Octopus Energy takes on Avro customers

victor2

Consumerist said:

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..

...and recovering the cost of all this SoLR activity.

polymaff

Octopus's wall of words in their latest email.

"National Grid's constant job is to call on many different types of power: increasingly green wind, solar and hydro; but also including gas, nuclear or even coal, to keep things in balance. Because all energy generators are filling the same important function in this way, the highest price ends up setting the wholesale market price. So when gas prices are high, electricity prices from all sources are too."

Huh!

badger09

polymaff said:

Does anyone have experience as to what level of debt Octopus will tolerate before demanding a top-up?

Don't know if this will help at all but....

On xfer from Avro we were £169.91 in credit. I had cancelled Avro DD (£109pm) after they went bust. By the time Octopus issued our 1st bill and took 1st DD, we were £34.33 in debit. Due to a mismatch in timing of my readings & DD date, this climbed on 6 Feb to £275.91 for a few days, but I had already increased DD from £150 to £200pm.

At 6 March we're £39.48 in debit. Unless we have a very cold spell, I expect this to disappear by 6 April. 
I will leave DD at £200pm until I see impact of April price cap

At no point have Octopus contacted me to request top up.  

beeniecarol

BooJewels said:

@beeniecarol  I don't think my spreadsheet workings would help you as I suspect I do things oddly - plus the tariff varies a little by region.  But if you want to post meter readings and tariff, I'm sure we can work some costs out for you.

Thank you - is is possible to post a screen shot or attach a file with my tariff & meter readings?

apologies for the noob question, can't find how to do it  

Carol

beeniecarol

beeniecarol said:

BooJewels said:

@beeniecarol  I don't think my spreadsheet workings would help you as I suspect I do things oddly - plus the tariff varies a little by region.  But if you want to post meter readings and tariff, I'm sure we can work some costs out for you.

Thank you - is is possible to post a screen shot or attach a file with my tariff & meter readings?

apologies for the noob question, can't find how to do it  

Carol

Sorry; just spotted it  

Can't attach the file so have included a screen shot below.  Hope its simple to follow.  

I'll have a go at reworking it to include a change of tariff from 2nd April.

Thank you

Carol

Inforapennyinforapound

What does para 5 mean? A little off subject,sorry. ‘ we’ve never made a profit?’. I thought they are a business not charity. Sorry if I appear dim

polymaff

badger09 said:

polymaff said:

Does anyone have experience as to what level of debt Octopus will tolerate before demanding a top-up?

Don't know if this will help at all but....

On xfer from Avro we were £169.91 in credit. I had cancelled Avro DD (£109pm) after they went bust. By the time Octopus issued our 1st bill and took 1st DD, we were £34.33 in debit. Due to a mismatch in timing of my readings & DD date, this climbed on 6 Feb to £275.91 for a few days, but I had already increased DD from £150 to £200pm.

At 6 March we're £39.48 in debit. Unless we have a very cold spell, I expect this to disappear by 6 April. 
I will leave DD at £200pm until I see impact of April price cap

At no point have Octopus contacted me to request top up.  

Thanks, Badg.  Very similar here - but with about £400 credit to start with.  I've bounced in and out of high tens of debit between the 26th reading-day and DD take on the following 5th for a couple of months.  I'd hope that I can cope with the summer months with what is still the Avro DD amount.

Now to the important stuff, have you been suffering from holiday deficit syndrome?...;-}

QrizB

Inforapennyinforapound said:

What does para 5 mean? A little off subject,sorry. ‘ we’ve never made a profit?’. I thought they are a business not charity. Sorry if I appear dim

It's relatively common for growing startup businesses (which is what Octopus is) to not make a "profit". They invest any excess earnings into the business.

Amazon, for example, didn't make (much of) a profit from 1994 to 2017, but in the time grew from Jeff Bezos's garage to the world-spanning behemoth we know today.

Pootle1

MWT said:

If you have a rough idea what your closing reading should have been when Avro failed you can work out what you owe, if you are unsure how to do that then just post the readings here and others will help...

21st September 2021 : elec 005524.333 kWh, gas 000890.600 m3

9th March 2022 : elec 010368.746 kwh, gas 002380.089 m3

North Bristol

Thank you for your help.

QrizB

Pootle1 said:

MWT said:

If you have a rough idea what your closing reading should have been when Avro failed you can work out what you owe, if you are unsure how to do that then just post the readings here and others will help...

21st September 2021 : elec 005524.333 kWh, gas 000890.600 m3
9th March 2022 : elec 010368.746 kwh, gas 002380.089 m3

Very roughly £1775 for the period, using the national average unit rates and 11.2kWh/m3 for the gas.