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

masonic

northernstar007 said:

masonic said:

BargainBear said:

wakeupalarm said:

Also on Elexon website.
https://www.elexon.co.uk/article/public-notification-of-tomato-energy-limiteds-lack-of-progress-against-its-efr-milestones/

Doesn't instill much confidence for accurate billing! Seems they're struggling in multiple areas.

The two would appear intricately linked. Looks to me like they are failing to get metering data from customers and this is preventing them settling with the wholesale market. All related to SMETS1 meters they cannot read?

octopus is reading my SMETS1 fine every 30mins, i'm just waiting for this co to go bust and everyone picks up the pieces in our SC again by these directors that should be in jail

From some brief perusing of the rules, if the panel decides to expel a supplier, then it must give at least 28 days notice of its intentions to Ofgem and other market participants, then after considering feedback given another 28 days notice to the supplier before they are removed from the market. One would hope that this would result in a much smoother and lower cost situation to deal with than the abrupt action required in previous SoLR exercises. Chances are this process has not started (yet), given the public shaming stance the panel has decided to take this time.

Spoonie_Turtle

northernstar007 said:

masonic said:

BargainBear said:

wakeupalarm said:

Also on Elexon website.
https://www.elexon.co.uk/article/public-notification-of-tomato-energy-limiteds-lack-of-progress-against-its-efr-milestones/

Doesn't instill much confidence for accurate billing! Seems they're struggling in multiple areas.

The two would appear intricately linked. Looks to me like they are failing to get metering data from customers and this is preventing them settling with the wholesale market. All related to SMETS1 meters they cannot read?

octopus is reading my SMETS1 fine every 30mins, i'm just waiting for this co to go bust and everyone picks up the pieces in our SC again by these directors that should be in jail

Hopefully not so much as the last time round, as Tomato don't hold credit balances to be protected and paid out to customers if they go bust. 
Depends if we'll be expected to ultimately foot the cost of paying the wholesalers for energy that's been consumed but not paid for because Tomato haven't billed for it.

wakeupalarm

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Depends if we'll be expected to ultimately foot the cost of paying the wholesalers for energy that's been consumed but not paid for because Tomato haven't billed for it.

I suppose it would be no different to any other company in that the administrators produce a final bill for individual customers and ask for it to be paid, and if not then sell it on to debt collectors. 

masonic

wakeupalarm said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Depends if we'll be expected to ultimately foot the cost of paying the wholesalers for energy that's been consumed but not paid for because Tomato haven't billed for it.

I suppose it would be no different to any other company in that the administrators produce a final bill for individual customers and ask for it to be paid, and if not then sell it on to debt collectors. 

There's a separate issue here that they've been discounting and writing off late bills to appease the SMETS1 customers who couldn't be billed.

noitsnotme

northernstar007 said:

masonic said:

BargainBear said:

wakeupalarm said:

Also on Elexon website.
https://www.elexon.co.uk/article/public-notification-of-tomato-energy-limiteds-lack-of-progress-against-its-efr-milestones/

Doesn't instill much confidence for accurate billing! Seems they're struggling in multiple areas.

The two would appear intricately linked. Looks to me like they are failing to get metering data from customers and this is preventing them settling with the wholesale market. All related to SMETS1 meters they cannot read?

octopus is reading my SMETS1 fine every 30mins, i'm just waiting for this co to go bust and everyone picks up the pieces in our SC again by these directors that should be in jail

The directors that will still be receiving a hefty directors salary even though the company is loss making.  It’s just a way for them to print money for themselves at the expense of everyone else.  They’ve done it before in the last failed company and will likely get away with it again.  It’s disgraceful it’s allowed to happen.

northernstar007

how are they not banned anywhere near the energy sector, the creditors should be hounding them for all there assets

masonic

noitsnotme said:

northernstar007 said:

masonic said:

BargainBear said:

wakeupalarm said:

Also on Elexon website.
https://www.elexon.co.uk/article/public-notification-of-tomato-energy-limiteds-lack-of-progress-against-its-efr-milestones/

Doesn't instill much confidence for accurate billing! Seems they're struggling in multiple areas.

The two would appear intricately linked. Looks to me like they are failing to get metering data from customers and this is preventing them settling with the wholesale market. All related to SMETS1 meters they cannot read?

octopus is reading my SMETS1 fine every 30mins, i'm just waiting for this co to go bust and everyone picks up the pieces in our SC again by these directors that should be in jail

The directors that will still be receiving a hefty directors salary even though the company is loss making.  It’s just a way for them to print money for themselves at the expense of everyone else.  They’ve done it before in the last failed company and will likely get away with it again.  It’s disgraceful it’s allowed to happen.

Which previous failed company were the directors of TE involved with? As far as I can see only one of the three was involved with a prior energy company (distributor) and that company was dissolved without going insolvent.

northernstar007

im not trailing back 53 pages

bagand96

northernstar007 said:

im not trailing back 53 pages

Just here to make dramatic comments about company directors that "should be in jail" then?

Can anyone who really understands the Elexon Wholesale market and panel etc explain to an uneducated layman exactly what the current issue with Tomato Energy is and how serious the situation is for the future of Tomato?

masonic

bagand96 said:

Can anyone who really understands the Elexon Wholesale market and panel etc explain to an uneducated layman exactly what the current issue with Tomato Energy is and how serious the situation is for the future of Tomato?

I can't claim to "really understand" the market, but maybe my take on the situation may still be somewhat helpful. The energy market relies on various participants fulfilling their respective roles. This includes generators who feed energy into the market and suppliers who sell it to the end users. The suppliers need to buy energy from the market to meet the demands of the customers they supply. They determine how much their customers have been using through their energy meters. In order to balance the books, they need to keep on top of what their customers are using, and this seems to be where Tomato have been / are having some serious problems. They seem to have a large subset of customers with meters that their platform is not compatible with. The problem has got to the point where they have had to stop taking on new customers with this type of meter, and they have had to offer their existing customer base a discount policy, where they partially or fully write off bills depending on how late they are. This has resulted in them being late in settling consumption and providing inaccurate consumption data to the market. 

Elexon became sufficiently concerned that for such a small proportion of the market, Tomato was responsible for a disproportionate amount of issues and has put them into a resolution plan, with milestones they should meet on the way to adequate performance. They have so far shown little to no improvement, and so at the end of last year they took the step of notifying the rest of the market about these failures and have this week formally declared them in default for these failings. That is the minimum action they could have taken at this stage, and they reserve the right to take further action at any time (but likely they are using this as a stick to try and get Tomato to make some progress over the next period). If things carry on as they are, then there is a risk that they could be expelled from the market (subject to the >56 day process I mentioned earlier). If that happens, they would be unable to supply their customers with energy, so Ofgem would need to step in. Whether it would be another SoLR process or something else I have no idea, but there would be scope for an orderly wind-down.

While some of the comments upthread are a bit excessive, I am a little surprised that Ofgem is sitting back and allowing them to market themselves to new customers given all of this was known to them last month. But then again, maybe Ofgem doesn't consider things to be as dire as this thread would suggest. Given this breaking news, I wouldn't have pulled the trigger and joined Tomato, but now I am here I'm currently of the opinion that I may as well keep a close eye on the situation, but not head for the hills just yet.