OT power suppliers going bust

Sep 14, 2021 Last reply: 4 years ago 57 Replies

The person who asked about what to do with nuclear waste might like to consider what happens to used wind turbines. The unreactive concrete and plastic-based composites go to landfill and stay there for millennia, the very thing that the environmentalists who demanded clean energy don't want.

Funny old world, this environmentalism, innit.

My reason would be my electricity meter cabinet has a weird latch, requiring a key. In the past meter readers broke the old lock because there was no key. I managed to find a replacement latch/barrel that fitted, but again it is keyed and fits badly, but stops it banging in the wind.

If the meter is smart nobody ever has to open the cabinet. If the cabinet is repeatedly opened the latch will break again.

Of course the electricity smart meter went dumb soon after I fitted the new lock. The gas one, with a traditional latch still is smart. Strange because the gas meter reports via the electricity meter.

Why are these called "power suppliers" when in fact they are just billing operations (most of them).

Indeed, To be a power supplier, you need to generate, or drill for, power.

My meter is still smart enough that I can read gas & leccy without a trip into cobweb land, so effectively all it will do for me to re-instate them is to stop me forgetting to send in resding by hand, which seems to happen about 1 month in 2.

Well there always was a "retail" side, but at least in the old days your MEB, SWEB, etc. also looked after the local distribution wiring.

Yeah they had shops on the high street. Forget what they used to sell; electric stuff obviously.

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that the following suppliers failed to pay Ofgem a bill due this week:

Colorado Energy Limited Igloo Energy Supply Limited Neon Reef Limited Whoop Energy Limited Symbio Energy

I see Symbio and Igloo have suspended taking new customers, Neon Reef still is (and are currently cheapest for my quote, although not for long I suspect), Whoop is business-only and Colorado is for letting agents.

Theo

Hmmm, I wonder if Symbio may fail and if so how my electricity will be affected and will it work out as well as for my gas?

Gulf Power (later Hub) folded recently. My GP/Hub gas deal was due to end in December and I would have faced looking for a new deal at possibly the height of the problems. However, I have been transferred to a good priced EON deal, guaranteed not to rise for 6 months, which will hopefully be better timed to change.

As an industry employee, we had 30% discounts which made shopping for white goods a complete no-brainer.

Many of the small suppliers aren't even billing operations - that's contracted out to a software service provider.

Which has lost about 3 clients this week, started redundancy proceedings, and if it folds then presumably other clients are going to find themselves without a working billing solution rather suddenly.

Owain

'electra' was their own-brand stuff and all BEAB approved.

Selling storage heaters was a big thing in the 70s and 80s. You could visit the showroom and admire all the lovely woodgrain finishes and decide whether you wanted a smoked glass shelf on curly wrought iron brackets as an optional extra for that touch of luxury and sophistication.

In the really old days they would rent you a cooker or immersion heater for pennies per week, probably collected through the slot meter.

Owain

There are going to be a lot of old solar panels heading for landfill at some point.

the silicon can be melted down and recycled into new solar panels and teh aluminium frames reused......

It's the sort of thing J Bull (Electrical) Ltd would have sold off cheaply. Ideal for building your own solar-powered calculator! and the panel arrives on a flatbed lorry.

Owain

I have on my "to do" list a note from the beginning of the month to switch suppliers. Igloo were one of the candidates. For once procrastination may well have save me a problem.

I wonder how many Igloo customers will receive the 3% on any excess payments they've been making.

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