Our Philosophy

The birth of our philosophy

MyUtilityGenius was started with the premise that there was no company; organisation or representative body that appeared to have an interest in meaningfully engaging with the UK domestic energy consumer in a way that they felt was relevant to them.
“The MyUtilityGenius philosophy is to shine a light into the dark corners of an industry that seems to have lost its way. We believe that by informing the people with no bias and helping them to engage in what energy actually is and the part that it plays in their lives we can empower the man in the street to take control of his energy bills and better manage the activities it powers. If we can save you some money along the way while making a respectable profit then clearly that’s part of the plan as well!”
– Honest John Stein. Founder


our philosophy

Indeed, the definition of our UK market as energy consumers is symptomatic of the problem we feel exists. By and large, when we are all sitting at home watching the latest drama series on the BBC or washing the baby grows for what seems like the umpteenth time this week I don’t believe that is how any of us would categorise ourselves. Rather we are consumers of television entertainment, time saving washing services, central heating services and the like. 

The media keeps telling us that we are all pre-occupied with our energy bills – or in MyUtilityGenius vernacular the cost of running all those things in your life that enable you to actively participate in many of the advances and pleasures heralded by the 20th and 21st centuries. But are we? Pre-occupied with cost that is. The statistics would suggest otherwise. Some 70% of us switch our car insurance every year, yet only 18% of us do the same with our energy bills.

Given that £1,200 is paid per year by the average UK household in energy bills, the question is why? Are the savings manifestly different in absolute or percentage terms (not significantly); or are we simply not engaged with the products as they are presented to us and have often lost trust in those organisations presenting them? It is our belief that the problem is one of engagement; a problem compounded by the confusing array of pricing options, opinions and suggested solutions available to us. Is it any wonder that we have a low engagement in an industry that is so poorly presented or understood by the energy bills payer at the end of the chain? This description is all the more sad for the fact that most people, faced with their energy bills, have no idea that they are even in a chain at all and very rarely understand what they are paying for and who is getting their hard earned cash.

We believe that the UK paying public deserves better; but to reset the relationships involved we need to go back to first principles and reinvigorate the subject matter. It is likely that Thomas Edison and his generation would be astounded by how little the modern man in the street understands about energy and piped natural gas; and how little they care. Which, given that these two utilities have literally changed our world, is quite depressing. We at MyUtilityGenius can’t promise that by working with us you will taste, touch, hear, see or smell either gas or electricity. Indeed our lawyers are strongly advising us not to adopt this engagement model unless we wish to provide gainful employment to health and safety tribunals for years to come.

However, it is our sincere hope that through your journey with us you can come to rediscover how these utilities work for you in your home and how you can make them work better; understand your energy bills, who you are paying and why; how energy pricing works and how you can interrogate the motives of all those involved; whether this is switching sites selling you a switch (which might be us), energy suppliers selling you a tariff or politicians peddling you a policy, from a position of knowledge. We want you to interact with us, share in our collective experiences and knowledge, and above all we want you to Get Switched On.