Revealed: How to get the best electricity deal for your home

The more research you put into your energy habits, the more money you will save

With Energia, Pinergy and others dropping their unit prices, and Yuno Energy appearing on the market with highly competitive packages, it’s now certain that energy deals on gas and electricity will fall like autumn leaves in the coming weeks. File pictures

I’M GOING to get you really fired up. Trust me, if you’ve gradually disassociated from your power bill, I’ve put together this practical toolkit for your own good.

Irish energy prices are still in flux, having doubled in the last two years. According to monthly figures released by the EU Household Energy Price Index, we pay the highest average price for power in Europe (47.12c/kWh), and the third highest price for gas in Europe (16.22c/kWh including Vat).

It’s true that prices have remained steady since mid-summer and show signs of significant reduction from October 1, but in the UK, prices for both gas and electricity have taken a startling drop, 14.49c/kWh for gas from June to July.

One sliver of good news: The new PSO levy from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024, will be set to a zero, the last one having been credited back to our bills for 22/23. A small mercy. Energised everyone?

If you haven’t changed energy supplier for 12 months, and frankly, even if you have, it’s time to shop around. Surrendering €50 in an early exit fee (€100 for dual-fuel) might be well worthwhile.

Make up a spreadsheet or do some basic sums in columns using the unit prices for your potential suppliers.

With Energia, Electric Ireland, SSE and Pinergy dropping their unit prices, and Yuno Energy appearing on the market with highly competitive packages, it’s now certain that energy deals on gas and electricity will fall like autumn leaves in the coming weeks.

Before going out to the market, it’s vital to know your meter type, and how and when you use power over the course of a day and night. Are you at home all day? Do the kids come in at peak hours spattered in mud and dial up the electric shower repeatedly? Does your EV car sup 28kWh overnight to get through the commute? Without knowing what you need, the benefits of a 24-hour deal or time-of-use tariff package will be meaningless.

Don’t simply rely on
comparison sites (useful as they are) as they don’t always include detail in the search parameters that make the difference to your situation.

Set out to become familiar with and engaged with your usage. Another detail to note if you are lucky enough to have a PV-solar system is the Micro-generation Support Scheme (MSS) unit price. This varies from 18.5c/kWh to 34c/kWh depending on the supplier and is credited back to your bill. In the summertime, even with a smaller array, this can build steadily, taking a nice bite out of that annual drag of the standing charge. Check what that supplier is paying per kWh — it’s not dependent on what package you take. Pinergy offers a generous 25c/kWh for MSS participants. If you are a customer of SSE Airtricity and have panels installed by its partner Activ8, you can enjoy 34c/kWh.

SUMS

Make up a spreadsheet or do some basic sums in columns using the unit prices for your potential suppliers. With that in hand, study the standing charges for an urban or rural situation and key in any discount if it’s not applied in their figures. This could take the form of a welcome bonus or a 5%-10% discount on unit prices conditional on paying online and using direct debit (DD).

Use your washing machine after 11pm for safe, time-of-use tariff savings.

 If you’re vouching for a dual-fuel bundle to include gas, judge each deal on its own merits. Green plans can cost a little more, but if your principles are coaxing you toward change, choosing sustainable energy will help Ireland to meet its 2030 EU emissions target, reducing CO2 emissions by 22% annually.

NEWCOMER

With fixed and variable tariffs, Yuno Energy is the first supplier to enter the fray in the last three years. Its approach to your payments is just a little bit different. A subsidiary of PrepayPower, it works with you using an app on your mobile device. This records your usage and then forms a prediction for your next billing cycle. With daily reports, the visibility of your usage is heightened, giving you a greater sense of control. You put credit on your bill and spend it down, hopefully exceeding expectations. It gives this example of how it could work:

• You make a €95 payment on your chosen billing date;
• You keep tabs on your daily usage and spending through the forecast;
• You adjust your activities based on how it compares to the prediction;
• You pinpoint and reduce your peak-use periods throughout the month;
• Your actual electricity consumption for the billing period amounts to €80;
• Yuno deducts €15 from your next bill; the Yuno app even sends you encouragement when you’re reducing your usage based on your predicted payment for the month.

I really like this format in theory, and I believe it could be useful as a pay-as-you-go device, prompting a change in energy behaviour. However, the unit pricing beyond the 24-hour fixed discount deal is on the high side. You can choose from a fixed or variable tariff.

