The process of comparing the prices of home energy should ideally be simple to perform, because all energy comparison websites should deliver the same results quickly by a click of the mouse button. However, since energy comparison sites like Uswitch and EnergyHelpline are in the business to make money, it’s hardly surprising to discover that the comparison results usually differ from one to the other, as each company tweaks the results to make more profit.
A number of daily or weekly newspapers, financial magazines and internet websites have also signed commercial agreements with one or a few of the comparison services to promote them as “the best energy comparison company”. Recognising this fact, this article will outline the salient points to look out for when engaging the services of these energy price comparison companies.
First of all, you need to realize that the energy comparison companies have no legal obligation to include utility suppliers which do not meet the standards laid down by Energywatch. And because these energy providers seldom pay the comparison services a commission fee, there is even less incentive for the comparison services to include them in their results. This means that you may actually miss out on some of the cheapest energy suppliers available in the market.
Also, if you use “billed price” rather than the more accurate “KiloWatt hours” which can be read from your gas and electricity meters as your entry data when comparing prices, the energy comparison services have to make some assumptions which may skew the results. For instance, your seasonal power usage may be radically different from the average pattern adopted by the comparison services, and so the estimated price will subsequently be misleading.
Last but not least, the majority of comparison companies actually receive information on any updates in energy tariffs directly from the energy supplies way before the tariff changes. As a consequence, the prices reflected in the compared results may be based on future tariffs before they have actually been implemented, leading to calculation errors.
To tackle all these issues, the ideal way is to compile all your utility bills, jot down the Kilowatt hours over the past year, and input them manually into the energy tariffs of each energy supplier in the market. The task is extremely time-consuming though, so for most people, using an energy price comparison service is the quicker and more convenient option which for the most parts will deliver the correct results.
