Removal of TCR, Personal Projections and Cheapest Tariff Message

Bark01

OFGEM have announced they will be removing the prescriptive license conditions governing TCT, PP , and CTM. OFGEM want to replace these with an overarching principle that means customers are able to make an informed choice on which of the suppliers tariffs is cheapest for them and best suited to the features they value. The Statuary consultation for these changes start in July.

I think this means that the TCR will just disappear.
The prescriptive personal projection methodology will go away, meaning suppliers and aggregators can go back to quoting 12 months at the current price rather than factoring in a change to a standard tariff if the customers current tariff ends within 12 months.
The CTM (which I believe actually works well) will still be around in some form but suppliers won’t have to tell customers what their absolute cheapest tariff is.

I believe the CTM change has come about as suppliers are now able to launch restrictive tariffs that aren’t on general sale. BG have just launched a uswitch only tariff that isn’t available to existing customer and you can only sing up to it via uswitch you can’t sign up to it direct with BG

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/stakeholder-workshop-cma-rmr-and-whole-market-remedies-25052016

System

Thanks for the link. Looking at the slides makes me think that the CMA and OFGEM are 'hell bent' on adding confusion to an already confused switching market. Collective switches, are in my view, the next big miss-selling event. Consumers need to see whether collective switches do represent a good deal; this can only be achieved if comparison sites show all available deals - not just the ones that pay them commission. If the Govt's aim is to get more consumers switching, then I fear that they are going the wrong way about it.

All that said, I will not miss the often confusing messages on bills that I am on the cheapest deal when the truth is that I am not.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

All adds to the confusion!

Bark01

The thing is comparing prices is going to get a whole load harder in the future regardless of what Ofgem or the CMA suggest. Most suppliers are looking to diversify into other markets and there are a number of water companies looking to enter the energy business. This will undoubtedly lead to cross subsidisation where you will need to compare across a number of markets at once. When SMART tariffs start to take off next year the complexity of tariffs will be even harder to work out as you’ll need to take into differing time patterns across different tariffs. There’s a SMART tariff in France where the price varies day by day according the below variables. You get a text message each day to tell you what colour the day is. Très confusing and very hard to compare with anything else…


• 22 red days from November 1st till March 31st from Monday to Friday (Saturdays, on Sundays and holidays are never red and he can have no more than 5 consecutive red days there),
• 43 white days that are spread over the year mainly between October and May except on Sundays
• 300 blue days all the rest of the year (every Sunday is blue).

molerat

The TCR based on "average" consumption is a total misleading waste of space. A TCR based on, and clearly stating, your personal usage projection should be shown.

As for their idea of not showing all (publicly available) tariffs from all suppliers - how the hell can that be in the interests of competition and fairness. It is probably to increase switching statistics, something that is high on the agenda, and nothing to do with the consumer getting the best deal.

These people in the various OFs really don't have a clue about real world problems suffered by the general public do they !

System

The new price comparison site on the Citizens' Advice website does, and will continue to, show all available tariffs. It isn't a switching service. I note that the new/ smaller suppliers that do not offer a referral fee to comparison sites have already written to Govt to say that they should not be excluded from switching sites as this is not in the consumers' best interests. As I am with GBEnergy and Zog, I would agree.

[Deleted User]

@Bark01

What about leap years ? Colour Purple perhaps on 29th February?

System

Bark01 wrote: »

The thing is comparing prices is going to get a whole load harder in the future regardless of what Ofgem or the CMA suggest. Most suppliers are looking to diversify into other markets and there are a number of water companies looking to enter the energy business. This will undoubtedly lead to cross subsidisation where you will need to compare across a number of markets at once. When SMART tariffs start to take off next year the complexity of tariffs will be even harder to work out as you’ll need to take into differing time patterns across different tariffs. There’s a SMART tariff in France where the price varies day by day according the below variables. You get a text message each day to tell you what colour the day is. Très confusing and very hard to compare with anything else…


• 22 red days from November 1st till March 31st from Monday to Friday (Saturdays, on Sundays and holidays are never red and he can have no more than 5 consecutive red days there),
• 43 white days that are spread over the year mainly between October and May except on Sundays
• 300 blue days all the rest of the year (every Sunday is blue).

Old hat - I am afraid. Canada has had smart meters for nearly 10 years and it is desperately trying to reconfigure its system from Time of Use to Capacity based. If the sun is shining and the wind blowing, then energy will be cheap. On a cold foggy day - the reverse.