Wee Switch data methodology
This page explains how Wee Switch sources, checks, calculates, ranks, and corrects Northern Ireland domestic electricity tariff data.
Refresh process
The live tariff API checks the Consumer Council NI source and caches successful results for a few hours. The daily update workflow refreshes checked backup tariff data, updates crawlable HTML, refreshes sitemap timestamps, runs validation, builds the site, and deploys when data or content changes.
Tariff inclusion rules
Active domestic comparison rows are limited to current Consumer Council NI-listed domestic suppliers: Budget Energy, Click Energy, Power NI, SSE Airtricity, and Share Energy. Business-only, withdrawn, historical, and unavailable residential tariffs are not included as current switch options.
Electric Ireland is not included as a current domestic switching option. Electric Ireland says its Northern Ireland residential customers have transferred to Power NI.
VAT treatment
Consumer Council NI source rates are treated as VAT-inclusive where stated. Wee Switch displays unit rates in pence per kWh and standing charges in pence per day on the same basis as the source table.
Rounding and annual cost formula
For the default benchmark, annual cost before incentives uses 3,200 kWh/year: annual kWh x unit rate p/kWh / 100 + 365 x standing charge p/day / 100. Displayed annual costs are rounded to pounds or shown to two decimal places depending on the UI context.
Incentives
Welcome credits and loyalty incentives can change effective first-year cost, but they are kept separate from base annual cost where the amount is explicit. Users should check eligibility, redemption rules, expiry dates, and supplier conditions before switching.
Payment methods
Payment methods follow the source rows, including Direct Debit e-bill, Direct Debit postal bill, pay on receipt of bill, pay on receipt of e-bill, and prepayment/keypad tariffs. Filtering by payment method only shows matching rows.
Economy 7 handling
Economy 7 and multi-rate meter tariffs are not mixed into the standard 24-hour domestic comparison unless the dataset and calculator explicitly support the night/day-rate calculation. Users with Economy 7 should confirm directly with suppliers.
Corrections process
Users can report suspected tariff errors through Report incorrect tariff. Reports are checked against Consumer Council NI, supplier pages, or another primary source. Incorrect Wee Switch data should be corrected, validated, rebuilt, and redeployed.
Validation before publication
- Supplier names are limited to the active domestic supplier list used by the current dataset.
- Electric Ireland is not published as a current domestic switch option.
- Unit rates and standing charges are numeric and shown in pence on the same VAT basis as the source.
- Annual costs are calculated from the displayed unit rate, displayed standing charge, and selected annual kWh.
- Welcome credits and loyalty incentives are not mixed into the base annual cost.
- Each tariff row has a supplier, tariff name, payment method, unit rate, standing charge, annual-cost calculation, and source date.
- The crawlable HTML and the interactive tariff API use the same checked dataset.
- The sitemap last-modified date is updated when tariff content changes.
- If a data refresh fails, Wee Switch keeps the last successfully checked dataset, shows the last successful source date, and avoids publishing partially refreshed tariff rows.
Upcoming tariff changes
When a supplier announces a future tariff change, Wee Switch may show a warning before the effective date. Current tariff cards should continue to show the source table currently in force until the new rates take effect in the source data.
The Power NI 6.2% residential tariff increase is scheduled for 1 July 2026. The Power NI warning should remain visible until Wee Switch updates to the post-1 July source data. After the post-1 July rates are live, replace the warning with confirmation that the 1 July change is reflected in the listed Power NI costs.