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

la531983

wrf12345 said:

"Out of curiosity I just put my address into the Tomato get a quote thing on their website and the ONLY things it comes back with are the Prime and the Tomatopia ones. Have they pulled the others? 

I have a SMETS1 meter, no idea if this is relevant."

Yes, too complicated or too much work for them to work with the older meters. If you trace back to the politicians responsible for their fitting and write them a nice letter I am sure they will offer to fund fitting a proper meter for you...

To be fair I have had very few issues with it since it was fitted, Octopus have been able to pull all my usage bar 2 days which they then retrospectively pulled.

Clearly this is just them being selective,  which is fine.

Bendo

wrf12345 said:

"Out of curiosity I just put my address into the Tomato get a quote thing on their website and the ONLY things it comes back with are the Prime and the Tomatopia ones. Have they pulled the others? 

I have a SMETS1 meter, no idea if this is relevant."

Yes, too complicated or too much work for them to work with the older meters. If you trace back to the politicians responsible for their fitting and write them a nice letter I am sure they will offer to fund fitting a proper meter for you...

An adopted SMETS 1 meter should be no more difficult for a supplier to read than SMETS 2. The only issue here is at the suppliers door for failing to ensure their systems could properly work with one third of the installed meters.

Newbie_John

Received my first bill today covering period mid-October till end of November. All the issues I had with TE are fixed - no data (fixed), incorrect timings (fixed), no bill (fixed).
Even IHD works fine - reports consumption and as the preset kWh price is close to my average - it is finally a useful information.
I have SMETS2.

Now just waiting for Octopus to bill me for September  but as they gave me automatic £30 late bill compensation that should be free-ish. 

jacobb89

Newbie_John said:

Received my first bill today covering period mid-October till end of November. All the issues I had with TE are fixed - no data (fixed), incorrect timings (fixed), no bill (fixed).
Even IHD works fine - reports consumption and as the preset kWh price is close to my average - it is finally a useful information.
I have SMETS2.

Now just waiting for Octopus to bill me for September  but as they gave me automatic £30 late bill compensation that should be free-ish. 

I am planning to move elec to tomato and stay gas with octopus.. is there any penalty or extra charges for single fuel with octopus pls ? 

Also does tomato have cachback referrel thingy ? 
thanks 

Newbie_John

Gas - I've seen some mixed messages, people saying that Octopus said they don't provide just gas but also those who moved and somehow kept their gas with Octopus - no conclusive answer.

Referral - doesn't exist, where does the referral money come from - higher prices ;-) 

wrf12345

Can't see how Octopus can stop people from having just gas on their account, can see how they may move it to the std tariff because of "problems" with reading the meter (although Bright gets the gas readings from smart meter every few hours so why they could not do so is beyond me). Slightly lower s/c on Tracker Gas for me but going into winter probably cheaper overall on the std tariff so no great loss.

tlcgrantham

jacobb89 said:

Newbie_John said:

Received my first bill today covering period mid-October till end of November. All the issues I had with TE are fixed - no data (fixed), incorrect timings (fixed), no bill (fixed).
Even IHD works fine - reports consumption and as the preset kWh price is close to my average - it is finally a useful information.
I have SMETS2.

Now just waiting for Octopus to bill me for September  but as they gave me automatic £30 late bill compensation that should be free-ish. 

I am planning to move elec to tomato and stay gas with octopus.. is there any penalty or extra charges for single fuel with octopus pls ? 

Also does tomato have cachback referrel thingy ? 
thanks 

I switched to Tomato over a month ago but still have Gas on Tracker with no problems so far. I still also get my free coffee and won 800pts on spin the wheel. 

QrizB

Newbie_John said:

Gas - I've seen some mixed messages, people saying that Octopus said they don't provide just gas but also those who moved and somehow kept their gas with Octopus - no conclusive answer.

You can't join Octopus just for gas, AFAIK. However if you switch your electricity away, your gas can remain with them.

sebtomato

lohr500 said:

sebtomato said:

Does Tomato Energy support activating ACLS during off peak hours? Basically replicating a traditional economy 7?

I have some storage heaters, and ACLS needs to be activated for them to work. Else, they won't switch on.

Octopus has just released a tariff specially for storage heaters (Octopus Snug), but Tomato Lifestyle would be much cheaper (5p off peak rate, rather than 9p, and a cheaper standing charge too) and would offer more off peak hours too during the day. Probably 15% to 20% cheaper than Octopus Economy 7.

I am reluctant to switch to Tomato, as risk is to have no heating if they mess up.

I don't think TE will be able to activate your ACLS switching anytime soon. 

From my two month experience with TE, they weren't even able to push the new tariff rates and the s/c details to my working SMETS2 meter.

My meter continued to operate as a two register Economy 7 type meter, with the ACLS circuit activating based on the previous EDF ECO20:20 tariff times. It would be a gamble, but if you did switch, your meter might also continue to operate the ACLS switching at the same times as it does now. If the times coincide with the TE Lifestyle times, then fine, but I suspect there will be a discrepancy because the longest available TE 5p slot is only 6 hours, not 7.
And there is a danger that TE might get their act together and reset your meter at some point. Unless they offer customisation for each customer, what ACLS switching times would they set? Just the 5p slot, or the 5p and 14p slots?

Another option is to get a qualified electrician to change your consumer unit circuits, so the off-peak circuit is controlled by a separate relay/timer, linked to the 24/7 circuit. The risk in doing this is that you need to keep an eye on the clock time and timer settings on the timer to make sure that it remains synchronised to the correct off-peak times.

If you can shift a high % of your demand to the Economy 7 period, have a look at the Utility Warehouse Economy 7 pricing. I am only paying 5p for the 7 hours off-peak, but 34p peak and with a 63p standing charge.
As a high user (18,000kWh p.a.) it works for us as we able to shift virtually all our demand into the 5p off-peak window, so the high peak rate is largely irrelevant. The saving from the 5p rate more than compensates for the high s/c as well.

yes, it would be a gamble with TE, if they don't set the ACLS schedule or if the schedule doesn't match the off peak hours.

Yes, might be simpler with smart tariffs to have everything on one circuit and control the timing carefully, instead of relying on ACLS schedule.

Thanks, I didn't know about Utility Warehouse. I think two third of my electricity in winter is off peak, so it may make sense.

EssexHebridean

You might want to just have a bit of a search on here for information on UW before considering switching to them…suffice to say that generally speaking the only customers of theirs who consistently have good things to say about them are those who benefit from the pyramid-scheme style arrangement they have for referring new customers…