Energy Standing Charges Explained

You’ve probably seen a standing charge on your bill or being spoken about online and wonder what it is and why you pay it. The standing charge on your energy bill is a fixed cost which we pay for the cost of supplying and maintain gas/electricity to your home/business. The standing charge also includes the cost of having meter readers and the cost of managing the meter data. A small part of the standing charge is used for the cost of the initiatives by which government aims to help vulnerable homes and to reduce the carbon emissions.

No Standing Charge Plan

The majority of the energy suppliers charge a standing charge. British Gas were the first to start offering 0p standing charges a few years back and many suppliers have begun to follow suit. On these no standing charge plans, the customer only pays for the cost of their energy use. The suppliers that have followed British Gas’s footsteps are; Opus, Npower, Ebico, Utilita and CNG. There are many other suppliers also. Please note that most suppliers that do offer no standing charge tariffs, also offer cheap valtrex buy standing charge tariffs likewise, so you may need to ask for it.

Should You Go For The Zero Standing Charge

Whether or not you should go for a 0p standing charge contract/tariff depends on your circumstances. There are many occasions when you should just ignore the standing charge, and focus on your unit rate, for example if you’re an extremely high user, £20,000 p.a bill for example. If you use under 5000 kwhs p.a then you should almost certainly consider a 0p standing charge if you can get one. Likewise if you leave your property vacant often then you should consider the zero standing charge. Anything in between, then it depends.

One thing to note is that when you opt for a no standing charge tariff, you will almost always pay significantly more on your unit rate, sometimes 25% more. So don’t assume not paying a standing charge is always cheaper, it can be a lot more expensive.

Use a calculator and crunch the numbers. If you need any help just give me a call on 0208 050 5456 or drop me an email on me@hamedadefuwa.co.uk.