Energy Renewals

pauljames87

Journeyman Pro
Joined
Apr 1, 2016
Messages
19,217
Location
Havering
Visit site
Cheers for the positive outlook. I dont mind innovation but not if its at the cost of the "basics". Seemingly it isnt. :)

I can only go by what I've had..since I've been with them (I had a smet2 before I went to them) they proved it could read 30 min readings and I went straight onto a beta tariff for the car

They know when I use electric so if in the cheap slot I pay one rate and the other the day (a smarter eco 7 really)

But their agile tariff is live day by day based on wholesale costs

Before all this mess it was tempting to go onto it

During the peak times you would pay expensive to encourage to not use but overnight sometimes you were paid 4p a unit to use .. so you would be paid to fill your car or do your washing (or now fill my battery)

They have a gas tracker that's capped , not sure of the cap price ATM but on days like this I think people are paying like 4p a unit again because wholesale is cheap so their showers and cooking is low cost and when they are expensive they are protected by their cap which they agreed to

Last winter they did the big turn down, loads of tips to save energy, challenges to use less electric during 2 hour periods and if you completed them you got rewarded (20p here and there) but got you thinking about energy waste

If you used less gas then the previous year you were rewarded

I think I ended up with £20 which I was given choice to donate to people who couldn't afford their energy bills

To me I thought this is so much better than the usual
 

rulefan

Tour Winner
Joined
Feb 21, 2013
Messages
14,484
Visit site
Octopus is just introducing a new feature.
Electricity Saving Sessions.
They'll tell you about each Saving Session with as much notice as possible (ideally the day before) via email or app notification.
After a Session, they'll look at your smart meter readings to work out how much you saved.
Your OctoPoints will be added to your account within 14 days.


I was previously with Avro and owed about £40. Octopus said to just leave it and they would collect it sometime in the future.
 

pauljames87

Journeyman Pro
Joined
Apr 1, 2016
Messages
19,217
Location
Havering
Visit site
Octopus is just introducing a new feature.
Electricity Saving Sessions.
They'll tell you about each Saving Session with as much notice as possible (ideally the day before) via email or app notification.
After a Session, they'll look at your smart meter readings to work out how much you saved.
Your OctoPoints will be added to your account within 14 days.


I was previously with Avro and owed about £40. Octopus said to just leave it and they would collect it sometime in the future.

I signed up but because of battery I believe I won't get anything as my peak usage would be zero but doesn't hurt to sign up

Octopus have been championing this for years, at first the grid was offering 52p a kw if you reduced usage etc but octopus (and others) said it's not enough u need to properly incentivise people, now talks of £20 a kw think it was

All to avoid blackouts, if we as a nation spread our usage we can avoid any issues

Much like why they encourage EV charging at. Night with cheap rates because so much production from wind at night can't be stored so is wasted so if people use it it's better!
 

IainP

Occasional Player of Golf
Joined
Oct 26, 2011
Messages
5,399
Location
Oxfordshire
Visit site
Not exactly in line with the thread, but somewhat related. Believe there are a few heating oil users on here.
Just been online chatting with my electricity supplier - to see what they could tell me, as apparently the "help payment" will be in the form as credit to electricity bill.
The advisor confidently told me that it wasn't via them it is being paid direct to me, and I should check the website. I asked if they could share the link, and after they did I highlighted the bit that stated "credit to electricity bill." :LOL:
Anyway, seems the timelines still are not known. Think they just announced it is going from 100 to 200 or is that just in NI ?
 

fundy

Ryder Cup Winner
Joined
Aug 6, 2010
Messages
27,026
Location
Herts/Beds border
Visit site
Not exactly in line with the thread, but somewhat related. Believe there are a few heating oil users on here.
Just been online chatting with my electricity supplier - to see what they could tell me, as apparently the "help payment" will be in the form as credit to electricity bill.
The advisor confidently told me that it wasn't via them it is being paid direct to me, and I should check the website. I asked if they could share the link, and after they did I highlighted the bit that stated "credit to electricity bill." :LOL:
Anyway, seems the timelines still are not known. Think they just announced it is going from 100 to 200 or is that just in NI ?


It was announced as being done as a credit to electric bill because a lot buy (or could buy) heating oil from multiple suppliers so they couldnt work out how to restrict people to only getting one allowance by offering as a discount off the heating oil purchase.

Yes rising from £100 to 200 for this winter in all UK, details to be released soon (weve heard that before lol)
 

SwingsitlikeHogan

Major Champion
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
32,219
Visit site
My DD comes out on 1st, money went into my BG account today. No email nowt from BG as they are useless, have a major complaint with ofgem with them at moment.
We noticed yesterday that £66 for Nov hadn’t gone into our bank account…we’d got the Oct £66. Then spotted that our direct debit to BG had been cancelled…not something we’d done. Contacted BG and it turns out that in their move to a new system in October our DD had been dropped (I guess in the migration they cancelled existing DDs then set up new ones and they never set one up for us). That was why the Nov £66 didn’t go into our bank account - we had no DD set up - it came off our BG balance. Also meant that no Nov payment was requested so our debt goes up. Fortunatey no impact on Credit record as no claim was made so no failed claim.

