Some people have already been doing that for the past decade or so, Of course now a lot more will be doing it, its starting to hit home.
Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
- Thread starter DXP55
- Start date
Who says your average usage is £155 on the current unit rates (including winter but not with the October rates) did you work it out? If so reduce it down. Or stop paying for guesstimate usage and go onto whole amount DD so you can't pay more than you owe.
Everyone needs to stop blaming the suppliers and take some responsibility.
Only the fixed deals are taking into account the increase in October. The standard rate (ofgem price cap) is only factoring in the April increase.
Also the £400 is not being factored in same reason the Warm home discount is not.
People just like to have a bit of a moan and don't like to take any responsibility. Big bad companys and all that even though residential customers are not profitable for any energy company
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Soldato
Now or before? In any case you can blame the government and regulator Ofgem for that, they set the policies which opened up the market to competition and they decided on the criteria by which new retailers could enter the market.
Hasn't been profitable ever as far as I'm aware. I think EDF made a small profit years ago once but it was about 2 percent or something low, I think it was even lower under 1%, I just know it was something stupid. The profits they are allowed to make are also regulated to very low amounts. Its why small energy companies go bust as they can't pull money from other areas to offset the cost of residential (while also offering stupidly low prices to draw people in that cannot be sustained)
When Npower went under no one wanted to buy it because it came with the condition that whoever bought it would also take the residential customers. Even though the SME (business) side of things was very profitable it took a while for an agreement with EON as residential was bleeding money. Business customers is where the money is.
But yes its the government and ofgems fault entirely.
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Soldato
This is pretty much what i said several posts ago. When Eon bought npower they only wanted SME and HH business but ofgem basically forced the condition that we had to take residential too. As i said several posts back there is no money in residential unless you operate with a huge customer base as the profits per customer is stupidly lol. Most the profit is from business' and half hourly supplies.
Interesting Octopus wasnt named, their current prediction for my annual electric costs is 10k units a year, which is over 4x my actual usage, this of course led them to try and massively increase my DD wrongly. apparently the software assumes you use much more in winter as well, so those who dont will end up with credit balances all year round that gradually creep up year on year as it doesnt detect its getting it wrong.
Haha my boiler usually needs an engineer callout to relight it and has been instances a trained engineer needed an hour to get it lit again, so routinely killing the mains (dont know how to do that anyway) and then relighting it would be problematic, plus the boiler is in a horrible to access location. If it was easy though I would be for sure doing that. The engineer when he did the first safety check he tried to get the boiler moved, but the LL wont pay for anything unless its a legal obligation.
The issue is so many people dont understand energy billing, they look at the DD amount and thats it, they dont understand units, unit rates, SC charges etc. all they care about is what they pay each month, so when these providers charge too much they dont know how to handle it. They ring up and get told it is what it is because costs are going up, its those who know they actually been overbilled because they know their actual usage who manage to get it corrected.
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Mar 2013
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- 9,237
What's crazy is that if they make more from companies, as my place renewed recently and is only paying 17p a kwh, so they get massive discounts.
I dunno how much comes from triad periods - during a triad period it can cost like £40 to boil a kettle at work regardless of what the negotiated rate is :s
Soldato
British gas just did my quarterly review and put my DD down
We are trying to use a little less energy so they seem quite accurate in their estimating
We are trying to use a little less energy so they seem quite accurate in their estimating
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Nov 2007
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- 4,176
I meant my average usage since the April price hike (and no central heating on) is £155. We have a smart meter, our bills range between £150-160 at the moment. We have no intention of reducing our usage.
I also haven't complained about the DD, I was just mentioning it for reference and I'm happy to let them mess about with it as I'm curious to see what they're doing. If it ever becomes an issue, I can of course manually adjust it online.
Soldato
Here's some nightmare fuel. I manage my elderly fathers utilities online for him and his fixed prices ends on 8th August.
These are his current rates
This is a 1 of the 2 (the worst of the 2 by far) 1 year fixes i can renew him onto...
These are his current rates
This is a 1 of the 2 (the worst of the 2 by far) 1 year fixes i can renew him onto...
Soldato
Will these companies be as quick to reduce the prices as they are to increase them?
I very much doubt it (unless OFGEM force them by reducing the cap every 3 months)
I very much doubt it (unless OFGEM force them by reducing the cap every 3 months)
Soldato
I've just locked him in at 44.51p elec and 11.36p Gas for another year which by my calculations is just under the 64% projected increase in October. Fortunately he has a sizeable credit on his account and with the £400 from the gov in october/november i've roughly calculated the overall impact on what he will be paying is £1 extra per day for the next year so he's happy with that.