MSE News: Energy firms must offer (not give) cheapest deals, says Ofgem

Cardew

backfoot wrote: »

Gosh we agree

So the model is flawed as a competitive tool .

All the spaghetti would take some unravelling but it shouldn't stop some overall standardisation of prices, central control over them on a planned and systematic basis and the removal of the unnecessary overhead of false marketing, pointless intermediaries and the Supplier profits.

Indeed it is not competitive in the real sense. Understandably, Centrica cannot sell energy to BG as a 'loss leader' and kill off the competition, so all distribution companies compete on the open market to buy.

With regard to the 'false marketing, and pointless intermediaries' I have long complained about the glut of multi-million pound valued comparison websites(and MSE!!) that are simply parasitic on the industry.

We have Ofgem and/or the Energy Saving Trust who, if provided with the information on prices from the distribution companies, could run the sole 'official' comparison website on a Sinclair ZX81 or BBC computer;) - well not quite but well with the capability of modern computers.

Where I differ from some on these threads is that I do not believe the profits of the Big 6 are obscene.

It would be interesting to find out just how much money is given to the comparison websites and the effect on our prices. In addition the cost of the large staff numbers in the distribution companies employed to cope with the 'churn' of Xmillion customers changing each year - which the comparison websites do their best to encourage.

sleeplessnight

It was made clear to me, the first 129 units were at 7p, after that, the next 67 were at £3.89p. Once the that total was exceeded, I was advised it would be wise to visit friends during the cold periods, and, use hot water bottles to go to bed. The electricity people, have denied me using cheap energy to heat my hot water bottle. Back to the folk we spent the evening with - their coffee is ideal for a hot water bottle - Bless them.
Believe me, despite having to shovel in the half ton of coal, deposited outside your front door, you knew exactly where you stood.

Even the 'Penny Gas Meter' Gran used to ask you to feed, when visiting her, where she switched the cooker on, for a bit of extra warmth. Was the order of the day. We don't know what it is like to feel cold!

Better to be prepared for NOT heating every unnecessary space. They will hate you for it, but, never alleviate the financial burden. It stands to reason. Every space heated to living room temperature, is 'Big Bucks'. Financial suicide for us consumers.

Time for an Eskimo Chief Executive - lets pay him £1.5M to advise the UK consumer.

Once upon a time, there was a whole mass of nasty people, who hid behind numbers, that nobody understood. You could never compare them, because, they all thieved in different ways. This was tolerated by the majority. ABSOLUTE !!!!!!!!. There was no way of making comparisons. The 'so called regulator' of this disgusting scenario, had absolutely no control of the situation.

The sooner a public champion, expels the myth that energy prices are bound to rise, without remedial action. The Better.

wantanswers

It may be interesting following this scheme Backfoot (link)

http://www.edenproject.com/whats-it-all-about/people-and-learning/communities/cornwall-collective-energy-buying-scheme

and monitoring any success it may have.

The Registering end date is 28 October 2012

"The first energy auction closes on 28 October 2012, after which Cornwall Together will be able to identify best value deals for members."

Its also interesting to note:

To see if you can save money on your energy bill, join up at Cornwall Together by visiting https://www.cornwalltogether.com, where you can also register your interest as a business. It's not necessary to be a Cornish resident to join.

On a personal note i'm surprised this scheme has not been made a little more public but i could be wrong in that assumption.

@ post 83

The sooner a public champion, expels the myth that energy prices are bound to rise, without remedial action. The Better.

Totally agree, maybe we could find one in the Cornish Scheme and Mr Davey, however hope some Cornish Folk are not involved....lol.

wantanswers

Whoa!!!!

Just imagine Backfoot if 70% or more of the Country joined this scheme........maybe the Government would like to take it over....:)

wantanswers

Well sounds like something may be happening re "Collective Buying" Backfoot........The BBC 6 o'clock News has just presented it.


