Is Ofgem allowing EdF to calculate Gas bills incorrectly?

Emma6

My gas supply contract transferred from Zog to EdF as a Supplier of Last Resort.

I continued to supply monthly gas meter readings to EdF.  I also followed MSE advice and transferred to a DD mandate. 

Under the DD contract, EdF calculates gas bills every 6 months. However, National Grid's estimate for the calorific value of the gas supplied changes daily and is revised retrospectively as more accurate measurements come in.

When calculating my gas bill, EdF uses a single averaged CV that covers the entire 6 months. So periods of low usage but high CV would distort the average CV they use to convert volume of gas used to kWh.

 

The governing legislation says bills should be calculated regularly, which I took to mean approximately monthly for residential customers. This ensures the average CV is relevant to the amount of gas and therefore the energy consumed for the period.

For example, a poor quality gas in Winter having a low CV means more volume of gas will be used to heat a pan of water.  If the grid supplies good quality gas of higher CV in Summer the bills single averaged CV will wrongly imply more energy was consumed in Winter than was really the case.  It could work the other way too, or we might be lucky and the gas in Summer is as bad as the gas in Winter.

Is EdF complying with the legislation and the spirit of the legislation?

If not, is it worth raising a complaint to Ofgem?  I'm not sure how to do that.  I guess my complaint would be about the gas supply licence they awarded to EdF permitting them to calculate gas bills that way?

... or is this all too little too worry about? 

I suppose it would be ok for EdF to discount the unit price to make sure it balances out, but I would like to see that done in a transparent manner.

I challenged EdF Customer Services to change their computer software to calculate gas bills correctly, but after some internal discussion they simply made the nice help desk agent recalculate my Winter gas bills monthly by hand. OK for me, but not everyone else.

[Deleted User]

EDF is complying with the Ofgem rules on calorific values. Suppliers are required to use the average calorific value for the gas supplied during the billing period TRUNCATED to 1 decimal point; ie, an average of 39.75 would be billed as 39.7.

When I have checked the calorific value used on bills against the National Grid reported values, I have always found them to be spot on.

http://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/DataItemExplorer/Index

You can email consumer.affairs@ofgem.gov.uk 


https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2014/08/supplier_guidance_on_cv_calculation.pdf

molerat

Emma6 said:

I challenged EdF Customer Services to change their computer software to calculate gas bills correctly, but after some internal discussion they simply made the nice help desk agent recalculate my Winter gas bills monthly by hand. OK for me, but not everyone else.

And what was the difference overall ?

The more important thing here is that, especially in the current situation, companies should be forced to bill monthly.  This 6 month billing and review is a recipe for disaster for many.

[Deleted User]

molerat said:

Emma6 said:

I challenged EdF Customer Services to change their computer software to calculate gas bills correctly, but after some internal discussion they simply made the nice help desk agent recalculate my Winter gas bills monthly by hand. OK for me, but not everyone else.

And what was the difference overall ?

The more important thing here is that, especially in the current situation, companies should be forced to bill monthly.  This 6 month billing and review is a recipe for disaster for many.

I wasn’t going to bite. If the Help Desk did do monthly calculations then EDF would be breach of its Ofgem obligations on the use of calorific values for billing. I would also be interested to know how they calculated the monthly calorific values. It is a time-consuming manual process which I suggest that CS is not trained to undertake - unless they broke the 6 monthly bill into 1 month chunks and let the computer do its thing.
 

I agree that billing should be a monthly requirement.

Emma6

@[Deleted User] I too thought it was unfair on the CS agent to calculate my bills by hand.  I told her so.  Monthly billing would be correct in my view. That was what all of my previous suppliers did.

Emma6

@[Deleted User] the CS agent used the relevant CVs and my meter readings when calculating the new bills. It was so unfair on her.  It's something a computer should be doing.  The software change should not be particularly complex.  It is more complicated than an electricity bill.

MattMattMattUK

Emma6 said:

@ Dolor I too thought it was unfair on the CS agent to calculate my bills by hand.  I told her so.  Monthly billing would be correct in my view. That was what all of my previous suppliers did.

If you want monthly bills with EDF you can choose the option to pay the whole amount monthly by Direct Debit, but it does mean your payments will be significantly higher in winter than in summer.

[Deleted User]

Watch this space. EDF has just bought the Kraken billing system from Octopus Technologies (part of the Octopus Energy Group). In would be very surprised if monthly billing doesn’t become the norm.

inspectorperez

[Deleted User] said:

Watch this space. EDF has just bought the Kraken billing system from Octopus Technologies (part of the Octopus Energy Group). In would be very surprised if monthly billing doesn’t become the norm.

TBH, I just don't get it with EDF.

I was an EDF customer going back to at least 2012 before moving to Octopus in 2018 and then back to EDF in 2020. During the earlier period I used to get quarterly online bills following submission of dual fuel readings. As soon as the readings were submitted online, the account balance would be updated immediately and the detailed bill would be visible within 48 hours. This always gave me the impression that EDF back office was well run and with a sound billing system.

Move forward to 2020 when I moved back to EDF, bills are generated every 6 months even though I still submit monthly readings. Also the account balance is no longer updated when the online reading are submitted. On the face of it, they appear to have gone backwards in terms of automised processes.

During my 2 years with Octopus, I was very impressed with their systems and service levels, but I am now confused as to why EDF appear to be playing catch up when they have historically had a good system in place to begin with.

Owing to the absence of regular bills now, I maintain a spreadsheet to enable me to monitor my own household usage in terms of consumption and spend as this information is no longer provided timeously by EDF.

MattMattMattUK

[Deleted User] said:

Watch this space. EDF has just bought the Kraken billing system from Octopus Technologies (part of the Octopus Energy Group). In would be very surprised if monthly billing doesn’t become the norm.

It will be a long wait watching white space, they signed the deal in November 2021 and deployment is expected to begin in the middle of next year, with the full rollout completed by the end of 2024.

Mobtr

The reason EDF bill every 6 months is that direct debits were being reviewed every time a reading was given causing complaints that the payments were being changed too often