Tomato Energy (Electric Only Supplier) - Too Good To Be True ?

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I follow the Tracker, Agile and Fixed forum threads fairly religiously, as well as Tomato rather less religiously, as I try to decide if the 14-M Loyalty Fix still gives me the best overall value from what's on offer. [Low consumption, little load shifiing, north east panels but no EV].  From a detached, possibly superficial level, I am steered away from Tomato by the sheer volume of correspondence mostly of a technical acounting nature in this thread, implying that Tomato users have vastly more to write in about compared with the sister threads. That the price for enjoying super low prices is the hassle involved in getting the sums to add up.
No such thing as a free lunch?

Most of the discussion has been speculation about disciplinary action by Ofgem and Elexon, and their company finances.

Noting also that the Octopus threads were generating a similar volume of posts when Agile and Tracker were much cheaper than SVT. The Agile thread still has its moments.

Largs

Hello.  I became due £40 on Monday just gone for no final bill within 6 weeks of leaving. Will see how it pans out with them.

Qyburn

wrf12345 said:

as I keep saying, the whole system is replete with electronic gremlins and not working properly for a minority of customers, probably going to need a third generation of smart meters that take payment directly and then can get rid of retail energy companies in favour of buying directly from National Grid, with circa forty percent saving on costs (and getting rid of s/c's will help simplify charging).

Your assuming that end users buying wholesale will mean transmission,  distribution, billing and admin costs all disappear. That's pure fantasy. Here's a nice easy read outlining the role suppliers have in the privatised industry ...

https://archy.deberker.com/what-do-energy-suppliers-actually-do-and-why-do-they-go-bust/

Qyburn

wrf12345 said:

"Are you alleging that their accounts are falsified, sort of Enron in reverse? " Not Tomato, they are not yet a big company but it is standard operating practice for large UK companies, especially energy where profit is restricted to 2 percent, and not falsified just clever accounting and off-shoring costs such as call-centres, etc. What you see is not what is actually going down.

You're also alleging a cartel. Otherwise if the suppliers were really sitting on 40  or 50% net margins the door would be wide open for any one of the big companies to drop prices massively.

Newbie_John

bagand96 said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

No such thing as a free lunch?

Joined in November. No EV, no solar, no batteries. Low user. 

MyWatts started working a few days after switch. Billing has been fine every month and they've taken the correct corresponding DD every month

Averaging 17-18p per kWh with a pretty good standing charge. Are the savings huge? Nope. Low user with no tech. Are there savings though? Absolutely , and as long as Tomato keep going why wouldn't I? 

Same here, no gas either and that makes huge difference in average price / kWh in winter -> close to 10p and overall about £120 saved each month Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb.

When they open again, you have SMET2 which worked fine with other providers then you should 90% be fine - most issues come from SMET1 and recent switches when they were banned half way through.

But fixed deal with static prices really keeps "happy customers" away from forum, unlike Agile - bad prices are coming, every one complains, negative prices are coming everyone gets excited.. ☺️

wrf12345

Retail energy has gross margins of sixty percent that reduce to 2 percent net profit when all the costs are involved, I am suggesting that the gross margin would be twenty percent when retail energy is eliminated and payment is made directly to the third generation smart meter and sent to national grid who would still have enough margin to cover their costs and buy at wholesale prices. Retail energy just buy and sell energy and bill the customers, technology will eventually make them redundant.

masonic

wrf12345 said:

Retail energy has gross margins of sixty percent that reduce to 2 percent net profit when all the costs are involved, I am suggesting that the gross margin would be twenty percent when retail energy is eliminated and payment is made directly to the third generation smart meter and sent to national grid who would still have enough margin to cover their costs and buy at wholesale prices. Retail energy just buy and sell energy and bill the customers, technology will eventually make them redundant.

So in the system that you are proposing, a customer has to set up accounts with several different entities involved in the distribution of the energy, has to buy and install their own metering equipment at their own cost, is responsible for ensuring it is measuring correctly. Will need to set up and run systems to report this data and deal with settlement. Anything that goes wrong, they will be responsible for fixing at their cost. But wholesale producers and distributors don't want to set up millions of separate credit accounts for these piddly customers, so they tell them to do one and they get left off supply until they band together into large co-operatives with some negotiating power. Then, what happens if some of your fellow co-operative members fail to pay their bills? I guess the rest of you will have to cough up on their behalf because otherwise you'll get a notice from Elexon and lose your licence to buy any more energy. You'll need to bear the costs of disconnection, and legal liability insurance will be essential in this venture as you may incur substantial legal costs if things go wrong. Leading the co-operative to impose a monthly subscription fee to cover all of these costs of servicing their individual members, let's call it a 'standard charge'. Perhaps set it at £30pcm per fuel, which should just about cover it.

No thanks, I'll stick to using a retail energy supplier.

Qyburn

masonic said:

No thanks, I'll stick to using a retail energy supplier.

Don't forget having to buy your energy with committed orders three months in advance.  Or on the day ahead market where you only learn a day in advance what the next day's prices will be. And unlike Octopus Agile, there'll be no cap on those prices.

Qyburn

wrf12345 said:

Retail energy has gross margins of sixty percent that reduce to 2 percent net profit when all the costs are involved, I am suggesting that the gross margin would be twenty percent when retail energy is eliminated and payment is made directly to the third generation smart meter and sent to national grid who would still have enough margin to cover their costs and buy at wholesale prices. Retail energy just buy and sell energy and bill the customers, technology will eventually make them redundant.

You haven't read, or haven't understood, that article I linked to. It's pointless making up fantasy redesigns of a complex industry, without first understanding the basics of how it work.  You might as well try to guess what light bulbs would cost if each end user had to order direct from the factory.

HillStreetBlues

debitcardmayhem said:

Oh and they were to satisfy ofgem by 4pm today about the provisional order.

I wonder how long it will be before there is an update.