Energy Suppliers

Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2010
Posts
6,277
I'm betting that many or perhaps even all of the smaller suppliers will end up going down the pan soon. Seeing three going in one week should at least be ringing alarm bells for people.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,320
Location
Birmingham
Only going to get worse - due to a fire one of the main interconnectors with France is offline. And once they get it back it’ll only be at 50% capacity until March.

Perfect storm brewing… wholesale prices were already through the roof and we import a lot of power from France.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2010
Posts
6,277
Only going to get worse - due to a fire one of the main interconnectors with France is offline. And once they get it back it’ll only be at 50% capacity until March.

Perfect storm brewing… wholesale prices were already through the roof and we import a lot of power from France.
Indeed I've just seen this posted on BBC News.

UK power prices soar after key cable hit by blaze - BBC News
A key electricity cable between Britain and France has been shut down, sending wholesale energy prices soaring.

National Grid said a fire and planned maintenance at a site near Ashford in Kent means the cable will be totally offline until 25 September.

Half of its capacity, or one gigawatt (GW) of power, is expected to remain unavailable until late March 2022.

On Wednesday, British electricity prices for the following day jumped by 19% to £475 per megawatt hour (MWh).
Oh joy. :(
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Jul 2003
Posts
9,595
Just have to hope we have a mild winter.

Such reliance on the French for power though, the shame. My great great great great great great great great great...... grandfather would be shaking his longbow in disapproval :p
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Nov 2006
Posts
2,940
Location
London
I just signed up to a fixed tariff with Utility Point last month for gas. They've just gone under which means I'll be moved to another provider once the administrator has done their job and I'll be stuffed on whatever rate I can get as it'll be peak prices!

Shows even if you switch early and fix at cheaper rates you can still get stuffed. My electricity has been fine so far although I'm with Symbio energy which are pretty bad, but I think that's just due to their different billing system.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Sep 2005
Posts
4,299
Mine is about to renew in Oct and checked prices yesterday. It was £45 pm which seemed very low as I'm paying around £86 currently but its now shot up to £75. I expect this is partly because my account is in credit though.
 
Caporegime
Joined
20 Jan 2005
Posts
45,621
Location
Co Durham
Someone talk to me about Octopus Go. I have an EV coming at the end of the month and this seems to be the most-recommended tariff.

I am currently with OVO and I have solar panels, but as far as I can see the main difference is their off-peak rates (between 00:30-04:30 - an ideal time to charge seeing as there's no sun ;)) but all other times they're about the same or more expensive. With solar, I've learned to side with tariffs with a lower standing charge as the generation takes care of 60% of my usage and I'd rather not pay through the nose on a standing charge when I'm not using it, which is another area they're higher than my current supplier but I digress.

The question I have: when you switch they put you on an interim tariff? Their website is definitely a dumpster fire in explaining the process, given I'd have to get gas separately :confused:

Many in here are talking about their agile plan... is this worth considering with an EV or not? I haven't looked in to it. FYI I don't have any battery backup.

I have just gone with Go. looked at the agile plan and you can download spreadsheets of the historic charge rates for your area for the last few years. Wow. Where I live there were some rate as high as 39p per kwh and never dropped below 20p per Kwh during the night. If I swapped to Agile my bill would more than double!

The Go rates are very competietive atm. I cant find any supplier who will quote as low as 15p per kwh atm, most are 19p and then you get those 4 hours at 5p per kwh.
 

fez

fez

Caporegime
Joined
22 Aug 2008
Posts
25,023
Location
Tunbridge Wells
Was going to try and explain this myself but I'll let someone else do it. From Reddit so pinch of salt and all that but plenty of people claiming to be in the industry in there agreeing with this post.

I am in the industry (edit: renewable generation not supply; thanks for the downvotes...) and wrote some replies in the inflation thread but realised this might be of general interest. The UK energy markets (both wholesale and retail, both electricity and gas) are currently going absolutely nuts. The last few days in particular have seen the highest day ahead electricity prices, some of the highest gas prices, and the highest electricity imbalance prices on record.

