Energy Suppliers, Suppliers of Energy. Gas / Electric

I always looked forward to the Octopus meter lottery wheel of fortune

Did you ever win anything? Nothing but £0 for me so far.

Octopus were talking about introducing a tariff like this at one point, don't think it ever happened though.

My gas meter has gone dumb too btw. I'm with BG though so I've given up trying to get them to fix it.

Pretty often they only discover the painful issue when they get hit with some wild bill and it's too late.

You can see that your heating, tumble dryer, air con unit, mini heater, etc costs a load and use it less. You could have monitoring plugs on everything but if you're doing that you are probably already aware they cost a lot.

I think it’s closer than you think it might be. See the EV take up recently as an example of how things can change quickly.

Octopus and OVO are probably the two (maybe Eon Next?) that may well push for smart eligible tariffs given their background. Wouldn’t surprise me if we see a similar distinction as we see with DD vs PayG where suppliers give extra incentives to “go smart” as it’s a win both ways

You realise there are other solutions? If you’re smart meter IHD has gone but the meter itself works then you can get apps or your own display to show more info than the basic one.

I use the Loop Homes app to monitor usage on my phone, which replaces my smart meter by and large. Amazon also has a host of Zibgee displays, which (at least my) IHD uses as it’s communication method.

Probably says in the small print you can't win.

Pretty often they only discover the painful issue when they get hit with some wild bill and it's too late.

Too late for what? To pay the bill?

Most folks would argue that they should have enough money, or power should be cheap enough, that they are covered for pretty much any normal domestic situation. For the last 20 years or so, that's been pretty much entirely true. During that time, the 11bn they spent on smart meters could have been spent on subsidising power for the tiny proportion of folks who couldn't cover their domestic usage (for whatever reason, i.e. single parents with no job and eight kids or something).

You can see that your heating, tumble dryer, air con unit, mini heater, etc costs a load and use it less.

In this crazy world now, I suspect the folks who can afford to take some kind of action, are (predictably) the middle classes who can cover themselves anyway. The folks who are on the edges of poverty - they either cannot change their consumption due to necessity, or simply will not because they feel they shouldn't have to.

Obvs the rich give zero fucks about £kw -it’s just noise to them

Aye cos they are absolutely shite, I mean at least if they want to cut you off they dont need in anymore that's one of the positives for them.

E.on got in touch about my non metering smart gas meter, finally came to the conclusion they needed to send an engineer to have a look, offered me several dates that didn't work (I'm not losing a day's pay ), I sent them some dates that worked for me, and......total silence.

I won £1 once, was lovely to see that credited to my account!

Came here to post this… https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/10/octopus-ovo-energy-pay-to-cut-electricity-use/

might be of interest to those with octopus or ovo. I’m with octopus and it’s just a register your interest link at the mo. https://octopus.typeform.com/to/hRxQzEvV#ac=xxxxx

Needs a smart meter. I also have referral for octopus if anyone’s interested.

(a week late)

Yes, I'm aware of that. But a moniitor in the kitchen is a very useful thing; checking your phone is much less so.

Smart meter folks giving you bother? Just tell them it's over 2.2m up the wall and they'll take you off tge list. Ours genuinely is mounted "too high for the safety of our installation team" (also known as we ain't paying out of our budget to move your meter and consumer unit to a different room), but a few mates have sent photos of their reasonably high up meters and it's stopped the insane amount of letters email and automated phone calls.

Bulb are being acquired by Octopus.

https://bulb.co.uk/blog/bulb-update-for-members

Probably explains why Bulb have been neglecting anything other than just maintaining service recently.

Probably because they’ve been in receivership for the past year

Anyone had any luck with Octopus email support? They go on about how it’s the quickest way to contact them, average response of 1 hour etc but I’ve literally never had a reply from multiple different emails to hello@octopus.energy

Sorry you haven’t had a response. I’ve always had replies, ranging from the next day to about a week later. Only thing I can suggest if it’s been longer than that is to try the phone. I’ve always found them very quick and very helpful.

Twitter is far better than email, follow them and tweet them then they'll get you to slide into DM's ;)

Looks like the sale of Bulb to Octopus has ruffled some rival's feathers.

I was happy with the thought of moving to Octopus. Will be pissed off if the likes of EON and British Gas fuck things up.

This? https://www.cityam.com/octopus-pushes-for-bulb-deal-after-approval-delayed-by-rivals-intervention/

Thanks for mentioning this, interesting read.

Not sure what the reference to ringfencing credit balances is. Surely they aren't suggesting customers could lose those balances?

I imagine it’s “ringfence” in the sense of being protected from either the hedging support or profit sharing? I’d be astounded if the govt allowed these to not be protected…

So an update having read more on this (expect more news this week from OFGEM):

Currently customer balances aren’t ringfences. So if a supplier goes under its not guaranteed that these are kept separate from the wider company bank balance. Legislation now coming in so that these are ringfenced, in much the same way that FCA protects up to £80k of savings/bank deposits.

Interesting, cheers. Now you mention this I do have a vague memory of hearing it before and being surprised then too.

Did anyone else do the Octopus Saving Session the other day? Just checked my results - dropped our consumption by 29% for the hour which has saved me, er, 17p.