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

JKS$(

@debitcardmayhem - I've not had a bill from TE yet.

@QrizB - I get what you're saying, & this is the first time I've switched supplier without taking my own meter readings on the switch day. 

Would data from n3rgy help here? Assuming I'm allowed to see my own data without an IHD MAC.

I've emailed Octopus to dispute the bill - they were quite good when they had an 'admin error' & charged me over £450 for less than a month's supply when I switched to them (despite submitting my own reading taken at 0001 on the switch day. Sigh) The correct bill was issued quickly.

I don't really understand why it's all so difficult to get right 

QrizB

I think n3rgy give you 30-minute consumption data, not index readings, so no it's not going to help directly.

We're talking about 40kWh here? If the difference between Octopus's tariff and Tomato's is 5p/kWh, that's potentially £2 that you've paid out unnecessarily. Whether to get excited over that or not is your choice, but I'd let it go - at least until you get your fitrst Tomato bill and can see what reading they opened your account on.

If it turns out that you've ben double-billed, I'd definitely be off to https://octopus.energy/unhappy/ to complain.

JKS$(

Newbie_John said: @JKS$(...Also not sure on your immersion heater but I have something like this:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/tesla-smart-thermostat-for-immersion-heaters-310mm/258RE
Which you can fully set up on the phone, which day, and what time it should run - so you don't need to do it manually. 

Thanks for the info - I thought something like this must exist. Could be useful if you still have teenagers at home, but I'd be more likely to forget to use the app. I prefer an analogue answer & my free-to-use phone alarm works well. The cost of it, & getting it fitted (I'm not gifted in the DIY department) would wipe out any savings from switching to TE.

wrf12345

"Per the industry data flows, Octopus should close your account using a reading that Tomato supply to them. If those readings match, you can only challenge it if they differ from the actual reading on the meter on that day by more than a set (& quite large) amount."

When I joined Octopus and phoned them they said they had the reading from BG and were happy to use that so they will not necessarily follow the rules, and some companies use whatever they think they can get away with.

masonic

QrizB said:

We're talking about 40kWh here? If the difference between Octopus's tariff and Tomato's is 5p/kWh, that's potentially £2 that you've paid out unnecessarily. Whether to get excited over that or not is your choice, but I'd let it go - at least until you get your fitrst Tomato bill and can see what reading they opened your account on.

Tomato don't use or include meter readings in their bills (like Octopus if you are on Agile). Issue is therefore that you'll be charged on HH consumption figures from the start date at Tomato, so if the CoS reading is high that's energy you'd be double charged for.

JKS$(

masonic said:

QrizB said:

We're talking about 40kWh here? If the difference between Octopus's tariff and Tomato's is 5p/kWh, that's potentially £2 that you've paid out unnecessarily. Whether to get excited over that or not is your choice, but I'd let it go - at least until you get your fitrst Tomato bill and can see what reading they opened your account on.

Tomato don't use or include meter readings in their bills (like Octopus if you are on Agile). Issue is therefore that you'll be charged on HH consumption figures from the start date at Tomato, so if the CoS reading is high that's energy you'd be double charged for.

Sorry, I don't understand what HH & CoS mean.

Octopus have used a reading of 5248.8 as a closing reading for 26 Jan. That's incorrect, I have a photo of my meter reading yesterday of 5239. 

Today myWatts tells me my meter is reading 5276 - there is no way I've used so much electricity. I've submitted 5239 to myWatts manually.

I'm assuming TE isn't actually 'listening' to my meter, but is basing the readings in historical use. The last resident left the immersion on 24/7!

n3rgy cannot be accessed without an IHD MAC. 

QrizB

JKS$( said:

masonic said:

QrizB said:

We're talking about 40kWh here? If the difference between Octopus's tariff and Tomato's is 5p/kWh, that's potentially £2 that you've paid out unnecessarily. Whether to get excited over that or not is your choice, but I'd let it go - at least until you get your fitrst Tomato bill and can see what reading they opened your account on.

Tomato don't use or include meter readings in their bills (like Octopus if you are on Agile). Issue is therefore that you'll be charged on HH consumption figures from the start date at Tomato, so if the CoS reading is high that's energy you'd be double charged for.

Sorry, I don't understand what HH & CoS mean.

Half-Hourly, and Change of Supplier.

JKS$( said:

Octopus have used a reading of 5248.8 as a closing reading for 26 Jan. That's incorrect, I have a photo of my meter reading yesterday of 5239. 
Today myWatts tells me my meter is reading 5276 - there is no way I've used so much electricity. I've submitted 5239 to myWatts manually.
I'm assuming TE isn't actually 'listening' to my meter, but is basing the readings in historical use. The last resident left the immersion on 24/7!

From reports on this thread, Tomato don't use index readings for billing (or, it seems, for anything else).

The Octopus closing reading of 5248.8 looks like an estimated reading; agreed industry readings always seem to be complete kWh, so no decimals. It might get updated once (if) Tomato send your opening reading through the workflow.

If myWatts seems to have a mind of its own, remember that (as mentioned before) you're a beta tester for Tomato's service platform. It's still got faults and Tomato's developers will only get around to fixing them once they're ready.

masonic

Others have reported receiving an estimated bill for the period up to but not including their last day. This is not a final bill. Same happened to me but Octopus took a smart reading so it was correct. I am still waiting for the final day to be billed.

masonic

JKS$( said:
Octopus have used a reading of 5248.8 as a closing reading for 26 Jan. That's incorrect, I have a photo of my meter reading yesterday of 5239. 

Today myWatts tells me my meter is reading 5276 - there is no way I've used so much electricity. I've submitted 5239 to myWatts manually.

I've mentioned before that over the weekend two readings were added to my account, a day apart, and identical. About 1,100 kWh above my current reading (total of all registers). If they keep using that same reading then by October it will be about right.

Ildhund

As far as I'm aware, meter register readings (also referred to as index readings) are a secret between you and your supplier. No-one else can access them. That's why you provide an opening reading to a new supplier, who agrees it with the old supplier via a third-party validation service. Half-hourly (Hh) consumption data are available to you, your supplier, your DNO and anyone else authorized by you to see them, like n3rgy and Bright (in DCC-speak, Other users). 

There will be close, but not necessarily perfect, correlation between the two sets of data. It's always possible that one or more buckets (half-hour chunks) don't make it, so it would be unusual to see Hh data for a day totalling more than the difference between the day's midnight readings.

Since my SMETS2 meter was installed a couple of years ago, almost every day's Hh total has been within 1Wh of the meter advance. 

There will be less correlation between ToU totals (e.g. an Economy 7 tariff's peak and offpeak slots) and the meter's recording of them. In my case, the discrepancy is almost always in favour of the peak register (so I get billed for more at peak rate and correspondingly less at offpeak rate). This is because of the randomized offset built in to the meter; my offpeak register starts clocking at 00:06 and ends at 07:06, while the Hh data for the same period covers 00:00 to 07:00. The snapshot of register contents will be taken at the following midnight; the offpeak one won't have changed since 07:06, but the peak one will.