I also had a whinge that my BG account online was indicating that my monthly payment was just fine to avoid not building up a debt to BG. And as could see I was already running a debt with them that was clearly not the case. They set up a new DD but it had to be double of my old one assuming the average usage cap. Painful.

Actually quite unbelievably hopeless by BG on the DD front. If with BG and pay by DD best check it’s not been cancelled.
 
Last edited:

IainP

Occasional Player of Golf
Joined
Oct 26, 2011
Messages
5,399
Location
Oxfordshire
Visit site
It was announced as being done as a credit to electric bill because a lot buy (or could buy) heating oil from multiple suppliers so they couldnt work out how to restrict people to only getting one allowance by offering as a discount off the heating oil purchase.

Yes rising from £100 to 200 for this winter in all UK, details to be released soon (weve heard that before lol)
Just to share, have now had comms from the leccy company saying they will be paying the £200 soon 🕑
 

ColchesterFC

Journeyman Pro
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
7,010
Visit site
Is anyone else obsessed with their smart meter daily totals? Mrs Colch has the app on her phone and is forever telling me stuff like "we're 12% up on our electricity usage compared to this day last month". To which my response is normally, "yes, but 11th January was a Wednesday and I was offshore so that's one less person in the house, plus I cooked brunch for us all and you've had the oven on most of the afternoon cooking cupcakes for the rugby match tomorrow". I thought getting a smart meter was a good idea but I'm starting to regret it now.
 

rulefan

Tour Winner
Joined
Feb 21, 2013
Messages
14,484
Visit site
Is anyone else obsessed with their smart meter daily totals? Mrs Colch has the app on her phone and is forever telling me stuff like "we're 12% up on our electricity usage compared to this day last month". To which my response is normally, "yes, but 11th January was a Wednesday and I was offshore so that's one less person in the house, plus I cooked brunch for us all and you've had the oven on most of the afternoon cooking cupcakes for the rugby match tomorrow". I thought getting a smart meter was a good idea but I'm starting to regret it now.
I was sent a 'homemini' from Octopus the other day. Tells me my consumption in real-time!!
It's now back in its box on a shelf in the Garage.
 

road2ruin

Q-School Graduate
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
2,285
Location
Surrey
Visit site
I was sent a 'homemini' from Octopus the other day. Tells me my consumption in real-time!!
It's now back in its box on a shelf in the Garage.

Very similar to me, in the early days I got a bit obsessed with our spend and working out what in the household was costing us etc. now I’ve just accepted that it’s £19 or so per day and I don’t want that screen staring at me rubbing it in.
 

SwingsitlikeHogan

Major Champion
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
32,219
Visit site
Is anyone else obsessed with their smart meter daily totals? Mrs Colch has the app on her phone and is forever telling me stuff like "we're 12% up on our electricity usage compared to this day last month". To which my response is normally, "yes, but 11th January was a Wednesday and I was offshore so that's one less person in the house, plus I cooked brunch for us all and you've had the oven on most of the afternoon cooking cupcakes for the rugby match tomorrow". I thought getting a smart meter was a good idea but I'm starting to regret it now.
Yes…my Mrs. She’s almost panicking over the daily cost as she knows that during the pandemic we were keeping our lad afloat by giving him £6/day for his prepaid metered gas and electricity as that was about what we were seeing for ourselves.

We’ve had some frankly quite ’wow’ moments over the last few months looking at our daily energy costs as our builders have quite often had to plug in their breaking hammers and big electric heater (just to stop themselves from freezing). I guess builders use of our power is just one of these things…and when it’s cold it goes up…though tbh the energy charge of £19.76 on the 7th Feb was a 😖 moment (though we also had heating on in our outside studio that day).

God only knows the worry and difficulties that our poorest are experiencing - especially those on prepaid metering as they watch their meter run down and out knowing that they have little or no money to top it up. And on that I have little or no time for the trite ‘solutions’ that too many put forward…but shan’t mention in expectation of an infraction.
 
Last edited:

nickjdavis

Head Pro
Joined
Jul 31, 2015
Messages
3,172
Visit site
Just got my notification as a Bulb customer today that my Octopus account was now ready and I can log in.

Positives....my current (positive) balance has been transferred over successfully; they will (once they've fixed a website bug) have copies of all my historical statements transferred over...and they also have a handy future "balance of account" predictor which is useful to see what they think your monthly balance will look like based on their predictions of your spend and the amounts you regularly pay....i modelled one for myself last year so nice to see I don't have to do this any more other than to sanity check what Octopus say.
 

ColchesterFC

Journeyman Pro
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
7,010
Visit site
Got to say that Mrs Colch is really liking being with Octopus - I assume that I am as well, but she deals with everything as it's easier when I'm away for her to do it. Their customer support has been fantastic so far in helping us try to deal with Outfox the Market who were our supplier when we bought the property and who have been unable to provide us with a correct final bill 4 months after we left them. Their app seems to be very good and the monthly estimated bill is updated daily based on previous usage for the month to date. Been very impressed with them so far and would highly recommend them to anyone looking for an energy supplier.
 

larmen

Head Pro
Joined
Nov 2, 2015
Messages
2,502
Visit site
1st bill from Octopuss has arrived. On the 15th. Don't they know what this is doing to my excel spreadsheet? Bulb used to invoice me on the 1st. That's how calendars work.
 
Top