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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.
Bugger, just had my first bill from EON after Igloo went tits up - it's gone up from £56 to £121 & I've not been using the heating much as it's been mild.
So what's the best guess on how much energy prices will go up this year when the price cap is increased?
Currently on the SSE standard variable (long story of incredible incompetence that could really wind me up but life is too short) and been offered a 2 or 3 year fixed at about 30% higher than the current standard variable. Trying to work out if I should stick or twist. Will 30% increase look like a deal or just about what it will be anyway.
btw - this is leccy only as we're LPG/log burner for heat.
Martin Lewis has been saying the cap will rise 40+% However he also says stay on the standard variable tariff at the moment. Tbh, if the fee for early departure isn't massive then fixing in march before the new cap seems worthwhile to me.
I think the mild autumn and early winter has shielded us from some of the pain. Hope the market gets sorted out soon.
We are on a pretty low fixed tariff with Sainsburys at the moment. I’m going to try and invest in some things over the next year which will save on gas use. I can’t see I can do much more on electricity use as we already have all LED lights, and only have on otherwise things like fridge/routers/sky box etc.
I wasn’t going to get the Hive TRVs yet as they are quite spendy but a pack of 5 will enable a lot of switching off of rads at various parts of the day and I reckon I’d save the £150 cost pretty quickly as the prices jump up. My tariff ends Jan 2023.
My solar tracking app plots 30 Min spot pricing from octopus agile import/export tariff under my solar output
I did the maths last year based on the current 16-20p pricing and it was in favour of not having a battery installed.
I suspect it's tipped the other way now.....still a big loan to committ to on relatively infant technology.
Martin Lewis has been saying the cap will rise 40+%
I suspect the government will step in with a one off tax on gas companies to subsidise the price hike. A 40% rise in fuel costs will cost them the next election.
Tbh, if the fee for early departure isn’t massive then fixing in march before the new cap seems worthwhile to me.
But you won't get any decent fixed tarrifs in March if the wholesale prices are still high enough to mean a big cap increase. Its a catch 42 situation, as my nan once said.
My Octopus fixed tariff is up in Feb, currently paying £107/mo but they've offered me two deals
1/ Fixed for 12mo at £245/mo
2/ Because I've been with Octopus for a while, fix for 12mo at a special deal of £196/mo
Or go std variable at £128/mo.
Am I right in thinking if Martin Lewis is right then +40% on 128 is still better than both, or am I missing something entirely.
[3 bed '50's end of terrace with 4 of us living here so almost exactly their example family]
Another extra cost is £1.83bn which will be passed onto consumers to pay for the compenstation payments given to the suppliers who take on the customers of those suppliers who collapsed.
Then Bulb (special case) has already cost £1.7bn on it's own and rising to be kept going after folding...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59409595
We just had a Bulb email putting our monthly payment up. It’s gone from £123 to £191, so a £816 year rise and I’m expecting it to go up more in April. Flippin’ ‘eck.
We just had a Bulb email putting our monthly payment up. It’s gone from £123 to £191
Yeah, a 50% increase immediately is what I'm led to expect when my fixed price deal with Shell runs out at the end of January, with roughly the same again in April.
Now, how much do you think I can get away with inflating January's consumption by before they send someone round to check?
We had a message from Bulb a few days ago saying, loosely, "It looks like you've used £125 worth of gas and leccy in Dec, compared to your monthly payment of £86" So that suggests ours is shortly going the same way too, roughly 50% up. They're just softening me up for what I'm already expecting
My fix ends at the end of next month and will go up by 35% to SVR with a projected 40% minimum rise in April (bringing it to >90% total from where I am now)
Looking at another fix it seems I can fix at a total of 70% increase. Going 2 months early may cost me money but not fixing sounds like it could be worse. Stick or twist, hmm.
Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.
My annual consumption hardly changes, so it makes it quite easy to pop the unit prices into a spreadsheet and work out what my bills would be.
Additionally if you’ve already had a notification that you are using more than you are paying, get ahead of the curve and start paying more (unless of course you have die. The sums and know it will balance out in summer)
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…..
Nope, absolutely not. The level of security applied to the smets2 meters being rolled out currently is immense. They are well protected and the steps a supplier has to take to communicate with a meter leave no room for a mass takeover by another state.
We're currently over paying on our gas and electric from bulb but they still want to put it up because "based on this usage you'll be in debt come winter"... They are absolutely useless.
Additionally if you’ve already had a notification that you are using more than you are paying, get ahead of the curve and start paying more
No thanks. Unless you've real problems with budgeting it's never a good idea to hand over money before you have to. Especially to an energy company in the current market, though I suppose the ones we're left with are fairly unlikely to go bust while holding overpayments.
