Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Spanked or smug?

Spanked - my energy company will perish
9
38%
Smug - strong company, great nation
9
38%
Neither - Mummy pays for my electric
6
25%
 
Total votes: 24
Martin Phillp
Posts: 1469
Joined: Wed 11 May, 2011 01.28

all new Phil wrote: Wed 22 Sep, 2021 21.51 I’m not really sure if I’ll be getting spanked in all honesty. I’m with Ovo and have been since I moved at the beginning of the year. Despite moving from a 1 bedroom flat to a 2 bedroom house I’m paying significantly less than I was. Is it not the case that the wholesale price rises won’t filter through until a few months into next year? I don’t really understand.
To borrow a chart from the Daily Mail, Ovo is one of the four challenger brands to the Big Six, so should be safer than one of the many smaller utility companies showed below.

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TVF's London Lite.
scottishtv
Posts: 743
Joined: Thu 01 Apr, 2004 15.36
Location: Edinburgh

Hate to be the nerd here, but SSE's retail business was sold to OVO, they just haven't got round to rebranding it yet. SSE decided to stick to generation and distribution only, so OVO is really one of the big suppliers now.

Same with NPower, their supply business is now part of E.ON and everyone from both companies is being moved to across to something they are calling E.ON Next.

If they'd finished sorting their mergers, acquisitions and branding out, there's really a Big Five now:

- British Gas
- E.ON Next
- ScottishPower
- OVO Energy
- EDF Energy
Jonny
Posts: 60
Joined: Mon 02 Nov, 2009 09.42

Martin Phillp wrote: Thu 23 Sep, 2021 00.35To borrow a chart from the Daily Mail, Ovo is one of the four challenger brands to the Big Six, so should be safer than one of the many smaller utility companies showed below.

Image
As well as the branding and categorisation errors pointed out above, some superb shatliffing on display there.

The bottom rung is slightly misleading - eg M&S (Octopus) and Sainsbury's (Eon Next) are just licensed names.
thegeek
Posts: 858
Joined: Sat 04 Jun, 2005 12.35

Also why are SSE's sub-brands Scottish Hydro and SWALEC there under 'smaller firms'? (Twice, in SWALEC's case)
Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

I was with UtilityPoint and had been paying £55 a month for both gas and electric. I’ve been moved to EDF as of last week, not had anything from them other than a welcome email so don’t even know what I’m paying.

That fact that our energy costs are so low is because we’ve done everything we can to be sensible- replaced all bulbs with LED, don’t spank the tumble dryer too much etc etc.

I don’t think EDF are too bad, my parents have been with them on economy 7 for years and I was never able to find a cheaper tariff for them… fingers crossed anyway!
BBC TV Centre
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu 29 Apr, 2021 22.35

I'm with Octopus and am fixed until Jan 22. Hopefully things will have calmed down by then.

I have never understood the government's obsession with wanting to get everyone off gas, considering that it costs nearly 4x as much per kwh to use. Plus, electric stoves (in my experience) are never as good as gas for heat control.

Whoever mentioned upthread about getting spanked being in all electric property is true, I never heard anyone that has lived in one of those say they would happily do without gas.
cwathen
Posts: 1309
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 17.28

BBC TV Centre wrote: Thu 23 Sep, 2021 21.15 I'm with Octopus and am fixed until Jan 22. Hopefully things will have calmed down by then.

I have never understood the government's obsession with wanting to get everyone off gas, considering that it costs nearly 4x as much per kwh to use. Plus, electric stoves (in my experience) are never as good as gas for heat control.

Whoever mentioned upthread about getting spanked being in all electric property is true, I never heard anyone that has lived in one of those say they would happily do without gas.
I'm with you on gas cooking, would def prefer a gas hob over electric (but then if that's all you want there are options that don't require mains gas). But when it comes to properties that have gas central heating but otherwise don't use gas at all I find it frustrating to spend much of the year paying a standing charge for a utility that's only being used for a bit of hot water, which can be done electrically at little cost. Over all, I do now prefer an all electric property. As long as it's well insulated and has modern heaters, it is overall cheaper to run.
scottishtv
Posts: 743
Joined: Thu 01 Apr, 2004 15.36
Location: Edinburgh

I think something that has been missed in the coverage of this story is that suppliers can offer fixed price tariffs at any rate they like, it's only their standard variable rate that is subject to the government's price cap (which was originally designed to help keep prices 'reasonable' for people who stuck with the classic standard tariff and had never, ever switched for whatever reason).

The irony now is that the energy companies are currently so spooked by the wholesale price rises they are setting their new fixed price deals at eye-watering rates, and in some cases hiding the fact you can insist on taking their standard variable rate (which for now, will likely be the cheapest deal for new customers in many cases).

If you can be bothered to put in the effort it's worth looking up the tariff information labels hidden away on supplier websites, and doing the sums yourself before committing to a fixed term contract.
thegeek
Posts: 858
Joined: Sat 04 Jun, 2005 12.35

BBC TV Centre wrote: Thu 23 Sep, 2021 21.15 I have never understood the government's obsession with wanting to get everyone off gas, considering that it costs nearly 4x as much per kwh to use. Plus, electric stoves (in my experience) are never as good as gas for heat control.
It's the carbon, innit.

We moved from a gas to an induction hob recently. It took a bit of getting used to but I'm not unhappy with it.

I've got half an eye on what to replace our gas boiler with when it eventually dies - I'm vaguely considering an air source heat pump, though I think I'd have to beef up the house's insulation first. I wouldn't mind a few solar panels on the house too but we don't have a suitable south-facing roof.
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WillPS
Posts: 2456
Joined: Tue 22 Apr, 2008 18.32
Location: Carlton
Contact:

I've switched between the big 6 + Shell Energy 7 or 8 times in the last 18 months, each time picking up £100-150 cashback for doing so. I cba to do the maths, but I'm pretty sure I'm better off than I would have been had I just taken a 2 year fix as I had done previously. I guess that could change if this rolls in to next year.

I'm currently with Bulb (they offer to settle any exit charges charged - no idea if that will stand though as Shell have yet to send me a final bill). From what I understand, they are effectively too big to fail with millions of customers, no other utility company would be able to pick them up via SoLR (even if they wanted to, which I can't imagine they would).

The talk earlier in the week was that Bulb would be nationalised and then would effectively become to SoLR to gather up all these small companies failing.

For what it's worth, this whole "market" is a complete joke in my view. I would wholeheartedly support a return to nationalisation and policies where we actually planned our energy supply in advance across the board.
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Charlie Wells
Posts: 354
Joined: Tue 02 Nov, 2004 16.23
Location: Cambridgeshire

I'd just switched to Avro days before they went bust. Once ported to whoever gets appointed I'll still check on a comparison website, however will probably stick to the standard variable tariff until after Christmas unless gas prices start falling.

In terms of nationalisation I think there's a strong argument to nationalise the National Grid, which perhaps surprisingly is a privately owned company. Similarly with the CO2 producing fertiliser company is too important to fail or remain closed then surely there's a case for nationalising it. Not only is it used in the food sector but I seem to recall it's used to cool nuclear(?) power plants.
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