Energy news in general

born_again

So we have Great British Energy, with the aim to secure home energy.

https://www.gbe.gov.uk/

Why were they not looking at bringing OVO under their wing, rather than allowing another non UK co to take them over.

Seems we set up these great sounding idea's than do nothing with them. Is this just going to be £8Billion of wasted money, funded by the tax payer?

The_Groat_Counter

GBE is not intended to be a retail supplier of energy.

I think GBE looks to be a Good Thing for the energy sector, but it's not going to reap major rewards in the short term.

Scot_39

Ovo - or at least the bit you would contract with - are a reseller essentially - they buy from generators / gas producers - they sell to you.

Suspect it doesn't really matter to GBE who owns that bit of the chain - as long as they are selling increasingly more of UK "green" energy.

QrizB

Here's an article from the FT reporting on Ofgem concerns over profiteering by electricity interconnector traders:

https://archive.is/PvJjO

Britain’s energy regulator has warned traders against playing games in the market for backup electricity supplies from the continent, following extreme price spikes that have raised fears about the country being “held to ransom”.

Ofgem has reminded traders of the rules preventing “hoarding” of capacity on electricity cables after Britain had to pay more than £3,000 per megawatt-hour several times since 2022 for essential power supplies from Europe. Prices regularly climbed above £1,000 per MWh, about 10 times more than current day ahead prices.

More at the link.

QrizB

And another FT article about interconnectors -they'rw like buses! In this one Europe is complaining that we're making last-minute changes to power flows and upsetting their own energy markets.

https://archive.is/GHzau

Britain has had to cut back on its practice of trading power with Europe to prevent blackouts at home, after the size and speed of its electricity trading put strain on the supplies of its neighbours.

The state-owned National Energy System Operator said it had put restrictions on the rate at which it can trade to reverse the flow of power between Britain and French, Danish, Dutch and Belgian markets after concerns emerged.

QrizB

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81356489#Comment_81356489

As far as I can tell, this post from March 2025 is the most recent discussion of the progress of the smart meter rollout. At that time there were either 25M or 34M smart meters installed, depending on who you asked 😄

Where have we got to today? Well, the UK Government reports that, as of December 2025, there are 41M (71% of all meters) "smart or advanced" meters installed in homes or SMEs, with 37M (65%) working in smart mode. That's an increae of 5% to both numbers, year on year (from 66% total and 60% smart).

Just looking at domestic properties, there were 38M smart meters out of 54M total meters.

Meanwhile the DCC dashboard today reports there are 38M smart meters connected to the DCC, made up of 27M SMETS2 meters and 11M SMETS1 meters. Those numbers are increasing by about 17000 every weekday.

With 14M traditional meters still installed in domestic premises, if they continue to replace 17000 every weekday it's going to take another 3-and-a-bit years to complete the rollout.

TroubledTarts

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011105#Comment_82011105

Does that include knocking doors down for fitting smart meters or do you think they will aim for the 90% and give up going through courts etc to force fir for those that do not want a smart meter?

Not forgetting 11million smets1 meters to replace over that time frame as well?

GingerTim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011193#Comment_82011193

Much more effective tactic would be putting dumb meters (for those unwilling, not unable to have a smart meter) put in a £2 a day standing charge.

TroubledTarts

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011279#Comment_82011279

I don't buy in to punishing that much as some of this comes down to hearsay and education. The fact they are already missing out on decent savings is enough. Paying £730 in standing charges just seems a step too far.

But perhaps that would be what it would cost to get manual reads from a person visiting when there are much fewer and spread apart dumb meters to read.

QrizB

But perhaps that would be what it would cost to get manual reads from a person visiting when there are much fewer and spread apart dumb meters to read.

Putting the tinfoil-hat wearers to one side for a moment, it would be good to see energy companies being obliged once more to get an "actual" meter reading (not a customer one) at least once a year.

For communicating smart meters, a smart reading would be fine. But for non-communicating smart meters, and the remaining dumb meters, having an energy company agent visit once a year and check up on things would help to avoid many of the threads we get on this forum re. estimated bills, back-billing and so on.