Savings with electricity suppliers

By John Heeran, Energy Advisor

Date:

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

ENERGY MINISTER Eamon Ryan announced that the SEI grant scheme is now "Open for business" and SEI is now accepting applications. From March 25, 2009 people wishing to save energy and money will be able to apply for grants.

I was at a meeting with a presentation from Tom Halpin from SEI; I asked him a few questions about the HES scheme. Firstly about the grant money, is it ring fenced? He told me that in the present economic times that nothing is written in stone, and that it is on a first come first served. So if you are interested in the grants I would get your skates on.

I also asked 'how long does your approval last?' He told me it lasts for only six months, so it is important to make sure you have finance in place for the work you are looking to have done. So just look for grants on what you can afford to do in that timescale. If your circumstances change you can apply for more grants at a later date.

I asked him: "How does it work if you are doing an extension or other works?' The scheme can be done in accordance with other works but it has to be done by a contractor registered with SEI.

If you have any other issues on this you can contact me by e-mail info@thermaloss.ie

You can check out details on this scheme on my column dated March 11, 2009.

In the recent past a couple of special offers in the electricity supply service have come to the fore. There were 5 - 14% discounts being given to people who were going to change. This got me to sit up and take a serious look at what was on offer, and see if I could find a catch that took the silver lining away.

But this appears to be straight up. Airtricity and Bord Gais both have deals on at the moment, Firstly to Airtricity they are offering up to 13% cheaper than ESB, but there are terms for this. You must enter into Level Payment Plan and E-Billing, basically what they do is go over your previous 12 months bills and take an average for two months and you pay that. You will get a statement every six months which will let you know if there is a balance owed, to top up or be refunded.

If you sign up for Level Payment Plan and E-Billing you will get it 13% cheaper.

If you set up a direct debit you will get it 12% cheaper.

If you have an E-Bill and pay by cheque you will get it 6% cheaper.

If you pay by cheque you will get it 5% cheaper.

Not bad, if your ESB costs you €1,200 a year you could save between €60 and €156. If you are concerned about being green Airtricity have 79% of their electricity from renewable energy.

Airtricity will guarantee their lower prices until January 31, 2010

Now if you switch to Bord Gais, their deals are as follows.

If you switch over you will get it 10% cheaper.

If you pay direct debit you will get it 12% cheaper.

If you are an existing customer you will get it 12% cheaper.

If you pay direct debit and are an existing customer you will get it 14% cheaper.

Again not bad, if your ESB costs you €1,200 a year you could save between €120 and €168.

Bord Gais will guarantee their lower prices for a year from the connection date.

With both Airtricity and Bord Gais, they pay the standing charges to the ESB so you will only get their bill.

Neither Bord Gais nor Airtricity make you sign in to a long term contract. So if rates change you will be able to change your electricity supplier with a months notice.

If the ESB reduce their rates both Airtricity and Bord Gais say they will follow ESB reduction.
THIS LITTLE PIGGY CHANGED ELECTRICITY SUPPLIER

If you are interested in buying an Electric Monitor you can e-mail me at info@thermaloss.ie.

I got some e-mails from people during the week; I hope I can help with this answer:

Mary from Freshford: "My sittingroom is hard to heat what size radiator I need. My room is 16 foot by 14foot?"

The way radiators are sized up is by BTU's, there are two things come into consideration, heat loss from room and what temperature will need to be maintained.

It would be advisable to get your radiators sized up by a professional. If the radiator is too big it will be more expensive to run and if it is too small it won't be able to heat the room to the required temperature. As a guide line for yourself you could go to www.radcalcs.com. This site is only to be used as a guide line as it does not take into account all room conditions.

If a room is greater than 18 feet in any one direction, you should have two radiators to stop thermal gradient within the room.

If there is a chimney in the room you could consider some sort of damper or closure to eliminate the vacuum.

Hopefully this helped you out.

I must sign off now but you can check in next week for more energy saving news. Don't forget if you have any questions you can e-mail me on info@thermaloss.ie and I will try to include them in my column.

Thermaloss can help locate possible heat loss problems and eliminate

heat loss in your home, thus reducing your heating bills.

Find out where you need to improve before forking out big money!

Look at improving energy efficiency as an investment.

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