BBC News 24/10/2012 @ 18:24 Approx.

wantanswers

The Eden project:

For and Against:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00wdyp0

Terrylw1

Collective bargaining isn't really new since businesses have been using it to obtain their deals for years.

It was used by the brokers who dealt with the revamping of schools some years back as well.

I do have issues with it though because I know that if it rises above the industry daily data flow thresholds, someone will always lose out to later switching dates so I think its needs rethinking to prevent this.

I assume that by doing this, they use the volume of customers. Can anyone would tried the Which version confirm if you submitted your annual kwh values? I'm wondering whether brokering a deal based on volume purchasing is better. Its not going to be possible with the recent changes to tenants rights where landlords purchase quantities.

I'm not against re-nationalisation as long as its done over a long period of time to prevent the mess created with privatisation. I don't have much confidence in the industry trying to achieve it though.

aidrenegade

My NPower letter, received yesterday, states that when my online23 tarriff ends I will be moved to a standard tarriff from 6th November'12 but won't be charged that rate till 26th November'12. What? It only took NPower 10 months to successfully get my account set up properly on their new computer / database system last May! Now they are scrapping this already?

Am I reading this letter wrong or has it become my responsibility to move to a cheaper rate again when I was already on one? Reads like a scam to charge a few extra £££'s out of unsuspecting customers to me.

I found this thread after a search for 'collective switching'.

wantanswers

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Collective bargaining isn't really new since businesses have been using it to obtain their deals for years.

It was used by the brokers who dealt with the revamping of schools some years back as well.

I do have issues with it though because I know that if it rises above the industry daily data flow thresholds, someone will always lose out to later switching dates so I think its needs rethinking to prevent this.

I assume that by doing this, they use the volume of customers. Can anyone would tried the Which version confirm if you submitted your annual kwh values? I'm wondering whether brokering a deal based on volume purchasing is better. Its not going to be possible with the recent changes to tenants rights where landlords purchase quantities.

I'm not against re-nationalisation as long as its done over a long period of time to prevent the mess created with privatisation. I don't have much confidence in the industry trying to achieve it though.

I agree 'Collective Buying' has been around as far as Business (Industry in general) is concerned for many years, however, it now appears to be being adopted to include the 'Residential' sector and appears to have the backing of the Government and a Local Authority.

The scheme as you say is not new but more recently 'The Residential Scheme' has been implemented in Belgium and the USA which does appear to be yielding benefits, especially if reported correctly by the BBC (report re Belgium Household).

It could be the way forward as far as curbing significant energy price hikes of late, who knows its early days!

@ post 89

"Am I reading this letter wrong or has it become my responsibility to move to a cheaper rate again when I was already on one? Reads like a scam to charge a few extra £££'s out of unsuspecting customers to me."

I'm sure some one in the know will reply to your question especially when the word 'SCAM' is used.

"I found this thread after a search for 'collective switching'."

Thank you for the lead, I had no idea about this scheme until a couple of days ago, but I do hope Local Authorities do listen to MR Davey, Energy Secretary and adopt this idea as a starting point!

lazyjack

OK, here's a good example of why something needs to be done with regards to the tariffs.

Just received a notification of price increase today from Npower, 14.1% increase on Elec and 16.1% on Gas. So, I decide to have a look at the details and here's what I find:

* Current annual bill with Sign Online 24 tariff is £1013
* New annual bill based on same usage will be £1152, a hefty £139 increase

However, if I switch tariff to Energy Online Jan 2014, still with Npower, my annual bill will be £1055 (£42 increase), which is not unreasonable.

The point being, why do Npower simply whack on a big increase without offering me what is clearly a cheaper tariff (they have 3 years of usage figures) ? Obviously they rely on people simply accepting the increase and paying more than they should.

I am able to do the sums and work out what's best for me quite quickly, others don't find it so easy. The energy companies should be doing the sums and at least pointing people in the right direction.