Yeah, my EDF fixed deal just ended. Gone from £190/month to £225/month, so not too bad at the minute. The new fixed deals they offered were around £400/month which gives an idea of where they think prices are headed once the cap is lifted in April. Privatisation of utilities really is an utter sh!tshow.
stumpy, we were at £163 with AVRO, we were due to renew when they went bump, our renewal would have seen us go up £80 A month anyway, you would have seen a massive hike at some point either way. Reminds me I must check to see if we've fully moved to Octopus yet, last time I checked we else had gas hadn't and the AVRO DDs are still going out.
Privatisation of utilities really is an utter sh!tshow.
Whilst it seems that way now, it served the final consumer very well for the best part of 30 years, energy prices in the UK were very moderate and supplier margins pretty tight compared to other markets. But that's just it, it was designed as a market, which was also constrained by successive governments, (or their regulators) unfortunately external influences can't be constrained in the same way so it's now exploded.
Although I work in the industry, I don't think it should have been privatised and would would be happy if it was all taken back into the public domain.
But most of them aren't suppliers are they? They are market speculators dressed up as suppliers. They don't produce anything or own any infrastructure.
As usual it kind of works ok in the good times then falls apart at the slightest hint of stress, leaving the taxpayer carrying the can.
They weren't suppliers, they were speculative chancers.
A casual look at history and/or other parts of the world shows that energy supply is a strategic material and economic necessity, not the plaything for a bunch of cityboy tossers.
stumpyjon
stumpy, we were at £163 with AVRO, we were due to renew when they went bump, our renewal would have seen us go up £80 A month anyway, you would have seen a massive hike at some point either way.
I guess so, but we've lived here for 10 years & been with perhaps 4 different suppliers in that time. We have never paid over £100/month & we have never had a massive bill at the end of a contract when we make a switch. I think Avro was about £8/month more than whoever we were with before.
The previous payment amount with Avro seemed in line with what we've been paying for the last decade, so it's not like we've been building up a massive bill by way of underpaying on the DD.
not the plaything for a bunch of cityboy tossers.
It isn't cityboy tossers going bust but small mom and pop operators who for some insane reason were given licenses to run energy supply companies, without any due diligence process. Your cityboy tossers would have properly hedged against price rises. Some of the collapsed suppliers were run out of spare bedrooms!
I've still heard zilch from shell since my initial, 'hello, as an ex green customer weve picked you up' message. green went ....err...early september. had my final statement from green last week and confirmation my credit balance will be/is transfered. if shell take a dd then i'll cancel it ...that'll gt them on the phone i reckon
@robola @BaronVonP7 I didn't say it wasn't a crap system - I said that for 30 years the end users did OK out of it!
As usual it kind of works ok in the good times then falls apart at the slightest hint of stress, leaving the taxpayer carrying the can
Also agreed, and with the Baron's point about it being a strategic, economic necessity. As I said, I'd happily work in a nationalised industry that's run for the benefit of the country and not shareholders, (er - also me!)
I’ve still heard zilch from shell since my initial, ‘hello, as an ex green customer weve picked you up’ message. green went ….err…early september. had my final statement from green last week and confirmation my credit balance will be/is transfered. if shell take a dd then i’ll cancel it …that’ll gt them on the phone i reckon
pretty much the same here, had my final green balance and about £260 in credit. it seems to have been a month or two since green went under (feels that way anyway) and ive kept the DD going as advised by moneysavingexpert, but i must admit im tempted to cancel it rather than just keep paying £90 per month to a dead company.....
Are insolvent companies allowed to keep taking payment ?
I cancelled my DD to Igloo energy & have gone one month without paying anyone until being given details of how to set up one to my new supplier EON and they say l'm £40.81 in credit !
I of course couldn't condone it but we had a long period where I was reading the meter wrong and vastly underpaying... No one checked on it. It's been a while since I had my eyes checked, I wonder if I should have them done after utility prices calm down a bit.
SoLR for Zog will be EDF who were my previous SoLR for Green Network Energy.
Are insolvent companies allowed to keep taking payment ?
If the payment is for services already provided then yes, you still owe them the money..
