Octopus Agile

TheElectricCow

bob2302 said:

I'm glad I got off Agile. I think most people on Agile would be better off going on to Tomato Lifestyle - at least over the winter. I have 5h at 5p/kWh overnight, 4h at 14p/kWh in the day, and a peak of only 23.26p/kWh ( 0.5p/kWh below Octopus Flexible); the standing charge is 42.9 p compared with 54.8p on Agile Dec 2023.

From what I’ve seen so far, the number of people Tomato has managed to bill accurately seems to be a minority. Call me sceptical, but I feel I’d be better off overall sticking with a supplier who reliably issues correct bills each month than one who doesn’t but has lower prices (of questionable sustainability).

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been watching Tomato with great intrigue and would like to see what happens if they both survive and sort out the apparent issues, but I certainly won’t be jumping ship from seemingly the most functional supplier out there to potentially the least any time soon.

TheElectricCow

Bendo said:

I'll be living my life as normal. Just will make sure the cooking is on the gas hob rather than electric oven.

Not going to worry about what may be an extra £2-3 on a days bill. The savings over SVR for the rest of the month will cover it anyway.

Somewhat similar situation here really, I’ve made some efforts to cut down any unnecessary usage but overall the effect of a few days high prices is likely to be minimal and not worth worrying about. 

I’m all electric and this time of year my single biggest aspect of energy consumption is water heating, which can currently still be done at sub-SVT rates in the mornings anyway. Apart from a bit of planning for lower energy evening meals, life goes on more or less as normal.

November was a fairly expensive month as Agile goes but only ended up adding about £5 to my typical bill, compared with the many times that I’ve had in savings in the months prior. December could be slightly worse at this rate but there’s still plenty of time left in the month where lower rates could come back in.

MeteredOut

TheElectricCow said:

bob2302 said:

I'm glad I got off Agile. I think most people on Agile would be better off going on to Tomato Lifestyle - at least over the winter. I have 5h at 5p/kWh overnight, 4h at 14p/kWh in the day, and a peak of only 23.26p/kWh ( 0.5p/kWh below Octopus Flexible); the standing charge is 42.9 p compared with 54.8p on Agile Dec 2023.

From what I’ve seen so far, the number of people Tomato has managed to bill accurately seems to be a minority. Call me sceptical, but I feel I’d be better off overall sticking with a supplier who reliably issues correct bills each month than one who doesn’t but has lower prices (of questionable sustainability).

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been watching Tomato with great intrigue and would like to see what happens if they both survive and sort out the apparent issues, but I certainly won’t be jumping ship from seemingly the most functional supplier out there to potentially the least any time soon.

How many customers do Tomato have?

teaselMay

Finally set up the octopus home mini that arrived a couple of months ago, I like a bit of data but the in home display offended my inner geek and so it's been hidden since a week after it arrived. I probably should have plugged this one in day before yesterday shouldn't I.

EssexHebridean

Oh goodness your timing on that one may not be the best...! It does provide an interesting level of detail though, and the advance over the IHD with it giving you actual-factual costs on Agile is handy indeed....usually, today a more appropriate word might be "shocking"!  

Newbie_John

And from there only better, hopefully all the way till March:
https://emoncms.org/ukgrid

teaselMay

Thankfully no washing, drying or oven needed and so just background which isn't too worrying, it hopefully will remove the needing to wait until the end of the next day when I am worried how much I've used though

Newbie_John

TheElectricCow said:

bob2302 said:

I'm glad I got off Agile. I think most people on Agile would be better off going on to Tomato Lifestyle - at least over the winter. I have 5h at 5p/kWh overnight, 4h at 14p/kWh in the day, and a peak of only 23.26p/kWh ( 0.5p/kWh below Octopus Flexible); the standing charge is 42.9 p compared with 54.8p on Agile Dec 2023.

From what I’ve seen so far, the number of people Tomato has managed to bill accurately seems to be a minority. Call me sceptical, but I feel I’d be better off overall sticking with a supplier who reliably issues correct bills each month than one who doesn’t but has lower prices (of questionable sustainability).

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been watching Tomato with great intrigue and would like to see what happens if they both survive and sort out the apparent issues, but I certainly won’t be jumping ship from seemingly the most functional supplier out there to potentially the least any time soon.

Check again, the last two weeks it changed a lot.
Most of people with SMETS2 who have been for 30 days+ have had their bills - all correct (including me).
SMETS1 varies, they said they're working on it and plan to resolve it soon. 

Not having a bill sounds odd but most electricity companies do that, charge you monthly an estimated amount and adjust when they get their readings - which could be once in a year..

How many cusotmers? 
Facebook group has 2000 members, the TE wesbite says they want 1 million by 2026 So somehwere between!

MeteredOut

Newbie_John said:

TheElectricCow said:

bob2302 said:

I'm glad I got off Agile. I think most people on Agile would be better off going on to Tomato Lifestyle - at least over the winter. I have 5h at 5p/kWh overnight, 4h at 14p/kWh in the day, and a peak of only 23.26p/kWh ( 0.5p/kWh below Octopus Flexible); the standing charge is 42.9 p compared with 54.8p on Agile Dec 2023.

From what I’ve seen so far, the number of people Tomato has managed to bill accurately seems to be a minority. Call me sceptical, but I feel I’d be better off overall sticking with a supplier who reliably issues correct bills each month than one who doesn’t but has lower prices (of questionable sustainability).

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been watching Tomato with great intrigue and would like to see what happens if they both survive and sort out the apparent issues, but I certainly won’t be jumping ship from seemingly the most functional supplier out there to potentially the least any time soon.

Check again, the last two weeks it changed a lot.
Most of people with SMETS2 who have been for 30 days+ have had their bills - all correct (including me).
SMETS1 varies, they said they're working on it and plan to resolve it soon. 

Not having a bill sounds odd but most electricity companies do that, charge you monthly an estimated amount and adjust when they get their readings - which could be once in a year..

How many cusotmers? 
Facebook group has 2000 members, the TE wesbite says they want 1 million by 2026 So somehwere between!

I'd like to hear that answer from TheElectricCow, because for her to say "From what I’ve seen so far, the number of people Tomato has managed to bill accurately seems to be a minority. ", she must know the answer.

EssexHebridean

The TE thread on the forum details some of their own communications which do seem to suggest (confirm) that they have had what might be called a challenging time of getting the billing right. At the least, we can assume that anyone who was on the TOU tariff that had the glitch on timings being wrongly billed must be in the "not billed accurately" camp, and it's probably safe to assume that is a fair chunk of their customer base.