TOT Bulb customers

[Andy Burns]

They've changed their tune then, not long ago they were demanding to *be* paid by the govt to take them on ...

[alan_m]

I see that former Bulb customers will be transferred to Octopus

From The Octopus FAQ

All the time Bulb’s been under special administration, the government has had to buy gas and electricity for Bulb’s 1.5 million customers, without hedging, in an energy crisis.

Octopus is paying the government to take on Bulb’s customer base – believed to be more per customer than any supplier paid in taking on the

29 failed suppliers since September 2021.

In addition, taxpayers will benefit from a profit-share agreement for a period of up to 4 years, reducing the overall cost to UK taxpayers.

Octopus is paying the government a nine digit sum and in addition will be paying a high proportion of any profits made through Bulb. The total amount Octopus is paying will be in the hundreds of millions of pounds.

https://octopus.energy/bulb/

[Andrew]

??

Which will still be significant.

Pigs might fly too.

[Jonathan Harston]

Bulb were the company *literally* advertising with unicorns.

[alan_m]

As Octopus actually own green generating capacity I wonder if a another deal has been done with regard tax breaks or subsidies etc. for building more windmills and solar?

[Pancho]

I have always found Bulb a disaster. Who is a good company to switch to?

[Bob Eager]

Been very satisfied with So Energy.

[Andy Burns]

If you're on a variable price-cap tariff, at the moment likely nobody.

[Tim+]

True unless you have an EV in which case it’s well worth looking at companies that offer good off-peak discounts. (Eg.Octopus).

I think Octopus are “a good company” who are thinking hard about better ways to manage the grid and domestic power supplies. I do think their customer service has suffered a bit due to their rapid expansion but then I’ve not been with anyone else for quite some time so the others could be equally poor. ;-)

Tim

[Brian Gaff]

Kind of asks the question then, if they can afford that, what the heck did bulb do to make such a mess of their finances, and it also shows that there has to be a lot of spare money sloshing around in energy suppliers coughers that an enterprising Government ought to be able to have to ease things at least in the short term. Brian

[Pancho]

The problem with Bulb is the management of my account, not the price.

The messed up my initial transfer in.

My electricity smart meter worked for 6 months, but then stopped reporting and has been defective for 18 months. The gas smart meter still works, presumably via the electricity meter. So probably a config issue at their end.

Last month, for an unknown reason, they tripled my expected gas usage (kWH), setting the expected yearly usage to more gas than I have actually used in the previous 3 years I have been with them.

The monthly direct debit is now far too high for genuine estimates based upon previous year's usage.

They said they would refund most of the excess credit on my account, and then later changed their mind as they said they needed electricity meter readings.

They lied to me on the phone, saying I wouldn't lose anything by having a large credit balance. There is clearly lost interest and credit risk. I'm effectively being forced to give them a free loan.

[Pancho]

The problem was they didn't hedge wholesale energy prices. They were locked into providing energy to customers at a given price, but were exposed to a rise in wholesale energy prices.

Very similar to the issue with Northern Rock, in the credit crunch.

The regulators really should employ people who understand financial risk management.

[Andy Burns]

Haven't they closed their agile and tracker tariffs to new customers? You may get four hours cheap electricity overnight, but they've raised day rates to 50p/kWh.

The wholesale "market" seems poorly designed really, if company A bids Xp/unit in advance for a time period, and company B bids Yp/unit for the same period, then when the time comes company C sells the last final lot of units to fulfil demand at Zp/unit, the way I understand it A, B and C all get paid at Zp/unit, is that correct?

[Tim+]

They’ve reopened them I believe (at higher rates obviously). They’re also making their “Intelligent” tariff more accessible to more vehicles. My Kia is now included in the list. Previously I could only have joined this tariff with an Ohme charger (which I don’t have).

I think supplier controlled charging is the future and we will all be on this sooner or later but I’m currently better off sticking to my existing Go tariff.

I have no idea.

Tim

[alan_m]

They employed the service staff from Avro and I believe that they are going to do the same with the Bulb service staff.

I'm ex Avro and Octopus do seem to be competent although as stated above the customer service can be very slow despite their claim of responses in hours. It took around 6 weeks and 4 emails for my smart meter to be updated with the correct tariff information. The October tariff changes were correctly applied within hours.

[alan_m]

At least wait until you have been transferred. I was moved over from Avro to an Octopus contract/tariff with no penalty fees for changing suppliers at a later date.

[Chris J Dixon]

I have been with Octopus since Avro failed, and they do seem to be pretty competent.

I've just got my first bill with the new rates, and it took a bit of understanding. Instead of simply showing what they are now charging, they have lines reading, for instance:

Energy Used (Day) 228.8 kWh @ 61.13p/kWh £139.84 Energy Price Guarantee 228.8 kWh @ 21.98p/kWh -£50.28

If you want to know the actual rate charged, you need to do the subtraction, and then add VAT.

I was surprised to find that my E7 night rate has actually fallen, back to around what I was paying last February, which is good news for EV charging.

When I checked at

it explained: "Note that for customers on multi-register tariffs such as Economy 7, suppliers have flexibility to apply slightly different discounts to the individual rates within the tariff, helping to balance-out the reduction of more expensive day rates with cheaper night-time electricity rates. Each supplier will approach this differently."

Chris

[John Armstrong]

Yes. I'm with EDF and was surprised to note that my night rate has fallen from (the price set in April) 18.32p to 15.58p. These prices include VAT.

My 2 year fixed day rate of 18.46p expires at the end of March, and I shudder to think what it will rise to then.