Supplier Failure - Advice re Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) process not fit for purpose

PowerDev

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

PowerDev

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Yes, we know your career history, you linked your personal website on the first post.

This does not make your argument infallible, nor do you get to define what terms or not are "Engineering Heresy".

My website link was of course removed by MSE Admin. 

The argument is rather tricky to understand, as is demonstrated by the responses.  I watched the developments which enabled customer Supplier switching; namely installation of dial up half hour meters for larger then smaller non domestic premises (1994 and 2014 and since) then (1998) profiling  to create half hour metered data for the 26 million plus premises who do not have dial up half hour meters. 
With the profiles 'adjusted' by ratioing the preset values up and down to match the Energy used between meter readings.  
All for Supplier Half Hourly Demand Calculation purposes in Wholesale Settlement; final runs 15 months after the Event. 
And of course setting up the other processes which were needed to enable switching including the National database MPAN to Supplier assignment by date table I cited above.   


As ESO Engineer Generation Modelling engineer I did indeed let the expression 'Balancing' through without a thought when NETA was first proposed in 1999.   The Industry knew what the ESO actually did and what was required.
  
Namely close Matching of Total Generation Power to Total Required Demand Power (as at the Generation and Interconnection boundaries) at every Instant.   

Each Electricity System is always in absolute Power Balance at every instant by the laws of conservation of Energy.  
And, with more Parties involved in Electricity production, the Verb Balancing gives the wrong impression, as I found after I retired in 2003 (for the first time).  

Note that OFGEM currently have the Metered Half Hour Settlement project running to use data from Smart Meters (SMETS) to replace the profiling values in Settlement for premises with those meters.  That is tricky, especially coping with possible incorrect or missing data.  

CSI_Yorkshire

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

PowerDev

CSI_Yorkshire said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

So you are happy that People, some of whom cannot afford it, have ended up paying 70% more than they needed to over the last 2 years?  That is far more expense than dealing with the issues if you switch early which the SoLR sorted out for me.  

CSI_Yorkshire

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

So you are happy that People, some of whom cannot afford it, have ended up paying 70% than they needed to over the last 2 years?  That is far more expense than dealing with the issues if you switch early which the SoLR sorted outy for me.  

Many many people are not on the cheapest of all possible tariffs.  A substantial proportion of customers just never switch or never fix.  You are using the fact that you, an informed and active customer, chose to switch to insinuate that others attempted to do the same but were prevented.  My conjecture is that that is an anecdote and not evidence of wider behaviour.

Lack of customer engagement and people not being on the 'perfect' tariff is not an issue for the SoLR system to deal with.

[Deleted User]

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

So you are happy that People, some of whom cannot afford it, have ended up paying 70% than they needed to over the last 2 years?  That is far more expense than dealing with the issues if you switch early which the SoLR sorted outy for me.  

Where has this 70% figure come from? As I posted earlier, most refugees from failed suppliers were transferred to the Ofgem Capped tariff. If they couldn’t be bothered or were unable to switch, their tariff would have remained in line with the Ofgem Cap. 

CSI_Yorkshire

[Deleted User] said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

So you are happy that People, some of whom cannot afford it, have ended up paying 70% than they needed to over the last 2 years?  That is far more expense than dealing with the issues if you switch early which the SoLR sorted outy for me.  

Where has this 70% figure come from? As I posted earlier, most refugees from failed suppliers were transferred to the Ofgem Capped tariff. If they couldn’t be bothered or were unable to switch, their tariff would have remained in line with the Ofgem Cap. 

Because the OP says that they, personally, tried to switch to a 20p 2-year fix but couldn't and ended up on a 35p SVT.

That obviously means that everyone from every failed supplier would have also tried to take that same fix at that same time and, therefore, that hundreds of thousands of customers have been paying 70% too much.

artyboy

CSI_Yorkshire said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

Most, perhaps. I however would not have been
one of them. My last failed supplier was People's Energy, and IIRC, it was BG that was appointed as SoLR. 

That was pre-Ukraine war, but the writing was still very much on the wall in terms of supplier failures, and I had no appetite to hang around as the market was obviously contracting. So I took a chance and immediately switched to a Sainsbury's Energy 2 year fix - which as ot happened turned out to be just about the last low-ish price fix in town.

If I'd waited for the SoLR process to conclude, I would have missed the boat, and based on cap rates for the past 18 months, would have ended up paying several thousands more in energy bills (I'm a high usage household anyway).

And yes, it was messed up, and yes it was painful to sort out. And yes in the end BG ended up paying me compensation for trying to grab back my supply when I'd specifically told them not to. But I'm very glad I did it. And I therefore understand the gist of the OPs point here, even if many of you would see me as an edge case...

