April 20, 2020
Many energy consumers worry that switching energy providers can be long and complicated, will involve expensive exit fees, and could even result in your home being disconnected if something goes wrong.
This kind of thinking is part of the energy confusopoly that retailers love – because it makes people hesitant to switch to a cheaper plan.
Retailers love the energy confusopoly because it makes you less likely to switch to a cheaper deal
The reality is the complete opposite. Switching electricity retailers is easier than you think, there’s no risk you’ll be left with no power, and there are no exit charges to be paid. Here’s why.
Switching retailers does not require any interruption to your power supply. That’s because your energy retailer does not actually supply your power - they onlysupply your bills.
Your distributor is responsible for supplying power to your home. They’re the ones that look after the poles and wires and all the other infrastructure that your home is physically connected to. No matter where you live you only ever have one distributor, and their job is to supply power to your home, no matter who your retailer is.
When you switch retailers, nothing changes to your physical connection, and your power supply is not interrupted.
The only thing that happens is that you’ll receive a final bill from your old retailer, and your new bills from your new retailer will have a different logo on them. Your electricity connection and supply will remain exactly the same.
People often assume that energy customers are charged a fee when they exit an energy contract. This was true in the past, but today no retailer charges any fees for switching your home electricity.
So you can switch your home to a new retailer, and you will not be penalised.
Retailers do list fees for 'disconnect' and 'reconnect' which sounds like it might apply when you switch, but these fees will only apply if interruption to the power supply is deliberately required - this can sometimes be necessary if you’re moving house, or if you need to shut off the power for building works or other reasons.
Energy plans are confusing. So for many people - even when they know that switching is safe and free - it's still too hard to make a good decision on who to switch to. There’s confusion across the entire market.
Bill Hero makes switching easy by removing the confusion. All you need to do is upload your bill, and Bill Hero will calculate what you would’ve paid under all the relevant alternative plans for that same usage and time period.
We then rank your bill among ALL the alternatives available to you – showing you exactly how much you could save, and how we can help you complete the switch.
Even better, Bill Hero looks after all the boring work of constantly monitoring your bills and the market to make sure you stay on the best plan.
We analyse every bill, calculate your savings, report back to you, and we’ll initiate a new switch whenever you can save.