Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
- Thread starter DXP55
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Associate
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- Wirral
Ofgem fined them 1.5 mil. a couple days ago and gave them a deadline of 3 months to improve their finances.
[edit] https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/tomato-energy-limited-failure-maintain-liquidity
[edit] https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/tomato-energy-limited-failure-maintain-liquidity
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Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
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- 9,181
We have successfully contrived to have the least functional energy market possible, 30 years of big brain thinking from our overlords and masters.
But wait until the Capacity Market stink kicks off that will have masses howling. The Government has been paying generators of every flavour huge subsides to stay open for the last few years and the largely foreign owners (by slice of the subsidy) have mostly been pocketing the money for the last 10+ years and not actually spending it on maintenance. One day soon a power plant will fall over and Ofgem will pull its head out its arse and ask "why did that happen, we've given you £100m+ in the last 5 years for maintenance" and they will find out that far less has been spent than received.
But wait until the Capacity Market stink kicks off that will have masses howling. The Government has been paying generators of every flavour huge subsides to stay open for the last few years and the largely foreign owners (by slice of the subsidy) have mostly been pocketing the money for the last 10+ years and not actually spending it on maintenance. One day soon a power plant will fall over and Ofgem will pull its head out its arse and ask "why did that happen, we've given you £100m+ in the last 5 years for maintenance" and they will find out that far less has been spent than received.
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after previous failures, rules now mean companies taking over a customer have to underwrite potential losses of previous company on pre-bought energy,
so that should have avoided tomato repeat (like banking crash reserves)
Interview on pm yesterday with useless ceo of solar uk - chris hewet ? - with controversial planning go ahead for biggest solar farm - he couldn't answer the question on relative cost of solar energy
with it's associated provisions of battteries - when the sun is off -, versus gas (ignoring climate issue)
www.bbc.co.uk
govt site suggests 7.5million customers supported lol https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...enough-clean-energy-to-power-75-million-homes.
[not enough data on the home energy provider
forums.moneysavingexpert.com
]
so that should have avoided tomato repeat (like banking crash reserves)
Interview on pm yesterday with useless ceo of solar uk - chris hewet ? - with controversial planning go ahead for biggest solar farm - he couldn't answer the question on relative cost of solar energy
with it's associated provisions of battteries - when the sun is off -, versus gas (ignoring climate issue)
Government approves 'UK's largest' solar farm in Lincolnshire
Developers claim it will power about 300,000 homes - making it larger than any currently built.
www.bbc.co.uk
[not enough data on the home energy provider
Anyone heard of HomeEnergy? - Page 3
Had similar experience in the past with suppliers going bust. I never lost any money and my lights stayed on.
forums.moneysavingexpert.com
How could Tomato be so cheap compared to everyone else and stay a viable business? It looks like they couldn't.
Probably lots of reasons in first instance like not having the dead weight of unprofitable or debt riddled customers who don’t pay or set social tariffs etc.
On the flip side, I expect part of the issue is they also onboarded a shed load on unprofitable customers of a different kind. E.g. who only used energy at the lowest rates they offered.
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I've been with with Tomato since March, my bill for September came through via email this morning as usual. I've just logged into MyWatts and it's working perfectly normal, I've had a bill every month at around this time and only for actual use. I don't know why you're having so many problems.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 9,181
Ed Miliband is facing an open revolt from the energy industry
Net zero is adding to household gas and electricity costs, suppliers tell MPs
www.telegraph.co.uk
Couldn't find this story on the Beeb but here is the text minus piccies from the article
Another day, another broken promise from this hapless Government.
Well, not quite yet perhaps, but Ed Miliband’s pledge to bring down household energy bills is as good as dead after it was rubbished by some of the industry’s most influential figures in devastating fashion.
It seems set to join a growing list of unfulfilled, exaggerated and unachievable manifesto promises made by Labour in its desperate bid for power, whether that be a commitment to smash the boat gangs, targets on NHS waiting lists or welfare reform.
The party made scores of manifesto pledges, too many for the vast majority of voters to be able to keep count.
