Sign up & Campaign for a New Way of buying Energy

Primrose

BallandChain makes a good point about transparency of tariffs and I think we've got to the point now where there are so many different energy suppliers and tariffs that it's virtually impossible to compare chalk with cheese. The same thing applies to the products (savings & loans) which the banks offer. I'm not a great fan of nationalisation but as far as energy is concerned, which we all have to use, maybe it's time for the Regulator to step in an introduce some common factors to enable consumers to make fair comparisons of what is a reasonable charge. (Perhaps this exists already but it's dressed up in such a complicated way that we can't figure it out). At the moment, all you get on the back of our bill is the rate at which each batch of units is charged. There's certainly no listing of any other tariffs which might be available.

BallandChain

I've just linked to this thread over in Discussion as I hope that more people sign up!

filmnoir

Something that caught my eye is not sure if this is the company responsible for setting up the Ltd or is actually behind it.

Community Purchasing Ltd
C/O Ismay Lermitte/Aldbury Associates
Mobbs Miller House
Ardington Road
Northampton
NN1 5LP
Registered in England.
Company Number 06701267

There are a numbr of organisations like this that operate, mainly in the small business arena. Farmers unions etc that pay a membership fee and leave all the hassle to a company to use the purchasing power to achive better deals. However as its at domestic level you'd need a hell of alot of customers to achieve a better deal with a supplier. Also key things are technically I cant say you as a customer would be in contract with the supplier, but the Ltd company so it all depends on how they set this up with the chosen supplier and how the Ltd company and Supplier wants to handle the account and how you as the site would interact. Also contracts will need to come into it at some stage, to keep purchasing power they would need to sign all customers in for a tied period, as a supplier I wouldn't give a price and allow half the portfolio to switch say six months in because there was a change in the market.

As Hamock stated and in the OFGEM report the smaller suppliers have a hard time purchasing due to the generators being preferentially owned via the big six under their parent companies. Hence Ebico throwing in with exisiting suppliers.

For example BGAS trying to muscle in with EDF on their recent nuclear deal and asking to purchase a percentage of all nuclear power generated by EDF as BGAS and its subsideries don't acutally generate electricity and cant get preferential wholesale prices for its customers.
I think its one to watch and see how they develop their business model for implmenting this.

Hammock99

Thanks Filmnoir. I did cover some of your points off when I spoke to CP, but felt I might have bored Primrose enough with the feedback I did give.

There are other organisations that seek to use the buying power of their members and the concept works extremely well (why else would they pay a fee) but, on the whole, they tend to only allow businesses to join as members. CP has no restrictions since they feel it makes no difference; energy is energy, no matter who uses it.

CP said they deliberately have no preconceived ideas as to the shape of any deal or the contractual set-up since that will be determined by the number of people who sign up (whatever the deal, it has to be simple). For example, the purchasing power of a million consumers will secure a deal which is radically different to one where only 5k sign up. If 50% of Ebico’s customers decided to move en-masse, the deal would again be different. In short, CP felt it served no useful purpose to speculate since no one can know how much any one company wants to increase its customers base by or what a company is prepared to do to retain customers. They felt the most important issue and perhaps the most difficult is to get people signed up – securing a deal is the easiest part.

CP pointed out that, if consumers feel as strongly about the current market as we are given to believe, consumers have to play their part by making sure others in their communities are aware of the initiative. Recognising that many consumers don’t have access to the internet, CP has facilitated registration by post. At the end of the day it’s up to consumers – nothing else has worked.

Cardew

Perhaps Primrose and Hammock99 could enlighten us if they have a commercial interest community purchasing?

Woby_Tide

Hammock99 certainly likes talking about them(selves?).....

Hammock99

The only interest I have is in doing something about a problem which affects everyone and which no one has been able to crack.

Primrose

I'm also happy to confirm that I have absolutely no commercial interest in Community Purchasing. The leaflet publicising the scheme was handed to me by an officer of our Local Authority who was distributing it to voluntary organisations throughout our area.

BallandChain

Can I ask if the more vocal of our forum members have signed up to this campaign? I would like to think so as nothing else is being done right now for energy consumers.

Primrose

Well, I've signed up and await events with interest. As the website says, there is no commitment or obligation so I'm taking the view that the more public pressure put on our energy suppliers, from whatever sources, the greater the chance we might have to negotiate a reduction in energy prices. For some people on low incomes, energy costs are now a serious proportion of their budget and in bitterly cold weather like this some people have to decide whether to "heat" or "eat".