It’s gone from £123 to £191, so a £816 year rise and I’m expecting it to go up more in April. Flippin’ ‘eck.
Swalec put mine up from £54 to £108 last month despite me being in credit to the tune of £200. Pretty crazy considering I only have electric for everything! Currently arguing with them about dropping the DD amount and also getting the excess back too. Oh and they also switched me to Ovo at the end of December too, just to make things interesting 😠
No thanks. Unless you’ve real problems with budgeting it’s never a good idea to hand over money before you have to. Especially to an energy company in the current market, though I suppose the ones we’re left with are fairly unlikely to go bust while holding overpayments.
Read What he said again. Because your talking about something else entirely....
Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.
Just did, exactly the same figures, this is with my current supplier so I'd hope they were right. Good check though.
Already paying £300 per month (hot tub and 2 gaming PC's) but keeping an eye on bills/useage monthly.
Shell have asked for a meter reading so I guess they want to check my usage and not just base their DD setting on last year.
I turned down all the programmed temps by half a degree last night, I wonder how long it'll take my wife to notice 😀
Bulb actually emailed me to say I should reduce my monthly DD of £70 (current credit £211++) to something lower but I just let it be.
Normally, the total for both my electricity and gas together was under £70 even during the winter. My last bill (end December 2021) has gone up to £80.78. Same period in December 2020 was £52.80.
My current living room temp is 12C and bedroom temp is 8.6C at the moment. This is just a small flat with two rooms. My computer CPU temp is currently at 18c to max 25c that's how cold my living room is.
Went to one of my friend's house and it was 21c and his bill was more than £150/month but his is a bit house.
I normally WFH so I guess I need to keep warm by turning to office from now on ... I hate cold.
12 degrees is too low, you'll run the risk of damp and mould forming. My uncle is a real pennypincher and won't turn his thermostat above 10 degrees then wonders why his boiler keeps on failing every autumn when the temperatures drop. He's in a council bungalow so just gets them the fix/replace it every time. He's been warned about how he uses it and also had warnings for keeping the place too colf as he has damp issues but he refuses to accept he's causing the problems, it's always the council's fault and he expects them to fix it every time. Min you this is the same person who paid for broadband for over 2 years despite it being broken as he refused to let the engineer in to fix it, he didn't trust them to not nick anything!
12 degrees is too low, you’ll run the risk of damp and mould forming. My uncle is a real pennypincher and won’t turn his thermostat above 10 degrees then wonders why his boiler keeps on failing every autumn when the temperatures drop.
Hhhmmm ... I normally heat it up to 17c (temp never get above 18c even after heating for 2.5hr) but it takes about 2 hours a day to get to that level, and I only switch on the heating for two hours a day if I can. I have no neighbour on one side so that room is even colder. It looks like it's getting expensive for me.
Not sure if it is me but I can't seem to see any "vapour" coming out from the neighbour heating exhaust. Are they using central heating? The person above my flat never seem to switch on his central heating ...
Why are people suggesting paying more now to get ahead of the curve. Won't this just sit in their account and then just be charged at the higher rate anyway?
Why are people suggesting paying more now to get ahead of the curve. Won’t this just sit in their account and then just be charged at the higher rate anyway?
How do you pay otherwise?
I know when I first started with Bulb, I was minus (-ve) credit for 3 months then they kept asking me to increase my payment, so I did.
I turned down all the programmed temps by half a degree last night, I wonder how long it’ll take my wife to notice 😀
My Hive is great but for this. In the past when she wanted to fiddle with the controls, she had to go into the other room to do it. Now, she's on her phone or iPad perpetually anyway, and the first I know she's either turned it up or boosted it is when I start to sweat.
Even she was shocked by the new tariff offers (my post a week or so back) - I've told her she can afford a really nice new jumper if we can turn the heating down by 10%
yes, I can only assume what is meant is that if you start overpaying now then when prices increase you won't need to increase your monthly DD by as much as you already have credit. In essence a savings plan held by energy co; you could be saving it yourself but the tendency is that it looks like disposable income and hence gets disposed.
You won't get any extra power at the cheaper price though, you'd have to overegg your meter readings for that.
Or they are suggesting divide your years usage over 12 . Either that or you might as well just pay monthly when the direct debit bill comes in. Fwiw ovo offering a competitive interest rate on funds held on account.
I think what Andy is saying is to give higher false readings over the next few months until it goes up.. then slowly give lower ones over the 6 months after that..
Not sure how much it will save or how much you can get away with..
I thought that was the point of DD payments, certainly what i do. 'overpay' and build a buffer in summer, which then insulates the usage in winter.