But for a whole host of reasons, everyone remembers Miliband’s guarantee to reduce energy bills by £300 by 2030, not least because it was one of Labour’s flagship promises.
A typical family forked out a wallet-busting £1,740 to heat and light their home last year, unsurprisingly making Labour’s promised £300 saving extremely meaningful for millions.
Indeed, for the many who have been struggling to pay their bills – two fifths of UK households fall into that category, according to charities – it’s the sort of incentive that wins votes.
However, Miliband’s promise of lower energy costs has been on the rocks for months as it becomes ever more apparent that far from being the solution to eye-watering bills, his green energy scramble is actually part of the problem.
Much to his embarrassment, Miliband’s pledge was given a thorough roasting in Parliament on Wednesday at the hands of folk who understand how the energy market works better than anyone.
As a slew of energy bosses queued to warn of higher bills, the hearing highlighted the absurdity of Labour’s vow to magically make bills more affordable by building yet more wind turbines.
The revelations from the stinging energy select committee session leave Miliband’s credibility in tatters – if it wasn’t already, of course.
Among the many marmalade-droppers to come out of the session was that from Rachel Fletcher, the director for regulation at Octopus Energy.
She said that, contrary to Miliband’s rash talk of lower bills, households are likely to be spending considerably more on energy by the end of the decade.
This isn’t because of those much maligned fossil fuels that Labour is attempting to eradicate at light speed either, but because of a slew of green policy costs that help to bankroll the Energy Secretary’s obsession with yet more renewables that the grid can’t cope with.
Almost comically, it turns out Miliband was right to be banding around a figure of £300, just not in the way he anticipated. Instead, that’s how much Octopus calculates will be added to bills in the coming years as a result of net zero-related charges, including green levies.
In fact, green levies are becoming so exorbitant that they threaten to push household bills higher, even if gas and power prices fall dramatically, MPs were warned.
This means that even if the wholesale cost of electricity halved, bills would still spike by around £150 overall, Fletcher claimed.
At which point, Miliband should have gone for a lie down in a field full of solar panels – at least, until the Government can find someone less likely to lead this country down the path to financial ruin.
Instead, the testimony was greeted by Miliband’s department with the sort of response that sounded like it came from a parallel universe or compiled by ChatGPT.
Dismissing the claims as nothing more than “speculation” – which they clearly weren’t – a spokesman trotted out the usual unfounded cut-and-paste propaganda that we are used to hearing by now: “The only way to bring down energy bills for good is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will get the UK off the roller-coaster of fossil fuel prices and onto clean, home-grown power that we control.”
It’s a stance that treats voters with contempt. Yes, an energy industry built on fossil fuels is intrinsically wired to display some level of resistance to a green revolution that requires an entirely new system to be constructed.
But to dismiss these concerns as nothing more than pure guesswork is plain wrong.
It’s not as if this were a bunch of frothing-at-the mouth oil and gas zealots out to trash renewables. On the contrary, “we completely support the decarbonisation of electricity”, Fletcher said.
True, bills are high because of the energy crunch triggered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine but that’s only part of the reason.
A big part of the increase is undeniably because households are being forced to shoulder the cost of upgrading a woefully underinvested grid that is in no fit shape to keep up with the pressures that Red Ed’s race to go green requires.
Massive upgrades are needed because we have a fanatical Government whose war on gas boilers and petrol cars means increasing numbers of electric vehicles and heat pumps are set to overwhelm the system further.
Labour is also offering extraordinarily generous price guarantees to new wind farm manufacturers, and we are all about to be landed with a huge bill for the construction of Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk.
And Fletcher also pointed out that the Government has allowed too many costs to be added into the mix without fully considering their cumulative impact.
As she neatly put it: “There is no budgetary control of this.”
Meanwhile, in case anyone thought this was normal, Simone Rossi, the boss of EDF’s UK arm, made the point that the cost of serving customers in Britain is roughly double that of France.
But Miliband won’t be deterred. At a time when concerns about Beijing’s threat to national security have never been greater, ministers, it seems, are okay with the Chinese building an armada of floating wind turbines off the Scottish coast.
