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

Bendo

tlcgrantham said:

Bendo said:

If they had any money, surely they would have paid whoever did the DCC integration to fix it by now so they could bill and take on SMETS1 meters. It cannot be that difficult to rectify.

Personally don't see them lasting another 6 months, but regardless of that if they were taking on SMETS 1 I'd jump anyway as the savings are worth the ultimately bit of hassle.

They do take on Smets 1 but only offer their Prime tariff at 21pkwh with an SC of 50p daily but fixed for a year with no exit fees.

The savings there don't justify the messing about when SOL ends up happening.  For £30+ a month I'd take that, for a few quid, nahhh.

Somebody

masonic said:

wrf12345 said:

It would be interesting to know how much off-the-shelf software would cost them rather than developing their own, hard to imagine that it would represent a huge chunk of the bill but this is the whacky, weird world of energy retailers with tiers/layers of ***'s at the trough .

You are coming at it from the assumption that they are trying to be an energy supplier. This is a side-effect. They are developing a service platform to white label and market to energy suppliers. Those who sign up to the energy supplier they bought are beta testers for that product, and there is lots of work to do before any energy supplier not owned by them is going to touch the product. Their investors are not going to give them tens of millions to burn selling energy at a loss to customers so that they can implement some off-the-shelf software as it would give them no return their investment.

Go have a read of https://www.senapt.co.uk/ to see what they are really trying to build.

...and this is what they are up against: https://kraken.tech/

Are you saying they are trying to emulate Octopus?

masonic

Somebody said:

masonic said:

wrf12345 said:

It would be interesting to know how much off-the-shelf software would cost them rather than developing their own, hard to imagine that it would represent a huge chunk of the bill but this is the whacky, weird world of energy retailers with tiers/layers of ***'s at the trough .

You are coming at it from the assumption that they are trying to be an energy supplier. This is a side-effect. They are developing a service platform to white label and market to energy suppliers. Those who sign up to the energy supplier they bought are beta testers for that product, and there is lots of work to do before any energy supplier not owned by them is going to touch the product. Their investors are not going to give them tens of millions to burn selling energy at a loss to customers so that they can implement some off-the-shelf software as it would give them no return their investment.

Go have a read of https://www.senapt.co.uk/ to see what they are really trying to build.

...and this is what they are up against: https://kraken.tech/

Are you saying they are trying to emulate Octopus?

Whether intentional or not, there are some fairly big overlaps in their offerings. But also some key differences. I don't believe Octopus offers solar and battery installations as a service with no up-front costs, or is trying to build localised grid infrastructure. But the tariffs, focus on renewables adoption by customers, and aim to sell their platform to other suppliers, all looks very similar. I think others commented on the 'competition for Octopus' angle long before I did, so I can't take any credit for it.

wrf12345

Ah, thanks for the enlightenment, never know with these energy companies...

lohr500

I think they will need to seriously up their level of competency if they want to develop a service platform to rival Octopus' Kraken system.

As @masonic suggests, perhaps they have enrolled a bunch of customers to unwittingly be their beta testers, drawn in by what some would say are unsustainable unit costs. 

But based on my experience, I don't think TE were ready for beta testing and they should have done far more testing in the sandbox.

Unfortunately, if they fail as an energy provider by launching too early, then I'm not sure any other supplier would consider adopting their MyWatts platform, or any subsequent incarnation of it.    

Doc_N

Doesn’t the future of TE depend essentially on how deep the pockets of the backers are, and what access they have to loan finance? The Octopus business model involved substantial losses in the early days to attract customers, and those losses are now being recovered with rather higher prices.

Maybe TE is just repeating the exercise, in which case, good! Octopus needs some real competition now!

TroubledTarts

Doc_N said:

Doesn’t the future of TE depend essentially on how deep the pockets of the backers are, and what access they have to loan finance? The Octopus business model involved substantial losses in the early days to attract customers, and those losses are now being recovered with rather higher prices.

Maybe TE is just repeating the exercise, in which case, good! Octopus needs some real competition now!

That's where things are unclear.

Late on last financials to give us a clue and no clear info out there to suggest they have the backing that Octopus did when they tried this.

It's all a gamble really

bristolleedsfan

TroubledTarts said:

Doc_N said:

Doesn’t the future of TE depend essentially on how deep the pockets of the backers are, and what access they have to loan finance? The Octopus business model involved substantial losses in the early days to attract customers, and those losses are now being recovered with rather higher prices.

Maybe TE is just repeating the exercise, in which case, good! Octopus needs some real competition now!

That's where things are unclear.

Late on last financials to give us a clue and no clear info out there to suggest they have the backing that Octopus did when they tried this.

It's all a gamble really

Definition of gamble  "a risky action undertaken with the hope of success"  "take risky action in the hope of a desired result"

T.E  take payment after energy has been used.

SJMALBA

I've been looking at Tomato again, and it seems that my best option is Lifestyle + Battery - is this OK to choose despite not having a battery?

bagand96

SJMALBA said:

I've been looking at Tomato again, and it seems that my best option is Lifestyle + Battery - is this OK to choose despite not having a battery?

I don't think they make any follow up checks to what you select on the the Lifestyle tariffs, they're just suggested options for your lifestyle.  Although I haven't checked the T&Cs to see if anything is mentioned.  I think many here chose the EV option despite not owning one.