Gas prices are insane due to Russia/German regulators (under US pressure?) not yet approving and turning on the newly completed Nordstream II pipeline into Europe, exceptional LNG demand in Asia, and various other factors.

Electricity prices have been insane due to very low wind recently, and today a 2GW interconnector with France literally exploded, and more significantly, several smaller 'disruptive' electricity suppliers have gone bust due to terrible risk management, with more possibly on the way.

Several of these suppliers had NOT fully hedged their customers demand for the winter, something the bigger players all do as a matter of prudent risk management but something Ofgem in its infinite wisdom for some reason doesnt force all to do.

As a result, when these customers of defunct domestic suppliers are shunted to other better suppliers under the regulators' "supplier of last resort" program, the new suppliers have to place massive new forward hedges of gas and power prices for the winter to mitigate their risk, and this surge in demand is driving the market for the winter even more insane.

To give an idea of what all this means in practice for pricing, in a typical winter the wholesale price of electricity fluctuates between £50 and 90/MW. To lock in pricing for the winter 4 months today the cheapest hedges are closing at over £200/MW. This may go higher.

The short term and spot markets are also all over the place. Yesterday, to lock in prices for individual half hours around peak demand (5pm) today cost £1,500/MW (!!). Last Thursday, the 'imbalance' price of electricity (essentially the default price you pay if you havent bought in advance) hit £4,500/MWhr in one half hour settlement period. Normal for this time of year is £50ish.

While consumers arent exposed to these crazy fluctuations directly, as they become more common, suppliers will need to hedge more and more in advance to prudently manage their risk, and this demand for hedging drives up the cost which they WILL pass on to consumers.

Everyone on the demand side is panicking right now and honestly I think its going to get worse as more and more suppliers go bust.

Individual consumers cant do anything except plan to reduce demand as much as possible (insulation! LEDs! Heat pumps! Solar! Batteries!), and keep an eye on switching to a better supplier on a fixed rate as prices increase....but they will increase across the board and especially at the largest and the smallest providers. Mid-size providers may have fully hedged their demand and be able to support smaller price increases but will be reluctant to take on too many new customers as this will in turn require more hedging.

I should note that Ofgem imposes some price caps on the maximum consumers can be charged, currently £1,277 pa for a typical dual fuel home, however this may prove unsustainable and rise again, as it already did 2 weeks ago. There's also the fear that so much of the market will end up paying at the cap that suppliers won't be able to absorb or hedge the overage.

A very cold winter is expected. This is a perfect storm. Batten down the hatches.

So yeah, good times to come.

Oh and if anyone wants to depress themselves.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonal...perfect_storm_understanding_uk_energy_prices/
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

I have just gone with Go. looked at the agile plan and you can download spreadsheets of the historic charge rates for your area for the last few years. Wow. Where I live there were some rate as high as 39p per kwh and never dropped below 20p per Kwh during the night. If I swapped to Agile my bill would more than double!

The Go rates are very competietive atm. I cant find any supplier who will quote as low as 15p per kwh atm, most are 19p and then you get those 4 hours at 5p per kwh.
Thanks for the feedback.

What have you done with your gas tariff? My existing plan is very good but I can't get a gas-only plan with my existing supplier and the rates for Octopus seem high (for gas)?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Jun 2018
Posts
4,607
Location
Isle of Wight
I have just gone with Go. looked at the agile plan and you can download spreadsheets of the historic charge rates for your area for the last few years. Wow. Where I live there were some rate as high as 39p per kwh and never dropped below 20p per Kwh during the night. If I swapped to Agile my bill would more than double!

The Go rates are very competietive atm. I cant find any supplier who will quote as low as 15p per kwh atm, most are 19p and then you get those 4 hours at 5p per kwh.

Where did you get the historic spreadsheet data?
 
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