Energy Suppliers

MartinPrince said:
Tomato Energy billing was regularly as clockwork for me. I paid my last bill on 24th Oct.

I'm hoping it goes as smooth as the last time I was with a supplier that ceased trading.

What tariff did you move back to on Octopus?
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Intelligent Go. The night rate is still 7p but they daytime rate has increased to 32.17p perkWh and SC to 61p per day since I was last on it before the switch to Tomato at the begining of February. Tomato was a nightmare for me, they never took a monthly direct debit and no monthly billing. The only time they took money from me was in June after months of me complaining when they took three payments in one go. Since then and despite more complaining they haven't taken a single penny and even stopped responding to my emails. Even phoning them they kept trying to fob me off saying there was a problem with my meter and they couldn't get the data from it. My Watts has never shown my usage either so the final bill is going to hurt, a lot!! The thing is that when I switched back to Octopus the first day no data was showing for me yet the second day everything worked as normal. If there was a problem how come Octopus was able to sort it in a day and a bit when Tomato couldn't do anything in eight months? Terrible customer service but the price was fanstastic. Switching back to Octopus was not a good experience with their prices and they were the cheaper option for me.
 
pastymuncher said:
Intelligent Go. The night rate is still 7p but they daytime rate has increased to 32.17p perkWh and SC to 61p per day since I was last on it before the switch to Tomato at the begining of February. Tomato was a nightmare for me, they never took a monthly direct debit and no monthly billing. The only time they took money from me was in June after months of me complaining when they took three payments in one go. Since then and despite more complaining they haven't taken a single penny and even stopped responding to my emails. Even phoning them they kept trying to fob me off saying there was a problem with my meter and they couldn't get the data from it. My Watts has never shown my usage either so the final bill is going to hurt, a lot!! The thing is that when I switched back to Octopus the first day no data was showing for me yet the second day everything worked as normal. If there was a problem how come Octopus was able to sort it in a day and a bit when Tomato couldn't do anything in eight months? Terrible customer service but the price was fanstastic. Switching back to Octopus was not a good experience with their prices and they were the cheaper option for me.
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Ouch 32p daytime seems steep!
 
Now we've got solar and a battery - just looking at at tariff options, we're with EON. We're currently on Next Flex @ 25.63 p/kWh 46.06 p/day.

Next Smart Saver looks like the most likely option:
  • 37.05p/kWh Peak (16:00 - 19:00)
  • 20.94p/kWh Off Peak (05:00 - 16:00) (19:00 - 02:00)
  • 16.03p/kWh Super Off Peak (02:00 - 05:00)
  • 49.04p/day standing charge
Standing charge is more but that's less than £11 per year. That should work cheaper.
 
Octopus go, 8.5p for 5 hours every night. 29ish day rate, standing charge is similar.

You ‘need’ an EV, there are no checks - do with that information as you see fit.
 
Yes, TE was great whilst it lasted. The night rate was excellent. I jumped ship recently, as I read the writing was on the wall.

.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Its 29p if you dont fix for 12 months.

edit 31.6p if you to - in my area of course.
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Despite being surrounded by windfarms we have some of the highest energy prices in the UK here. :(

embalse said:
Yes, TE was great whilst it lasted. The night rate was excellent. I jumped ship recently, as I read the writing was on the wall.

.
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Ditto, I switched back to Octopus and oh boy did it hurt!!
 
And the energy cap has oddly gone up again (only slightly) even though wholesale prices have gone down

The reasons have been explained but I still feel we are being taken for fools somewhere

One odd reason was that we are using a lot of energy ?
 
Again another penny or so on the standing charges for electricity and gas. This is up to £340 per year in our area. Its about 20% of the average dual-fuel bill now.

It seems to creep up every quarter.
 
Buckster said:
And the energy cap has oddly gone up again (only slightly) even though wholesale prices have gone down

The reasons have been explained but I still feel we are being taken for fools somewhere

One odd reason was that we are using a lot of energy ?
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Its all become more complicated now.

