In these harsh economic times people are looking to save money wherever they can. Let's face it pay rises are minimal & in fact many people have had pay cuts & lots more count themselves lucky to still be employed. Therefore the only way to get more money in your pocket is to save on what you are already spending.
Utility payments for residential properties are just like a businesses fixed costs in that they are expenses that must be paid, however if you can make savings you increase your "bottom line" ie profit. So in the case of residential customers you can increase the cash in your pocket by saving on your fixed costs.
Saving on utilities however is not as easy as it should be, many utility providers have numerous "plans" that you can be on, all with different tariffs, such as; Standard Rate, Online Saver, Internet Plan, Saver 50, Fixed Tariff etc etc. In my opinion utility companies deliberately confuse consumers who then end up staying on the same payment plan to save on the hassle of switching. This means that thousands of people are paying too much for their utilities. The government is trying to force the big utility providers to make their bills easy to understand, for instance from April 2011 all providers had to provide annual usages on gas & electric bills, this was to make it easier to compare costs with other suppliers. They are now trying to get these same providers to cut down on the number of tariffs available to cut confusion for customers.



