Alternative Fuel Payment & Solar panels 2 March at 12:29AM edited 2 March at 10:46AM in LPG, heating oil, solid & other fuels 17 replies 325 views

Mstty

Apodemus said:

Mstty said:

cazza0104 said:

Octopus don’t want to know - they’re saying it’s not their problem. It would help if I understood the process. Is it actual addresses which the government give the suppliers or just the postcodes which they then have to apply to their customer list?

If I were you I wouldn't spend wasted time with suppliers on this. Just put in an application, says below open early March so not much time to wait

https://www.gov.uk/get-help-energy-bills/alternative-fuels

I really don't see how that will work.  If the OP's postcode area met the Government's conditions for the automatic payment, then it would seem unlikely that they will authorise an additional specific payment to the OP (which would still be routed through the electricity supplier).  At the very least they would need proof that it hadn't been paid in the way that it should have been - and it is often difficult to prove a negative. 

Clearly there must be an error in the system somewhere.  Either the OP is wrong about his neighbours being at the same postcode or about his postcode being included or the Supplier has missed him off that postcode's list - most likely because they have an error in the postcode that they hold.  

There are possibly other unlikely reasons, such as this being a property which has not had its address properly registered for a postcode - in that case, I guess it might be possible that the MPAN number might not align with the postcode that the supplier's billing service holds for the property - but we are talking a very unlikely set of circumstances here!

You don't think the OP applying manually with proof of heating oil bills will work? I thought that was exactly how the manual form will work? 

Apodemus

ariarnia said:

Apodemus said:

Mstty said:

cazza0104 said:

Octopus don’t want to know - they’re saying it’s not their problem. It would help if I understood the process. Is it actual addresses which the government give the suppliers or just the postcodes which they then have to apply to their customer list?

If I were you I wouldn't spend wasted time with suppliers on this. Just put in an application, says below open early March so not much time to wait

https://www.gov.uk/get-help-energy-bills/alternative-fuels

I really don't see how that will work.  If the OP's postcode area met the Government's conditions for the automatic payment, then it would seem unlikely that they will authorise an additional specific payment to the OP (which would still be routed through the electricity supplier).  At the very least they would need proof that it hadn't been paid in the way that it should have been - and it is often difficult to prove a negative. 

if the op has a bill (with the house address) with no payment in the period and an email from the supplier saying there not eligible then that seems quite easy to prove? 

personally id go to the supplier and say if there not interested in helping then ask for a deadlock letter and take it to the ombudsman who will look at the criteria and instruct its paid or explain why not. 

Yes, if the supplier is willing to help, then it should be easy to get them to assure the Gov't that it has not been paid, but the OP was suggesting that the supplier was not willing to be helpful.  Of course, if the supplier was being helpful, the whole issue might have been resolved by now!

It's perhaps a bit of a Catch22 in that I would think that the Ombudsman wouldn't be interested in this until the manual application process has been implemented and followed.  So I would still say it is currently a supplier problem for now, moving on to the manual application if needed and then (possibly) the Ombudsman if sense doesn't prevail.

cazza0104

Thanks everyone. I’ve spoken to Octopus again. They get a list of actual addresses which they believe are off gas grid rather than just postcodes. Ours obviously wasn’t on that list. They’ve sent me an email confirming that we have not received it. The application portal opens on March 6th so hopefully it will be sorted out that way…

Spoonie_Turtle

cazza0104 said:

Octopus don’t want to know - they’re saying it’s not their problem. It would help if I understood the process. Is it actual addresses which the government give the suppliers or just the postcodes which they then have to apply to their customer list?

So the actual process as far as we understand is:
Postcodes off gas → postcodes where the predominant form of heating is not electric → list of domestic MPANs within those postcodes (meter point numbers, each associated with an address and account) → separate those addresses out into who supplies them and give suppliers a list of all of the ones they supply.

If the manual application were to recognise your address/postcode as having been included in the list then you've now got written confirmation that Octopus don't have you down for it, so that's good anyway.

It is weird you're not on the list though.  Just to double check, you are on a domestic supply?

Apodemus

cazza0104 said:

Thanks everyone. I’ve spoken to Octopus again. They get a list of actual addresses which they believe are off gas grid rather than just postcodes. Ours obviously wasn’t on that list. They’ve sent me an email confirming that we have not received it. The application portal opens on March 6th so hopefully it will be sorted out that way…

That sounds good.  Glad Octopus have become helpful!

cazza0104

No domestic supply except for electricity via Octopus. Portal meant to open today but nothing so far…!

Jdm1982

I'm waiting for portal too. No luck so far