Collective Energy Switching Campaign

Cheshire East say that more than 4,000 people took part in the Collective Energy Switching campaign on April 9, and add that the vast majority saw a better deal on their gas and electricity bills following the auction.

The council say more than 70 per cent of people who registered with the Big Community Switch received significant savings, averaging £111 per year. The highest average saving was on a 'dual fuel online tariff' and was £139 per year.

Cheshire East say many residents had already switched or were happy with their current tariff. The winning providers were Sainsbury Energy, Scottish Power and British Gas. The council joined forces with a group of local authorities across the country, representing more than 160,000 people in all – the largest auction of its kind in the country providing greater buying power.

Audlem's experience

It seems the local experience in Audlem is much more mixed. Obviously, local residents are denied the benefits of dual gas and electricity tariffs – will Audlem ever get mains gas, we wonder – but reports on the Chatbox indicate that some readers were offered rates that would have increased their electricity bills by as much as 23%.

We would love to hear from more local residents about the offers you have received.

Doing it yourself

The webteam has been looking further and comparing the savings offered by the Collective Energy Switching Campaign – around £30 a year to webteam households – with that offered by searching the energy saving websites such as MoneySupermarket.com

Interestingly, the savings offered by MoneySupermarket started at over three times better than the Collective Energy Switching offer with the best being £99.23 and many others around £70 – £75, including a reduction of £71.41 from one of the existing suppliers!

On this basis, it seems that searching yourself for a worthwhile offer is the better option. BBC North West ran a story on this a week or so ago saying that the savings from Collective Energy Switching Campaigns have dropped alarmingly in the last year from savings of £200 – £300 to pretty small gains now.

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