Bristol Energy Reviews: Give your feedback

JanT2020

My Energy bill has doubled since moving to Bristol Energy in August 2017 on advice of this website. No explanation and I have not increased use of utilities

bengal-stripe

JanT2020 wrote: »

No explanation and I have not increased use of utilities

Bristol Energy issues monthly statements which are exemplary in their clarity. They show your monthly consumption (your reading or their estimates), costs for the number of units used, standing charges, VAT. They also show the balance from the last statement, any monies received during the month, deduct the charges due and give you the new balance, which might have your account either in credit or in debit.

Do you submit monthly readings to get the statements accurate?

System

JanT2020 wrote: »

My Energy bill has doubled since moving to Bristol Energy in August 2017 on advice of this website. No explanation and I have not increased use of utilities

You may be confusing monthly direct debit payments with actual charges. If your direct debit has increased, this may be down to higher usage given that we had a very cold Winter. The important thing to bear in mind is that you will only pay for the energy that you use at the agreed tariff rate. Direct debit payments are only money paid on account from which usage charges are deducted.

What tariff did you move from and to? If you moved from one fixed tariff to another, then it is most unlikely - for the same annual usage - that you would have seen any real savings as energy costs have risen. Sadly, Ofgem’s cost methodology can show savings even when the annual cost of a tariff is higher than the one that you are moving from.

Lottie2

Lottie2 wrote: »

I've just submitted an on-line switch via Energy Helpline & after I'd finished it said 14 days cooling off & 5 weeks to switch! I hope not. I'll let you know how I get on.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post a reply - Bristol Energy have been fine for me on both occasions that I've switched to them. Their automated response to my emailed meter readings is brilliant. I'm only switching from them now because my deal is coming to an end & I've found a cheaper deal with Utility Point. Fingers crossed :-)

1tonBunny

As a current but soon to be ex customer of Bristol Energy I thought my views could be helpful to others as they have both pros and cons as an energy supplier.


I joined BE (Bristol Energy) shortly after they started moving from OVO who were good but became uncompetitive. I liked the idea that the profits went into the local community and though I live getting on for a couple of hundred miles from BE and don't gain from it the ethos is good.


Changing was no issue and was done from memory speedily and efficiently. However in those early days customer service, which they call Customer Care, was abysmal and took weeks sometimes going onto over a month to get even a response. When they did they apologised and were affective. That has definitely improved and they do get back to you quickly these days. However they did phone me recently on a Customer Care issue and you could hear that the person on the other end of the phone had either fallen asleep or was doing something else and was not listening to you, as well as not gathering all the facts before contacting me. This is really bad and needs to be stepped on. This does only reflect on that one person whom should not really be in that sort of position.


Bills are the most easy to read and understand that I have ever seen and they need to be complimented on that. They even state on the bill if you can save money on another tariff. Unless on a smart meter then you have two ways of submitting your monthly readings; on-line or by email.



However they are set up for your gas and electric to increment each month and have great difficulty in accepting reading that do not increase. I have a well insulated, semi detached house, with only gas for heating and the gas hob and I live on my own. From around May to early October my heating is off other than the pilot and I don't use much gas with the hob so for the whole of that period the gas reading only goes up by around 0.2 so doesn't even register for a monthly reading. (At one time on-line if the gas reading was rejected then so was the electric and I was advised to use email due to that, which has now been fixed. BE then produce estimated bills but hold on when you submit an actual reading that was rejected because it was below their estimated bill and another estimated bill is produced.)



So why am I intending to leave? Well because they cannot get their head around customers like me and I had so many emails between Customer Care and myself on a monthly basis last year, and the previous year to get readings accepted and to ditch the estimated bills. (At one time it took a couple of emails, photos of the meters, and a visit by a meter reader for them to accept my readings,) It has started again this year and even though I have had my readings accepted by "Customer Care" "Meter Reads" are still sending me rejection notices every few days. It has got to the point that I now send Meter Reads emails to the junk box which is a bit self defeating by BE. I have never had this issue other than with BE and submitting meter reads should be easy.



In conclusion if you are a low energy user, or go away frequently then Bristol Energy may not a good fit and it may be worth looking elsewhere. However if you are a family using plenty of gas and electric even in the summer then there should be no issue. (If you have solar panels with a feed in arrangement you may have issues if they even accept that.) In my opinion they are a good company, just a bit stupid, and I am sure that I am not the only one leaving due to this.

1tonBunny

Just looking at some of the postings regarding Bristol Energy payments and cost. Most Energy companies set up a payment based on your average and that is what you pay unless a very cold winter or similar is expected and towards the end of twelve months then a slight adjustment is made to accommodate any variation in actual usage. Bristol Energy appears to be different and if they see an increase over a couple of months will change your direct debit accordingly and vise versa. I always used to have to ask them to keep it as it was being a low gas and electric user until after the Winter to help winter costs. So you are not usually actually paying more it's just as others have said the DD is being changed more frequently in accordance with usage.

glider3560

I had my smart meter installation today.


Guy turned up without the correct type of gas meter (despite me describing it on the phone), so I only got electricity.


Installed ok, but there's one major flaw with the in-home display: you can't get the actual readings off it! I appreciate most people won't want to do this, but it is probably the most useful piece of information that isn't actually there.

emc

Some energy companies such as First Utility offer particular tariffs that require the customer to change to a smart meter.

Does anyone know whether Bristol Energy requires a change to a smart meter for any of their tariffs, such as the MSE offering of Fixed to July 2019 Issue 8 Paperless Billing?

The Bristol Energy website just says "We do not currently support smart metering functionality for all our customers, but we’re offering them to a limited number this year."

martyp

I've recently left Bristol Energy after being with them for almost a year. It was purely price based as dual fuel with my new supplier was much cheaper relatively after my electricity supplier went bust (Iresa). My switch to Bristol Energy went through no problem and my bills have been accurate with my DD increasing in line with usage without building up a massive credit balance. Communication with them when required was easy and informative and best of all I received my credit balance refunded to my account about a month after leaving, no chasing required at all.

SilverZippo

I have just switched to them for 2 flats that I own. I chose them because they had the cheapest fixed price option with a decent customer service rating. The switching was easy, and the welcome packs came within a couple of hours. I had to call customer services almost immediately because I had chosen the same email address for both accounts, and it turns out that the registration process for the online portal needs a different address for each account. I got the usual "Due to unusually high demand waiting times will be long" announcement, but actually I got through within about 30 seconds, and got a very helpful guy, who immediately understood my problem, and changed the email address associated with one of the accounts and I was able to proceed immediately. So far, I am impressed. (By the way, one of the flats was with Affect who were fine, but the fixed price tariff had expired and the new one was a lot more, and the other was with nPower who were the suppliers when I bought the flat a few months ago - and the savings against this were huge).