Energy Suppliers

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I think the complete list of Elec tariffs is :
Agile, highly volatile market tracking 30 min priced tariff, will normally work out decently below standard especially if you can keep usage low between 4-7pm
Flux, solar based tariff but its probably not worth it with a small solar array, especially if no batteries (although its really a comparison of usage to generation)
Go, EV focussed tariff with a cheap period over night, suits solar if you have batteries to charge, especially in the winter, might be some barriers to entry (views vary)
Intelligent, specific EV tariff like Go but needs specific equipment to join
Flexible, their standard tariff in effect
Cosy, heatpump focussed tariff with 2 windows of cheaper units, needs a heatpump to join

Gas;
Flexible, as above
Tracker, tracks market daily but has a queue to get onto
Click to expand...

Thanks for this write up, think i'll sign up. Move to agile, get a smart meter, get on the list for the home mini
 
Switched to Octopus.

Had the call from BG the next day to ask why I was leaving. They offered me £150 to stay and I said no. Got £50 from a neighbour referring me anyway

Went through the reasons:
  • 18+ Months to get a smart meter fixed after BG took over my contract (other supplier went out of business). Called once a month for 18 months and finally got fed up. He was shocked but then they're paid to be sypathetic at that stage
  • Explained Octopus had better billing, granularity, APIs, the home mini
basically they were getting left behind in all areas
 
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Vanilla said:
Switched to Octopus.

Had the call from BG the next day to ask why I was leaving. They offered me £150 to stay and I said no. Got £50 from a neighbour referring me anyway

Went through the reasons:
  • 18+ Months to get a smart meter fixed after BG took over my contract (other supplier went out of business). Called once a month for 18 months and finally got fed up. He was shocked but then they're paid to be sypathetic at that stage
  • Explained Octopus had better billing, granularity, APIs, the home mini
basically they were getting left behind in all areas
Click to expand...

They are getting worried (they being the old school energy providers)

I really hope they sort themselves out and look at what makes people want to move to Octopus
- the customer service
- the tariffs
 
Octopus confirmed my gen1 smart meters don't work.

So they are coming to replace them with gen2, this Friday.

I can't do this Friday, so will have to postpone, but wow, what a response. In contrast, BG sat on it making excuses and promising they'd get the old ones working.
 
Vanilla said:
Switched to Octopus.

Had the call from BG the next day to ask why I was leaving. They offered me £150 to stay and I said no. Got £50 from a neighbour referring me anyway

Went through the reasons:
  • 18+ Months to get a smart meter fixed after BG took over my contract (other supplier went out of business). Called once a month for 18 months and finally got fed up. He was shocked but then they're paid to be sypathetic at that stage
  • Explained Octopus had better billing, granularity, APIs, the home mini
basically they were getting left behind in all areas
Click to expand...
That's good to know. EON are messing me around something rotten. Promised me a tariff, then said no, then said yes but put me on a 1 year fix with 150 exit fees! No customer service at all.
 
presumably - the EON smart meter monthly reporting of readings was broken for him, as opposed to just the IHD capability, for which I thought there was no obligation for companies to ensure functionality after changing supplier.

Home mini - it's still a gimped product, octopus could have just unlocked the CAD capability in their IHD's so that you could (like Bulb did 4 years ago) get integration into home asssistant to monitor AND RECORD real time electricity reading, presumably they didn't want to kill the market for other 3rd party products (Hildebrand, and chameleon cad purchased directly £50)
as soon as they fix that I'll get them to install a smart meter; but OK I'd save £10/month on Tracker, so would quickly pay for that CAD functionality.
 
danlightbulb said:
Octopus confirmed my gen1 smart meters don't work.

So they are coming to replace them with gen2, this Friday.

I can't do this Friday, so will have to postpone, but wow, what a response. In contrast, BG sat on it making excuses and promising they'd get the old ones working.
Click to expand...
To be fair Octopus were great sorting my meters out.
Took them about 5 visits though, but ended up with some expensive version of the meters because the normal ones didn't have good enough range. Been fine since.
 
I will need to decide whether to go on the Agile tariff for electricity and gas tracker.

It seems that the unit rates are consistently cheaper than the price cap. But there is a risk that won't be the case as we approach winter. Also MSE has an article which says on average the rates are only 4% cheaper.

4% isn't worth it for the risk, so how much cost could I actually avoid on these tariffs?
 
danlightbulb said:
I will need to decide whether to go on the Agile tariff for electricity and gas tracker.

It seems that the unit rates are consistently cheaper than the price cap. But there is a risk that won't be the case as we approach winter. Also MSE has an article which says on average the rates are only 4% cheaper.

4% isn't worth it for the risk, so how much cost could I actually avoid on these tariffs?
Click to expand...

Agile was for the last year or so tracking the price cap far more closely than historically.
There are places around that you can download the history, I would do that and have a look.
Its also not fixed, so should it end up being a bad call you can drop to the normal tariff pretty easily.

Its got some risk, but IMO it is pretty low since your not locked in and can leave at any time fee free.
 
so they have made some octopus mini integration into Home assistant now - that's not bad.
just need an AI system to deduce the signature of various electrical devices in the home

 
I just switched to Octopus from Shell. It took 2 days and now I'm on the Agile tariff. Time will tell how that works for us. We have a fairly high background usage (250w), so it should help us.
 
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danlightbulb said:
Octopus confirmed my gen1 smart meters don't work.

So they are coming to replace them with gen2, this Friday.

I can't do this Friday, so will have to postpone, but wow, what a response. In contrast, BG sat on it making excuses and promising they'd get the old ones working.
Click to expand...
Looks like I might need to move provider for the same reason. My Gen1 hasn't worked for 18 months and E.on keep telling me they will fix it when they're "next in the area". They obviously don't come to Yorkshire very often!
 
Sorry if there’s a more appropriate thread for this, I couldn’t find one.

EDF provides me with an energy breakdown in the app, letting me know what I use the most electricity on. Over the last 31 days, it seems I’ve used £30 for cooking, and £27 on laundry, along with £2 on lighting etc. My question is how the hell can it know? Are these just guesses?
 
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