Originally SC shot up to pay for the Ofgem decision to not secure credit balances. So the companies that went bust, the money had to be recovered.
This of course normalised higher rates of SC, some people on here warned about it and predicted it, so Ofgem ended up putting more stuff on to energy bills or moving stuff from unit rate to zero usage.

Fast forward to today, you have write down costs for consumer energy debt, you have the situation where we need to fund an urgent grid upgrade, and of course the owner of the grid wont do it themselves, so its going to be subsidised, we pay the wind farms to run even if their energy is not being consumed as their contracts give them that assurance, there is costs associated with green energy although as I understand it these temporarily will be moved to general taxation, but not a permanent decision, the costs of other political polices such as the warm home discount and insulation schemes, margin allowances have been increased to prevent more suppliers from leaving the market, and it also pays for smart meters, there is probably more I have not mentioned.
Also the political decision to pay extremely high rates for energy during busy periods instead of doing rolling black outs.
 
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I ended up sticking with Octopus fixed, I dont understand why the prices are more when the market prices have come down.
Any ideas ?
 
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2013 said:
I ended up sticking with Octopus fixed, I dont understand why the prices are more when the market prices have come down.
Any ideas ?
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It’s explained on the ofgem website.

Basically, energy debts are really high so they are writing them off via standing charges for some people (yes that means you who pays your bills are paying for others who don’t).

Sizewell C financing is getting added to standing charges - that’s quite chunky.

Big grid upgrades going on all over the country both electric and gas because it’s not been allowed to keep up with requirements - you are paying for this now.

Warm homes discount (for very people with low incomes) costs are increasing also, the costs get passed on to you.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
It’s explained on the ofgem website.

Basically, energy debts are really high so they are writing them off via standing charges for some people (yes that means you who pays your bills are paying for others who don’t).

Sizewell C financing is getting added to standing charges - that’s quite chunky.

Big grid upgrades going on all over the country both electric and gas because it’s not been allowed to keep up with requirements - you are paying for this now.

Warm homes discount (for very people with low incomes) costs are increasing also, the costs get passed on to you.
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So in basic terms they are screwing us, when the prices are high and when they are low, you can't win, the only winners are the suppliers.

b0rn2sk8 said:
Sizewell C financing is getting added to standing charges - that’s quite chunky.
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Should the gov not be paying for this project ? its already been added to our tax bill.

b0rn2sk8 said:
Big grid upgrades going on all over the country both electric and gas because it’s not been allowed to keep up with requirements - you are paying for this now.
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Should this not be paid by the suppliers ? they made a good chunk off of us already.
 
2013 said:
So in basic terms they are screwing us, when the prices are high and when they are low, you can't win, the only winners are the suppliers.
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Wholesale prices are not what I would describe as low, they are slightly lower but it’s still relatively high compared to elsewhere.
2013 said:
Should the gov not be paying for this project ? its already been added to our tax bill.
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Its not being funded out of taxation, its being funded via the standing charges.
2013 said:
Should this not be paid by the suppliers ? they made a good chunk off of us already.
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Nope. When thatcher privatised the energy networks, their remit was it maintain the network, not improve it. Any improvements or new connections have to be paid for by whoever wants them. It’s sort of Symantec’s anyway because even if they were required to improve the network, any costs would just be passed through to consumers anyway via network charges. They effectively run on a fixed profit model with some efficiency targets to meet to achieve that fixed profit.
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Noticed Octopus did a little vid (they seem to be doing these more recently) in regards what are their payment options.
Worth dropping in here i thought

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Some interesting videos on there, just had a look at the zero bills concept.

The question of course still remains in that are all these Octopus products self funding, within the project/tariff itself, or are they are cross subsidising. The CEO even mentioned he is aware of people putting all their daily home usage in GO off peak, and that has to be accounted for across the tariff designs, but didnt clearly state if it's only subbed from others on the tariff (by that I also mean from Octopus partners related to the tariff), or from people on other tariffs.
 
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