Is nothing off limits in the pursuit of this green nirvana?
Well, not quite yet perhaps, but Ed Miliband’s pledge to bring down household energy bills is as good as dead after it was rubbished by some of the industry’s most influential figures in devastating fashion.
It seems set to join a growing list of unfulfilled, exaggerated and unachievable manifesto promises made by Labour in its desperate bid for power, whether that be a commitment to smash the boat gangs, targets on NHS waiting lists or welfare reform.
The party made scores of manifesto pledges, too many for the vast majority of voters to be able to keep count.
But for a whole host of reasons, everyone remembers Miliband’s guarantee to reduce energy bills by £300 by 2030, not least because it was one of Labour’s flagship promises.
A typical family forked out a wallet-busting £1,740 to heat and light their home last year, unsurprisingly making Labour’s promised £300 saving extremely meaningful for millions.
Indeed, for the many who have been struggling to pay their bills – two fifths of UK households fall into that category, according to charities – it’s the sort of incentive that wins votes.
However, Miliband’s promise of lower energy costs has been on the rocks for months as it becomes ever more apparent that far from being the solution to eye-watering bills, his green energy scramble is actually part of the problem.
Much to his embarrassment, Miliband’s pledge was given a thorough roasting in Parliament on Wednesday at the hands of folk who understand how the energy market works better than anyone.
As a slew of energy bosses queued to warn of higher bills, the hearing highlighted the absurdity of Labour’s vow to magically make bills more affordable by building yet more wind turbines.
The revelations from the stinging energy select committee session leave Miliband’s credibility in tatters – if it wasn’t already, of course.
Among the many marmalade-droppers to come out of the session was that from Rachel Fletcher, the director for regulation at Octopus Energy.
She said that, contrary to Miliband’s rash talk of lower bills, households are likely to be spending considerably more on energy by the end of the decade.
This isn’t because of those much maligned fossil fuels that Labour is attempting to eradicate at light speed either, but because of a slew of green policy costs that help to bankroll the Energy Secretary’s obsession with yet more renewables that the grid can’t cope with.
Almost comically, it turns out Miliband was right to be banding around a figure of £300, just not in the way he anticipated. Instead, that’s how much Octopus calculates will be added to bills in the coming years as a result of net zero-related charges, including green levies.
In fact, green levies are becoming so exorbitant that they threaten to push household bills higher, even if gas and power prices fall dramatically, MPs were warned.
This means that even if the wholesale cost of electricity halved, bills would still spike by around £150 overall, Fletcher claimed.
At which point, Miliband should have gone for a lie down in a field full of solar panels – at least, until the Government can find someone less likely to lead this country down the path to financial ruin.
Instead, the testimony was greeted by Miliband’s department with the sort of response that sounded like it came from a parallel universe or compiled by ChatGPT.
Dismissing the claims as nothing more than “speculation” – which they clearly weren’t – a spokesman trotted out the usual unfounded cut-and-paste propaganda that we are used to hearing by now: “The only way to bring down energy bills for good is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will get the UK off the roller-coaster of fossil fuel prices and onto clean, home-grown power that we control.”
It’s a stance that treats voters with contempt. Yes, an energy industry built on fossil fuels is intrinsically wired to display some level of resistance to a green revolution that requires an entirely new system to be constructed.
But to dismiss these concerns as nothing more than pure guesswork is plain wrong.
It’s not as if this were a bunch of frothing-at-the mouth oil and gas zealots out to trash renewables. On the contrary, “we completely support the decarbonisation of electricity”, Fletcher said.
True, bills are high because of the energy crunch triggered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine but that’s only part of the reason.
A big part of the increase is undeniably because households are being forced to shoulder the cost of upgrading a woefully underinvested grid that is in no fit shape to keep up with the pressures that Red Ed’s race to go green requires.
Massive upgrades are needed because we have a fanatical Government whose war on gas boilers and petrol cars means increasing numbers of electric vehicles and heat pumps are set to overwhelm the system further.
