My Energy Bill

First of all I live in the UK and npower supply both my electricity and gas. From the 24/4/18 to 25/4/19 i.e 1 year and 1 day, my total energy bill i.e both electricity and gas, came to £952.29. That was for 3,475 Kwh's electricity and 10,744 Kwh's gas. I was paying by direct debit £80 per calendar month.

However, now the tariffs have finished I'm been switched back to the default tariffs, and my projected cost for the next year will be £1,296! But, what if I opt for the cheapest tariffs npower have to offer? Using the same amount of energy it will cost me £101 per month or around 1,212 per year. An increase from £952.29 to £1,212 using the exact same energy and using the cheapest tariffs available on npower. That's a 27.3% increase in price in the space of a year. Inflation rate is 1.9% That's a significant difference!

I think it's time to switch energy suppliers. "Which" informs me that Avro is cheapest at £985.76 assuming the same energy I used last year. Significantly cheaper than npowers cheapest at £1,212. However, it's still more expensive than what I actually paid npower for the previous year i.e £952.29. So even if I switch to the cheapest energy company I will be paying £985.76 - £952.29 = £33.47 extra. But what choice do I have?

Update (about 30 mins later). The monthly payment of £101 for the cheapest tariff was based on the figure that an npower person gave me, namely if I am to use 3,855 kwh's electricity (he never provided the details for gas). However, over the past year (I summed up the amount in each bill), I've only used 3,475 kwh's. Furthermore, the "which" site is saying the cheapest npower tariff for my energy use will only be £94 a month. So this 27% increase will be incorrect, it'll be less than that. Apparently it'll be 12 * £94 = £1,128. That's still too much though since I paid £952.29 last year.

If I do nothing it'll be going up to £107 a month.  Presumably that's a projection of how much I'll need to pay given my energy use over the past year.  12 * £107 = £1,284


These energy suppliers appear to go out of the way to try and confuse people as much as possible!