Qyburn

PowerDev said:
 

To make a change to a query which is already reading all the Records in the Table involved is trivial.  The relevant fields in table are   Meter Point Allocation Number, Supplier assigned to same and Date that Supplier was assigned.  Hence anyone who has switched will have more than one record.  The current query only extracts the latest record and not that as at the last date prior to the failure of the Supplier whose Customers the extract is trying to find..  

On the face of it that seems a reasonable point. But what is the magnitude of the issue?  What percentage of the failed supplier' s customer base in fact switch away during the elapsed time between supplier failure and the query? I was with Neo when they failed (lost their licence) on 9th July 2022. Octopus made contact on the 11th so the query must have been run by then. I can't imagine many customers had switched away in those two days.

PowerDev

artyboy said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

stephenbrowning said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

If you bother to actually engage with the discussion, rather than simply repeating the same already-tired assertions, you will realise that just because you wanted to switch at that time - although still after the failure as you describe it - doesn't mean that anyone else did.  "I will assume that everyone has the same desire, motivation, knowledge and decision-making outcome as me" is a poor logical technique.

I suggest you try to understand that using the amount of money involved in the industry as a whole to claim that this is a loss due to the SoLR process is on par with those who claim that global oil drilling profits somehow represent profitability of UK retail suppliers.

Given your premise for the huge expense appears based on the "a cheaper tariff was available, therefore everyone would have been on it", why are you not arguing for compulsory switching or no tariff cheaper than the deemed tariff - therefore there would never be any loss?

As you claim such a long and distinguished history in the industry, you will be well aware that "a trivial modification" has been previously demonstrated as nothing of the sort, with a wide range of unintended consequences when previous changes have been made.

You have demonstrated no systemic failure.  You have demonstrated an outcome of the system as exists.  Please, stop just randomly quoting parts of the industry history and irrelevant statistics.  This is an appeal to authority and does not enhance your argument.

So you are quite happy that, in a situation where Wholesale prices are driving Tariff Offers to be removed and replaced by more expensive ones, then by only Variable tariffs around the Cap, that Customers should be advised to delay switching?  

Having seen the problems that people often come to this forum with, I am comfortable that the advice to delay switching until the SoLR process is completed is likely overall to be an appropriate option for most customers, and that changing or removing this advice would generally cause more harm than good.

Most, perhaps. I however would not have been
one of them. My last failed supplier was People's Energy, and IIRC, it was BG that was appointed as SoLR. 

That was pre-Ukraine war, but the writing was still very much on the wall in terms of supplier failures, and I had no appetite to hang around as the market was obviously contracting. So I took a chance and immediately switched to a Sainsbury's Energy 2 year fix - which as ot happened turned out to be just about the last low-ish price fix in town.

If I'd waited for the SoLR process to conclude, I would have missed the boat, and based on cap rates for the past 18 months, would have ended up paying several thousands more in energy bills (I'm a high usage household anyway).

And yes, it was messed up, and yes it was painful to sort out. And yes in the end BG ended up paying me compensation for trying to grab back my supply when I'd specifically told them not to. But I'm very glad I did it. And I therefore understand the gist of the OPs point here, even if many of you would see me as an edge case...

Thanks Arty, that's exactly what happened to me.  Although I did make the Suppliers anonymous in my initial post to this thread.  Thus like you I have spent nearly 2 years Fixed from early October 2021 instead of waiting until Peoples prepared the final bills (4/2/2022) and then switching.  From time to time through October and November 2021 I went on BGs site to their chat service and asked what was happening with my SoLR transfer.  The initial response was of course they were still working on the process.  But by November the Chat Agent realised there was an issue as the Welcome packs had all gone out.  And therefore passed me to Customer Service.  They worked out the process for passing the Credit from Peoples Energy to me which worked  OK.  They made no attempt to grab the Supply back and sent me the extract from the National MPAN database which showed the problem with the process.  

So, I've been on 20.5p/kWh since the start of October 2021. Not ending up on 35p/kWh which is 70% higher.

The issues with Russia and Ukraine go back a long way as I saw at an event in 2014.
Then the Cyber attack on the Ukraine System Operator Telecommand in December 2016 which blacked out the Country.
As I said, when the European Gas Demand picked up after the Pandemic Gazprom first did not offer any Short Term Contracts and then shut down the pipelines to EU during 2021 - Soyuz and Brotherhood via Ukraine (explosion at a Ukranian terminal), Yamal via Belarus and Nordstream down the Baltic from St Petersburg.   

Energy Price Cap rates 1/7/23 to 30/9/23
Electricity 30.11p/kWh, Standing Charge 52.97p/day 

The latest MSE Email is noting we have new fixed tariffs.  I'm expecting an Email from my supplier.