Labour is also offering extraordinarily generous price guarantees to new wind farm manufacturers, and we are all about to be landed with a huge bill for the construction of Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk.
And Fletcher also pointed out that the Government has allowed too many costs to be added into the mix without fully considering their cumulative impact.
As she neatly put it: “There is no budgetary control of this.”
Meanwhile, in case anyone thought this was normal, Simone Rossi, the boss of EDF’s UK arm, made the point that the cost of serving customers in Britain is roughly double that of France.
But Miliband won’t be deterred. At a time when concerns about Beijing’s threat to national security have never been greater, ministers, it seems, are okay with the Chinese building an armada of floating wind turbines off the Scottish coast.
Is nothing off limits in the pursuit of this green nirvana?
Now many of those companies called before the select committee don't own fossil fired power stations Octopus and Eon definitely don't and I can't remember if EdF still has any in the UK (maybe Cottam?) so we're not talking about the views of self interested fossil fired power generators. But if they think renewables obligations are going to put up prices by £300 and not reduce it by £300 that implausible claim from our beloved energy Secretary seems laughably dead.
edit:
The Indy via Bing https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/oth...ergy-firm-warns/ar-AA1Ox7Tt?ocid=BingNewsVerp
and the FT https://www.ft.com/content/c9655f38-1cbc-473e-9612-822041b3643c
for those with a Telegraph allergy
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Thanks for this!
Have signed up myself and looking forward to getting free electricity to cook my roast dinner every Sunday in November
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 12 Jul 2005
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- 21,676
- Location
- Aberlour, NE Scotland
Neither do I because they keep fobbing me off with bs answers or not replying to my emails. I have switched back to Octopus now as of last night but can't switch to Intelligent Go as they can't read my electric smart meter for some reason so I am going to have to charge the car at 32p per unit!! Maybe that was the problem with Tomato but they wouldn't tell me and certainly did bugger all about it in the 8 months I was with them. My final bill is going to be massive.
Do you know if you have a SMETS v1 or v2 smart meter? If you have a v1, push to get a v2 using the excuse of 3G being phased out if it helps sway them.
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Man of Honour
- Joined
- 12 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 21,676
- Location
- Aberlour, NE Scotland
Got a SMETS 2, Octopus had it fitted when I originally switched to them in 2023, looks like it's faulty now though. I will give Octopus a call tomorrow annd push to get it replaced, paying full price to charge the car is going to hurt!!
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 12 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 21,676
- Location
- Aberlour, NE Scotland
Luckily for me I just got a email from Octopus that from midnight tonight I will be on Intelligent Go so Octopus sorted a problem in two days that Tomato couldn't do in eight months!!
They haven't half hiked the prices though, still 7p per kWh off peak but 32.17p per kWh the rest of the time and 61p per day standing charge!! That's a lot more than I was paying before I left them at the begining of February. Cominng from Tomato this is going to hurt a hell of a lot.
They haven't half hiked the prices though, still 7p per kWh off peak but 32.17p per kWh the rest of the time and 61p per day standing charge!! That's a lot more than I was paying before I left them at the begining of February. Cominng from Tomato this is going to hurt a hell of a lot.
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Thanks for posting this, I might sign up.
I guess they get your usage data to sell on in return.
It looks as though Tomato Energy are barely clinging on:
Energy supplier with 12,000 customers faces collapsing into administration within days - The Sun
Energy supplier with 12,000 customers faces collapsing into administration within days - The Sun
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Man of Honour
- Joined
- 12 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 21,676
- Location
- Aberlour, NE Scotland
Going by that and the original 3 month warning from Ofcom they have lost 2000 customers in just over a month. Looks like I got out just in time. With a EV I can't afford to be stuck on someones SVR.
Soldato
- Joined
- 9 Nov 2005
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- 9,633
- Location
- Southampton, hopefully not too hot, or too cold
Finally joined the smart meter revolution, which also seems to have fixed our longstanding issue that allowed our storage heaters to use electricity outside of the cheaper Economy 7 night rate.