Bulb Energy Review 2021

Bulb is a renewable UK gas & electricity supplier with excellent customer service, great reviews and surprisingly good rates…

Update: I update my Bulb review review at least once a month. Last update: 27th August 2020. On with the analysis…

I discovered Bulb while comparing gas and electricity prices at Money Saving Expert’s energy club.

Not only were Bulb offering one of the cheapest rates quoted, over £150 cheaper (now £255 cheaper annually) than the Big Six energy companies for an average home, they also use renewable energy – without the high charges a green energy tariff usually comes with (Bulb uses 100% renewable electricity and carbon-offsets its gas usage).

I then looked for some Bulb customer reviews to see if their service matched their prices and was happy to see their Trustpilot rating has 95% of customers rating then Great or Excellent from over 58,000 reviews (Bulb now have over 1.6 million members).

I subscribe to Which Magazine and their February 2020 issue published the survey results of over 8,000 members ratings of the top 35 energy companies and wasn’t surprised to see Bulb given the third highest customer rating of 78%, way ahead of Eon (61%), British Gas (60%), NPower (57%) and a world away from Scottish Power’s 51%!

Signing up to Bulb energy

So I decided to take the plunge and switch to Bulb (saving well over £50 on E.on’s annual rates) and the whole process couldn’t have been any easier, taking only a couple of minutes to fill in my address and bank details.

I needed to phone Bulb a week or two later realising I’d given the wrong bank account details and they were super helpful and friendly in getting it sorted.

It took about 3 weeks from signing up to start getting my energy from Bulb. The switch was completely seamless with Bulb keeping me updated with helpful emails along the way.

That’s over two and a half years since switching and I’m still very happy with Bulb and have been spreading the word to family and friends (my Dad switched around the same time with no problems either).

Bulb will pay any exit fees

Exits fees, how we all love them. If your current supplier charges a nasty exit fee for leaving your contract early then Bulb will refund it in full as a credit to your Bulb account (up to a maximum of £120 per switch). To claim the refund just send Bulb an email with a copy of the final bill from your previous supplier with the exit fee amount itemised. Nice.

Get £50 added to your account using our link

Another thing that tipped me to switch to Bulb is their limited time offer of giving anyone you refer a tidy £50 off their first bill. So tell your friends and family and they’ll not only get £50 but you will too – at least while the offer lasts.

To get £50 credited to your account just use my link to Bulb here.

Almost 4 Year Update – September 2020

Since switching from E-on to Bulb energy I couldn’t be happier with Bulb’s service. Entering meter readings and checking usage and bills on the website has been a breeze. Even my technophobic, hard to impress 79 year old Dad has found the Bulb website very easy to use and is recommending Bulb to anyone who’ll listen!

Looking back at my first year Bulb announced two price cuts (totalling £50) while other providers prices were increasing prices. The next year (2018) Bulb announced their first price rise since I joined – a 2.8% increase compared to 5.5% for British Gas.

Wholesale energy costs got pretty crazy that year, increasing by 21% from February to August! In that context a price rise of 5.1% in August didn’t sound so bad with Bulb still £261 a year cheaper than the Big Six plans at the time (based on a dual fuel home using 3,100kw electricity and 12,000kwh gas).

So while it was never great to hear of an increase it was still heartening to know I’d been paying less compared to alternatives alongside the peace of mind of using renewable energy. If wholesale costs go down Bulb have a Fair Price Principle stating if wholesale prices fall by more than £20 a year your tariff will too. In December 2018 Bulb kept to their word and lowered gas prices by 4.2% and in March 2019 prices were lowered again by an average of £20 a year. As of April 2019 Money Saving Expert listed Bulb as their Cheapest Top Energy Service.

Bulb now have well over 1.6 million members (apparently I was their 4,004th member!) which collectively equates to saving over 5.2 million tonnes of CO2 since launching. The equivalent of planting over a billion trees! A personalised email just informed me that the equivalent of 1,152 trees were down to me. Nice again.

Using Bulb’s website

Bulb’s website has an intuitively simple design that makes it easy and straightforward to use. MyBulb is where you can manage your account, enter meter readings and view your energy usage.

Again, the interface and design is very user friendly and makes entering your meter readings a doddle.

There’s also a new security measure for signing in that means you no longer need a password. Bulb will send you an email with a secure link every time you need to log on. It’s a simple, more secure solution and means no more typing out long passwords on your mobile or trying to remember if it had numbers or capital letters etc. The password option is there if you prefer it though.

One of the ways that Bulb has been able to cut costs is to engage their community in the same way that GiffGaff does for mobile phone customers. So you can find out answers to all kinds of questions by asking the community or reading the forum & FAQ’s.

Bulb’s iPhone & Android Apps

Bulb has a simple to use iPhone app available for free in Apple’s App Store. With the app you can send meter readings by taking a photo, download your statements and refer friends straight from the app.

Don’t worry Android owners the Bulb Android app is also available for download in the Play Store. If you use your phone for everything but don’t want to add another app then the Bulb website works great on mobiles with its responsive design.

Conclusion

Overall it feels really good to be using Bulb energy from renewable sources while saving money at the same time. It’s a win/win situation for me, my pocket and the environment.

Finally, the friendliness and professionalism of the people I’ve spoken with at Bulb has restored my faith in UK customer service. They just get it right. I’m not always pleased with my spending decisions but this is one of my best and am happy to recommend Bulb as a green electricity & gas supplier that I’m confident you’ll be happy with too.