When our supplier (GB Energy) went bust a few years back, the DDs continued for a bit but it all seamlessly trasnferred over to a new supplier with no loss of money.
pretty much the same here, had my final green balance and about £260 in credit. it seems to have been a month or two since green went under (feels that way anyway) and ive kept the DD going as advised by moneysavingexpert, but i must admit im tempted to cancel it rather than just keep paying £90 per month to a dead company….
Same here with Shell. I'm not so trusting regarding the direct debits, cancelled both the day avro and green went bust (I was mid switch when they both went bust on the same day, ffs) it's looking like my gas supply hadn't switched so it's off to shell but my electricity supply had completed so it's now with octopus.
I've set up the direct debit with octopus as I've been given account information, tariffs etc. So far heard nothing from Shell so they get nothing 😀
Still no update from my move from Avro to Octopus, still waiting for a final bill from the administrators apparently.
Just got stuff through from EDF (I was with Zog). Pretty slick trasnfer it seems, although prices have gone from 2.34p to 4.2p per unit, and 16.8p/day to 30.8p/day. So pretty much doubled, and it will probably double again when the cap goes up 🙁
Expect to be paying around double once the cap is raised, add in the NI rise and rise in council tax (3%) the poo is going to hit the fan early next year.
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-12-09/household-energy-bills-set-to-rise-by-up-to-900-a-year-in-april
Still no update from my move from Avro to Octopus, still waiting for a final bill from the administrators apparently.
@stumpyjon
My account is setup with octopus and they're taking readings but no final bill or balance transferred over as yet, it'll come, Avro had nearly 600000 customers when they folded.
I just got my first bill from shell. Oouch!
At least they took it all from my credit balance and not the bank account, but ...oouch!
Got my final bill for AVRO now, about £15 in credit, not looking forward to the first Bill from Octopus.
We had a final bill from AVRO, just over £300 underpaid. We're currently £140 in credit with Octopus which is nice. One plus is that billing is more or less instantaneous from submitting meter readings.
Aye, much the same here, first actual bill in from Shell energy, and still 235 quid in credit. All ties in too, the carried over balance, and they've even taken a reading from my smart meter that n other supplier had been able to use for the last few years.
I just got my first bill from shell. Oouch!
At least they took it all from my credit balance and not the bank account, but …oouch!
same, ouch! £260 in credit on my final statement from green dated mid november, balance transferred to shell, first bill has wiped it out. i need to have a close look at closing and opening bills later and see where it all went.
My move from AVRO to Octopus happened 3-4 weeks ago. So far I'm impressed with Octopus. I registered my interest with Octopus in getting a smart meter and already I have an installation booked for early January.
Are smart meters a bit of a con? Has anyone made much change to their behaviour having had one fitted? Ours is a gen 1 so couldn't be read by our new supplier. All we really got was ANOTHER USB charger and a lump of unrecyclable plastic that sits in a draw. I know gen 2 are supposed to be better and can be read by more but all it seems to be doing is saving people walking into the cellar every month or so. Surely we don't need another gadget to tell us to turn gadget and lighting off.
Smart meters aren't about saving energy, that's just the line that has been used to get the public on-board. They have 2 main uses, removes the need for manual meter reading and more crucially going forward variable tariff rates. We have excess capacity in the grid at three in the morning, not so much at 6pm. They will want you to charge your car, dry your washing or run the dish washer off peak and will hike the peak price to drive behaviour.
Martin Lewis
@MartinSLewis
·
20h
Catastrophic latest energy estimate from @CornwallInsight
is price cap for someone on typical use will rise from £1,277/yr to £1,800 on 1 April, plus £100ish to cover failed firms.
Are smart meters a bit of a con? Has anyone made much change to their behaviour having had one fitted?
I've just had a solar array installed and will be getting battery storage next year so I need the smart meter to make use of time based tariffs and export guarantee.
Are smart meters a bit of a con?
It's a poor con if it is, coming round to your house and giving you free stuff.
I miss mine, I held off at the old house until they could guarantee a SMETS2 meter. Where I've moved to is a SMETS1 which, obviously, doesn't work. Moving furniture to ferret around on hands and knees with a torch between my teeth to take meter readings suddenly feels very 20th Century. Like, who do I need to fax them to?
