First Utility - February 2010

first:utility have today launched their Standard Dual Fuel Tariff.
This is available across the UK for customers wishing to pay by quarterly cash/cheque or monthly direct debit.
Quarterly cash/cheque customers pay £4 per month more than monthly direct debit customers. Bills can either be sent by post (at the cost of £1 per month) or provided online for free.
A dual discount of 5% is payable after 12 consecutive payments. Customers in regions 11 and 14 will be offered a free smart meter.
first:utility have issued a press release stating that this tariff beats British Gas across the UK.

This is not exactly correct and this depends on the exact selection made by the customer. What we can say however is that based on a standard customer (20,500kWhs of gas and 3,300 kWhs of electric) paying by monthly direct debit and happy to be online then this tariff is the cheapest in three UK areas: Manweb, Scottish Hydro-Electric and ScottishPower.

Currently for some reason first:utility are not offering this tariff online through either their own service or via any broker. Customers can only apply by using a direct telephone number so we are not sure as to whether this is just a headline grabbing tariff or one for the long term.
As is usual Energylinx is first to have this tariff displayed across its platforms so at this time you will only see this on Energylinx powered platforms. No doubt this will change over the next few days as others update their databases.