RetireJapan

I recently changed our electricity provider and was wondering what other people's experiences were like.

I went through Kakaku.com and found the best deal based on our usage. It was useful to have a year's worth of bills to accurately compare providers. The savings aren't huge, but you can save a bit if you find a plan tailored to your usage. For example, my wife is a homemaker so we opted for a plan from SymEnergy that gives cheaper rates for daytime use. You can also find plans for heavy or light users. Also, if you sign up through kakaku, many providers also give out Amazon gift cards.

There were a couple of things I noticed on along the way:
1. The projected savings include the sign up gift, so you may find yourself not saving as much as you expected (or even paying more) after the second year. There is an option to show quotes without the signup bonus.
2. Rakuten card recently announced that points would be reduced when paying utilities. However this only seems to apply to the big utility companies (TEPCO, KEPCO, etc), so you can get the full 1% points if you switch.

I didn't spend a lot of time researching it, so I'm wondering if there are any better alternatives to kakaku next time I switch.

My wife plays the switching game every 2-3 years for our utilities. They are always offering better rates or "gift" incentives that make it worth the paperwork.

Switching is so easy and there's no lock-in so I presume people hunt for sign-up bonuses the way they do for credit cards.

One of the most interesting sign-up bonuses I've seen is for AU. Sign up for their electricity plan and get 0.5% off your home loan rate from AU Jibun Bank. Thats pretty amazing.