Free? Paid for in our bills. The cock up of the rollout is apparently Ed Milliband's fault.
"By putting the onus on energy suppliers to install smart meters at their own expense, Ed Miliband made a rookie mistake. Unlike their name suggests, most energy suppliers have little to do with the infrastructure and engineering of getting gas and electricity from power stations into homes. They are nothing more than glorified billing companies with middlemen buying energy at the wholesale level to resell it to residential consumers.
It should be noted that many companies in retail energy struggle with just the basics: to bill customers accurately and provide a modicum of customer service.
You can clearly see why picking companies that often have a poor track record with their core services could be a recipe for disaster."
https://theswitch.co.uk/blog/technology/smart-meter-disadvantages
Tbh the instantaneous reading on the screen is a nonsense.
What is interesting when ploted over the solar output is the hourly usage that the ovo app gives me.
But yeah smart meters are a bit pointless until you need an export tariff ....in which case the free one from your provider is better than paying 250 quid plus fitting for a standalone unit
£500 bill. Just tapped in my reading to British gas.
17 days ago I had a balance of -£13. Alarming to say the least.
It’s a poor con if it is, coming round to your house and giving you free stuff.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, if you're not paying for it directly you're paying elsewhere.
Anyway, SMETS2 will be redundant soon since 2G and 3G networks are due to be shut down come 2030 or so. I'm sure all those otherwise serviceable meters will be recycled responsibly and not just end up as landfill.
more crucially going forward variable tariff rates. We have excess capacity in the grid at three in the morning, not so much at 6pm. They will want you to charge your car, dry your washing or run the dish washer off peak and will hike the peak price to drive behaviour.
Do you consider this a bad thing? Seems eminently sensible to me - both from an energy generator / supplier and also a customer POV. Having timers on big energy users would be pretty easy to implement. I don't care if my dishes get washed at 7pm or 4am - so long as I have a clean bowl for my cornflakes when I wake up...
It’s a poor con if it is, coming round to your house and giving you free stuff.
They're not free, the total cost is approx £11bn and paid for by domestic energy users. For very little benefit as well, not much evidence having one makes any significant reduction to energy bills long term. People get exicited for a week or two then just forget about them.
Edit: Plus as they're all made in China I suspect the UK has given the Chinese Army the capability to remotely disconnect all domestic energy users in the event of a confrontation.....
Smart meters would be great for my partner who absolutely refuses to read meters, signs up for tariffs at £10 month then wonders why suppliers increase monthly bills significantly to pay off the debt she's built up and gives a load of totally unnecessary grief to whichever poor victim she gets in the call centre. Would save a lot of stress and aggro all round if we had a smart meter that enabled the energy supplier to set the DD at the correct value.
Smart meters would be great for my partner who absolutely refuses to read meters, signs up for tariffs at £10 month then wonders why suppliers increase monthly bills significantly to pay off the debt she’s built up and gives a load of totally unnecessary grief to whichever poor victim she gets in the call centre. Would save a lot of stress and aggro all round if we had a smart meter that enabled the energy supplier to set the DD at the correct value.
Or, as an adult yourself, you could deal with all that. Crazy thought I know.
Bit difficult as the energy bill is in her name. My point wasn't really about us but the thousands of other people who do the same thing. - don't take/submit meter readings, sign up for cheap energy deal based on value of DD then get in a mess when the catch-up bills come in.
I got an email from shell yesterday to say they've transferred my DD mandate..... So using my credit balance want just them being nice. If they take a penny next month I'm on the phone to get my credit balance back.
My point wasn’t really about us but the thousands of other people who do the same thing. – don’t take/submit meter readings, sign up for cheap energy deal based on value of DD then get in a mess when the catch-up bills come in.
If this happens more than once....that's on the user
Sounds no different to loading up a credit card, paying the minimum payment each month and then wondering why you're £xxx in debt.
Sounds no different to loading up a credit card, paying the minimum payment each month and then wondering why you’re £xxx in debt.
Exactly . If it's not an education issue it's an ignorance issue.