Never been a problem with Octopus, I had to argue the toss over and over with Avro when i was with them - "you're overpaying .... / "No i'm not, it's July!
think what Andy is saying is to give higher false readings over the next few months until it goes up.. then slowly give lower ones over the 6 months after that..
Or by its other name.... Theft....
Worth it ? Maybe if your running a grow operation in the attic ....
ovwerpaying / going DD is just giving the energy companies a free loan.
I always looked at it as an end of year bonus, was nice to have a (semi) surprising few quid to claim back. One of the suppliers, though I can't remember which one, used to give 4% interest on positive balances!
ovwerpaying / going DD is just giving the energy companies a free loan.
Well yes but given (as evidenced by this thread) so many folk seem surprised when they set their payments up in summer and are asked to pay more in winter.
It's not overpaying if you have averaged your yearly usage out over the year it's balancing your costs through out the year.
And as pointed out above.... Pick wisely and you will actually do better than your bank interest in the UK...
Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.
We're with Octopus, you submit your readings monthly and get an updated statement about 10 mins later with your real balance etc.
Do you then sit and write a cheque for the pounds and pence and post it in ? Sorry I mean ammend your DD on a monthly basis ?
All seems a bit retro to avoid having a very small balance sitting ....(assuming you have an accurate yearly usage)
Since we got a smart meter it's even less hands on.... They draw down the balance on a daily basis ......maybe I should just put in the relevent amount each day to avoid giving them an interest free loan ? Put a penny in the meter style .
Do you then sit and write a cheque for the pounds and pence and post it in ? Sorry I mean ammend your DD on a monthly basis ?
The comment you replied to (assuming you meant the bit where you work out what you've used) was in relation to comparing tariffs when switching.
We were with British Gas before our recent house move and it was very simple to get direct debit discount without getting in credit - submit meter readings on the website, they email the bill a few days later and the dd was automatically adjusted so apart from submitting the reading we did nothing.
New house is ashp and with eon for the next few months so expecting a nightmare whilst things settle down and we learn consumption. First impressions of eon aren't great - useless website, customer services shut right through entire Christmas and New Year period and then only now open weekdays 9-5.
Yep, E.ON are useless.
Yep, E.ON are useless.
Yet still many times better than Scottish Power.
Now with octopus following the collapse of avro. They just advised me to up my DD from £94pcm to £110pcm. Based on my usage it needs to be nearer £150pcm....
Energy companies are truly awful at estimating usage, and I think deliberately (or at least knowingly err) under quote so customers end up in debt at any fixed term, so are unable to switch.
All they have to do is take the meter readings, and generate a bill. Billing is a core function so getting that right is surely something they should be able to do?
And don't get me started on their competence in dealing with economy 7 meters.... Every supplier I've ever used I've had to explain (in single syllables) the I do not want an economy 7 tariff, despite having an economy 7 meter. So much so I got a smart meter installed to solve the problem, that then wasn't then properly registered by the installer so I'm still having the same issue! I missed out on the last of the "cheap" fixed rates beforehand all this kicked off because of that.... Costing me hundreds of pounds in the long term.
@kiethb
Hanlon's razor.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
They're shutting because its all about money and its not coming in in big enough amounts, so easier to shut up shop and put their funds into something else.
They don't own the gas tubing, nor the wiring, nor any part of the infrastructure or even have tradesmen employed by them to carry out repairs. They effectively sit in an office and manage it all from there. Anything needs down they contract it out, which is probably the reason in the last powercut people had to wait over a week to get engineers out to sort it.
Massive thank you to the tories for privatizing the energy industry. It's been a complete failure.
Now with octopus following the collapse of avro. They just advised me to up my DD from £94pcm to £110pcm. Based on my usage it needs to be nearer £150pcm….
We've been with Octopus since we last switched (current deal ran out last month, yay) and have no complaints so far and no desire to change. They seem pretty on the ball with adjusting your DD to make sure you are never massively over/under in credit. They are also very open about your options and prices which is pretty worrying atm.
With prices set to shoot up again in April is there any chance of significant reductions later in the year? Don't know if I should fix on one of the eye watering tariffs to avoid even more pant wetting bills further down the line?
Energy companies are truly awful at estimating usage, and I think deliberately (or at least knowingly err) under quote so customers end up in debt at any fixed term, so are unable to switch.
I'd go with the opposite tbh, more money held by them means more cash on the books.
Crikey I’ve just been reading through this and checking my fixed tariff I’m on. It’s with Sainsburys so should be safe but from some other figures I’ve seen it seems I’ve got a very cheap deal - fixed for another 12 months.
Any guesses on if the prices will calm down a bit in the next 12 months?
https://imgur.com/a/S2O24Vv