumb" meter. So you would have to read it manually. Is sainsburys energy not part of British Gas? Maybe they will also support it due to this?
  On a spearate point.....wow....not only is your gas use above average...but your electricity use is very very high! Do you live in a very large house?
  Just interested!
• Yes Sainsbury's Energy is in collaboration with BG, they are just resellers. If you go on to the SE website its identical to BG just rebranded in orange. You even get your credentials recognised by the site but can't log in message and points you back to BG. All the same back end.
  I do wonder if any more deals with take place on the 27th Feb when they drop the prices on standard rates
  The house is a 4 bedroom reasonably big but not that big. I am hoping consumption is correct above as have a number of changes including house changes, meter changes etc. so its hard to know if full accurate.
  However I do expect it to be higher than normal because:-
  1) Work at home so energy usage is more, but this is offset due to lack of commuting costs
  2) Have a large underfloor area of electric heating, nothing else was practical
  3) like long showers, though used to have an electric shower replaced with one off the combi last year so that might have some impact
  4) Have quite a lot of equipment PC\audio that tends to drink a lot of juice.
  I have done what I can to reduce it without impacting usability etc. which is a balance.
  I have friends though with similar properties\setup that are using 1/3 on top of what I have so it takes some doing.
• Well to put it in perspective for electricity:
  A Uk average user is about 3500KWH
  A high user is 5100KWH
  So you are using double the projected use for a high user. Obviously that all depends on the size of your house and requiremts....so in reality it is just a guide.
  Your electric heating in the basement may indeed be a huge contributor if this is used most days.
  No harm in looking into where you use the electric in more detail. Getting an electricity monitor can help a lot.
  If you have meter changes or need help double checking your meter reads, feel free to post them here for others to check.
  As I am sure you are aware, try to find two confirmed readings, one year apart to establish your annual KWH usage.
• Thanks appreciate it but I have looked into see if it is correct, have used both an Owl monitor and eON free monitor to check my usage for a number of years. The meters have been changed this year so I need to double check the readings.
  Believe it or not is has gone down ....
  The underfloor is in the kitchen and its a large area so its probably not as cost effective as it could be.
  At the moment am on a Smartmeter so to give you an idea on the highest day in Jan I used Ј12.19 of gas and elec split roughly 50:50. My consumption during the night has dropped to a lot lower due to auto power off some equipment.
  Its on during the day so can use a lot particularly with the cold weather at the moment.
• My neighbours that don't have my passion for electronics let say talking to them they were about Ј20-30 a month cheaper but I am overpaying slightly at the moment as have a large credit balance. Hopefully enough to offset this cold winter.
• Fair enough, sounds like you know exactly what you require in terms of your usage....that is just your useage it seems.
  One consideration, although this is slightly complicated by the underfloor electric heating, is whether on not an Economy 7 option would reduce your bills.
  To work this out you would have to work out how much you currently use at night (12am - 7:30am)ish, and also how much electric use you could move to night hours e.g dishwasher, tumble dryer, washing machine.
  With regards to your basement heaters. Replacing these with storage heaters on an econcomy 7 system, again, could save a lot if they are a major factor in your use.
  So again, you would have to calculate how much they use in your daily/yearly use.
  Somthing to think about maybe
• Fair enough, sounds like you know exactly what you require in terms of your usage....that is just your useage it seems.
  One consideration, although this is slightly complicated by the underfloor electric heating, is whether on not an Economy 7 option would reduce your bills.
  Edit: Although, I have just looked at the figures and even at 50% E7 usage, the bill would only reduce by a tiny tiny amount. So there is not much differance or point it seems.
• Thanks, I hadn't thought of economy 7 but I would agreed with your findings. Most of my consumption is between 7.30ish am till 10 pm.
  I am limited it what I can move to night time and my wife does not like to leave appliances on at night so that's a challenge.
  Also I don't have a basement (nor storage heaters) so not sure where that one came from
• You will be able to switch from BG Fixed Price Feb 2016 without any exit fees. We have no exit fees for internal switches on both BG and Sainsburys Energy and no exit fees for current BG tariffs for switching away from BG.
  Unfortunately we do not have smart meters for Sainsburys Energy customers yet so your meter will turn into a regular meter meaning you will lose the ability to monitor your usage in real time. We will roll-out smart meters for Sainsburys Energy customers in the future.