The best pricing on the Yuno site is for a fixed tariff for a year for a standard 24-hour meter urban or rural is 38.04c/kWh (including VAT — all the pricing here includes 9% Vat).

For comparison’s sake, PrepayPower Standard 24-hr Urban Electricity is 41.54c/kWh. Electric Ireland charges 40.89c/kWh for their 24+ deal (including a 5% discount for joining, DD and paying online).

Energia’s best 12-month 24-hour deal is reduced by 15% from October 1. This will slightly under-cut Yuno at 37.06c/kWh for standard meters. The Bord Gáis Dual Fuel Bundle (not the green one) is 43.37c/kWh, so again hovering in that 40c/kWh to 48c/kWh range. I don’t appreciate BG’s search engine based on “Enter your address or Eircode to see what’s available in your area”, which can be glitchy.

For day/night meters Yuno offers an encouraging 20.84c/kWh overnight tariff. For rural Day/Night, this is served up with an eyewatering standing charge of €483.71, a reminder to always key in discounts on deals and those standing charges, which vary wildly from one firm to another.

SMART PLAN

The Smart Plan at Yuno (variable tariff, there is no fixed tariff deal for a smart meter) comes in at 51.45c/kWh for daytime units, 54.66c/kWh for peak and 30.23c for kWh night units for a rural dweller paying €330.69 for standing charges. That’s no bargain for charging an EV or running the washing machine at dawn.

With the national rollout of smart meters, there should be more encouragement to change up to a new meter, not yet another reminder from the energy market, that they don’t offer better prices. They don’t. Don’t get caught up in a hurry to have your smart meter jammed in for October.

Even where you are satisfied with your energy deal, shop around, as prices are falling. 

The winners for pricing? Well, it depends on the meter type and tariff use. Electric Ireland’s Smart Boost for example can get you through the night for €22.80c/kWh and offers EV users 12.65c/kWh for a 2am-4am Night Boost (discounts applied). Watch out for a seesaw effect, where you get low night-time prices but higher day/peak. Keep in mind that these super low-price periods can be used to charge up a PV-Solar battery to deploy cheap units the next day. Clever!

CUT

Energia has announced a 15% cut to its standard electricity pricing from October 1, and a higher 20% cut for smart meters tariffs and gas prices (hurrah). For power alone, this is a saving of €357 on an average smart bill.

Its 24-hour flat-rate “Smart” plan has no effective time-of-use tariffs. Stay under their reasonable threshold of 1000kWh for every two months, and rise to a proper time-of-use smart deal with Energia, and you can charge your EV from 2am to 6am (7kW per hour to the car) at a superb 10.19c/kWh while paying 45.76c/kWh the rest of the day with their Smart Drive Deal (reduced by a further 20% in October).

Its most popular Smart Plan is Energia Smart Data, with half-hourly usage data to drill down on what’s running up the bills. This outstrips daily reports included with the Yuno app, as it’s more granular, and shows how useful a smart meter can be in engaging with your highly personal energy habits.

The Energia Smart Data rate is currently 45.76c/kWh by day, 47.94c/kWh at peak, and 24.50c/kWh overnight. This night rate gives you a reasonable saving when doing late-night spin-drying and dawn dishwasher runs. I don’t encourage you to use white goods unsupervised while you sleep — a potential fire hazard.

Use your machine’s delay-start function and be up and about for that quick, cool wash to save 30%- 50% on drying, and dish and clothes washes.

DEAL

Electric Ireland also offers a one-unit price, smart meter deal which matches their feted 24-hour meter deal of €40.89c/kWh for the day and night (over-taken by both Yuno and Energia in recent weeks). Its alternate time-of-use smart deals pop up beside this plan. This presumes some overnight usage at 23.39c/kWh, as its estimated annual bill rides in at €1,740, supposedly saving you €183 for using three price bands over the €1923 estimated for the 24-hour smart deal.

What if you have next to no overnight usage? It isn’t very clear for the newcomer and underscores what I’ve already said. Get familiar with your own power patterns, and don’t be guided simply by annual estimates.

These are legitimate and approved and published by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, but they are not tailored to you, your family, or your particular usage. They are just a guide.