Energy Suppliers

Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,240
To what extent do you think the EPR reactors we are building are reliant on the Chinese? It's a French-German design.

China put up 33% of the money needed to build Hinkley. The other two are TBC at this point but probably less likely to have Chinese investment due to souring relations.
 
Don
Joined
7 Aug 2003
Posts
44,308
Location
Aberdeenshire
I would imagine most of the new start companies offering fixed rates the last year won’t have capital to absorb quadrupling of wholesale gas prices in the space of a year unless they’ve also got fixed price contracts with their own suppliers.
 
Associate
Joined
28 May 2004
Posts
2,317
Location
Southampton
E.on is still competitive for now, I just need my SoLR to hurry up and take over my supply so I can move again.

Just chosen one of their tariffs (E-on) to replace my Avro one that runs out on Oct 5th. Having to do the change myself, E-on account all setup, now just to cancel the Avro. Shame that bit isn't made easy to do online, not even a contact number for them. Sent an email and will follow up with live online chat tomorrow. Now the fun bit, getting the £275 back that I'm in credit with them as the muppets continuously refused to lower my monthly DD. I've not been impressed with them on that front and suspect the cancel / get money back bit could prove entertaining.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Mar 2004
Posts
15,779
Location
Fareham
Avro were generally fine but they billed me via DD even after I left them, and now owe me £110 odd after the final bill.

I then switched to UP, who died, and they also owe me some cash.

If Avro kick the bucket, I don't think my credit will automatically go anywhere, hopefully it's not just lost for good, but there isn't a new supplier to take it on. What happens to it in that case anyone?
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Mar 2004
Posts
15,779
Location
Fareham
The credit is transferred to the SoLR.

But in my case I am not with AVRO I left them, so the credit I have with UP will be transferred to EDF, but the credit with AVRO won't be sent to the new supplier they move to if they do go under, as I am not switching from them.

Edit - I read on the ofgem site and it says balance owed on closed accounts will be paid back by whoever the SOLR is, so if Avro do die and they moved to say Scottish Power, then I think Scottish Power would wind up owing me the money that Avro did, even if they give me no supply.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2015
Posts
12,621
Not sure what to do with mine currently fixed with EON till end of March

Offering 12 month fixed at 20p for electricity and 3.85p for gas which works out about 10 a month more than currently paying as paying 17

Not sure whether to refix as not too much more and could get worse but then have winter at higher new rate or wait till march and potentiay.bigger jump

Currently on 18.5 elec and 3.2 gas

The latest offer from EON from comparing rates mentionned in posts on here seems quite good

Thats very good compared to octopus, not sure why everyone is jumping to octopus.

This is what they offering me. About a 1.5 multiplier on electric and about 1.6 on gas.

Electricity
Daily standing charge 23.76p /day
Unit rate 23.77p /kWh
Exit fee £0
Gas
Daily standing charge 26.10p /day
Unit rate 5.61p /kWh
Exit fee £0

This is above the price cap, but I read the price cap only applies to variable rate tariffs, so it seems I would be best on a variable rate tariff capped by law, or do you guys think ofgem is about to rip that up?

Further edit, seems this cap cant be raised by law until April 2022. I think I am going to go with the variable option. The fixed usage option based on my current usage is above ofgem's cap theoretically. (problem been ofgem quote it by some pre defined usage level, they dont quote it per unit so most people wont know what their personal cap is).

⚡ Electricity
Daily standing charge 23.76p /day
Unit rate 19.74p /kWh
Exit fee £0
Gas
Daily standing charge 23.85p /day
Unit rate 3.76p /kWh
Exit fee £0
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
27 Mar 2013
Posts
9,149
I can understand nuclear as the alternative for electric, but sure gas is a case of you need gas. I'd imagine the vast majority of UK homes has gas central heating, so that's always going to be an issue (I'm being realistic as the population are suddenly going to get heatpumps fitted).
 
Commissario
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
33,023
Location
Panting like a fiend
I can understand nuclear as the alternative for electric, but sure gas is a case of you need gas. I'd imagine the vast majority of UK homes has gas central heating, so that's always going to be an issue (I'm being realistic as the population are suddenly going to get heatpumps fitted).
The problem is that at the moment we're using a lot of gas for general electrical capacity IIRC, if you had more nuclear you'd be using that as the baseline capacity and using far less coal/gas/oil as that could largely be put aside purely for peak demand, and in the case of gas the residential/business gas network.

We've had 40 odd years of successive governments putting off building new generating capacity because of things like "well something will come along" or "the company that is bidding on the contract wants us to guarantee a minimum price that is more than we pay at the moment"*, without wanting to sound too pessimistic, we're likely to be in a pretty pickle at the rate we're going as IIRC we've got a load of generating capacity that has gone offline for good, running on slim margins as it is, have more due to go offline and little in the way of reliable supply set to be built to replace it in time (especially if demand goes up due to an increase in electric cars...).



*Ignoring the fact that they wouldn't be wanting that for something like 10 years and the amount they wanted was less than was being paid for some other energy supplies, and that simple inflation would have almost certainly led to it being more than that.
 
Associate
Joined
5 Apr 2004
Posts
1,197
Not sure what to do with mine currently fixed with EON till end of March

Offering 12 month fixed at 20p for electricity and 3.85p for gas which works out about 10 a month more than currently paying as paying 17

Not sure whether to refix as not too much more and could get worse but then have winter at higher new rate or wait till march and potentiay.bigger jump

Currently on 18.5 elec and 3.2 gas

The latest offer from EON from comparing rates mentionned in posts on here seems quite good

Thanks, just set myself up to switch to eon from octopus. It was looking like my yearly was going to double to £3000 :eek::cry: with eon it should be around the £2000 or less if we're more sensible with gas heating.

£27 a month would be a dream. We're going to be using more than that per week.
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2009
Posts
2,633
Location
No where
The problem is that the North sea is shutting down, are own gas is getting harder and harder to produce.

33% of all gas into the UK last year came from Qatar via West Wales and what is happening at the moment is the ships are getting diverted mid journey to the countries willing to pay the bill.

We should have invested in shale gas or nuclear but that was NIMBY"d out of existence.
Wait until everyone has electric cars, black and brown outs for everyone when a couple of million electric cars are plugged in over night when we have the same situations.
Also those quoting using heat pumps, they don't work with existing radiators as the maximum temperature you can get is 45 degrees out of them, so you will need to either do underfloor heating or install air conditioning style units. The air only units become steadily less efficient as it gets colder to the point of it gets too cold they will switch off. The ground source heaters need a big garden or bore holes both of which are out of the reach of the poor population without government intervention.
 
Back
Top Bottom