Octopus Energy takes on Avro customers

Consumerist

polymaff said:

Hence my quest for experiences, . . .

I believe it has been mentioned more than once, above, that the policy has been that if you keep in the black then Octopus did not bother you. That has been from past experience. It is not clear to me how anyone can have experience of the future.

MWT

polymaff said:

Hence my quest for experiences, rather than begs-the-question terminology such as highlighted above ;-}

As I wrote some weeks ago, many - myself included - may skid back and forth along the credit/debit line during the phoney war of April to October.  From there on it is Energy Armageddon.

I see that Martin's guess is a further 40-something percent.  Brave man.

As Consumerist said, dipping into the red when the bill hits but immediately making a top-up payment to stay in the black has never been known to cause problems.

If you stay positive I've never heard of them chasing to get the balance up to a full month ahead which is where it really should be...

I'd suggest that it would not be wise to plan on remaining negative for periods of time, but in general Octopus has always been a reasonable company, so if anyone is having problems they really should reach out to them and see what they can do to help.

Consumerist

Just received an email from Octopus which included the following:

Today, we're introducing a temporary Loyal Octopus support to help customers like you keep your bills as low as possible in this difficult time. The reward automatically reduces your electricity charges by £48 per year compared to our standard tariff (that's £50 below the price cap).

So it looks as though former Avro customers will be getting a tariff which is £50 below the cap (for a typical user).

polymaff

polymaff said:

 I suspect that we'll be on the Flexible Octopus, £50 below the cap - whatever it is eventually called.

And doesn't E-1R-AVRO-VAR-21-09-26-A just trip off the tongue?...

Consumerist

It's some comfort to know what we are actually going to be paying for the next 6 months so it can be planned for.

polymaff

Consumerist said:

It's some comfort to know what we are actually going to be paying for the next 6 months so it can be planned for.

If the current six-monthly system remains.  Octopus says that they urgently want a change.  OFGEM said they were open to new ideas - and yet the goverment forced loan and payback scheme seems to assume little or no change.

Consumerist

I thought it had already been decided by Ofgem that any change to the cap system would not start before the October review. After that Ofgem seems to be trying to reserve the right to review at any time in, what it deems to be, exceptional circumstances.

Max68

Got email re price rises as well..  Email was a bit confusing, I assume it means we stay on an increased Flexible tariff "unless" we swap to one of their fixed tariffs, which are more expensive now but might be cheaper than what Flexible almost certainly will be from October?  So assume most of us do nothing?

Also anyone know 100% what a Standing Charge is?  I assumed it was just a daily charge to receive energy and admin fees etc?  So I've always wondered why it goes up.  Electricity especially from April sees a rise from 24.0345p 41.3910p per day.

QrizB

Max68 said:

Also anyone know 100% what a Standing Charge is?  I assumed it was just a daily charge to receive energy and admin fees etc?

See the MSE explainer here.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6339555/mse-update-why-is-the-standing-charge-for-electricity-nearly-doubling-from-1-april

Consumerist

Max68 said:

Got email re price rises as well..  Email was a bit confusing, I assume it means we stay on an increased Flexible tariff "unless" we swap to one of their fixed tariffs, which are more expensive now but might be cheaper than what Flexible almost certainly will be from October?  So assume most of us do nothing?

Also anyone know 100% what a Standing Charge is?  I assumed it was just a daily charge to receive energy and admin fees etc?  So I've always wondered why it goes up.  Electricity especially from April sees a rise from 24.0345p 41.3910p per day.

That was my assumption too.

Standing charges can be thought of as charges for just being connected to the system and are not related to the amount of energy you use..