Tomato Energy TOU tariffs and SMETS2

Sunfold

Just an update. 

I joined 1st Sept. Also joined the user Facebook group (member no 3!). 

I’ve got mywatts working (took a while)
and had my first bill. What I expected it to be. Cross checked using Bright. 

No payment taken yet. I guess that’s any time now. 

Yes there have been teething problems. However the tariff is excellent. Particularly the mid morning battery top up opportunity. 

 

tlcgrantham

I’m with Octopus on their Agile Tariff and notice Tomato are showing a price of over 80pkwh for today on its Agile Tariff. Is anybody on it and if so how happy are you with it?

rlatarche

lohr500 said:

rlatarche said:

Morning all, interesting thread, as I had exactly the same question regarding the TOU billing, is it UTC, GMT, BST etc etc, if you download the data from myWatts, it would suggest that it is not local time, but GMT as the tariff amount changes an hour out from "local" time.

I'm curious what and how are you contacting Tomato Energy, the email address on there websites, dont work for me, it always gets bounced back saying not available! Very frustrating

TE have assured several of us who have contacted them that the timings are definitely "local time".

They have also confirmed that myWatts is a work in progress and the data shown on it, and in the download from it, will NOT be used for the billing.  At least one person on the Facebook Forum has received a detailed bill and believes the correct local time tou rates have been used for the billing

I am expecting my 1st bill this week and will also be checking it very carefully to make sure that the correct tou, have been applied using "local time". I shall also check the kWh for each tou. to make sure they match with downloads from Bright and n3rgy. 

Yesterday I checked the half hourly myWatts data download for September. The half hourly kWh numbers exactly match the Bright & n3rgy data. All three raw data sets show the time as GMT. It should be noted however that myWatts and n3rgy show the half hourly usage for the 30 minutes BEFORE the timestamp, whereas Bright shows the 30 minutes AFTER the timestamp. 

The cost calculation on the myWatts download is incorrect, both from a GMT/BST point of view and the fact that TE have not recognised that the raw data shows the 30 minutes BEFORE the timestamp. But as mentioned above, TE recognise there are issues with the myWatts data so it is best ignored until they fix it.

However, in my opinion, the fact that they do seem able to extract the correct base half hourly kWh usage data is a good sign, as that has to be the start point for accurate billing.


Are you using customer.care@tomato.energy for the email address? That one seems to work OK for me.

Had my first bill through - they are billing us incorrectly, the Half hourly readings are out by half an hour, I've confirmed this as I have all my large electrical loads come on at 00:00, however they are showing it coming on in the time stamp reading 00:00 (which is actually the amount of energy used between 23:30 and 00:00) so all my usage has been billed incorrectly - i encourage everyone to check there bill as they are making money out of this, not replying to emails and the phone number on the bill is incorrect and is not recognised!

lohr500

rlatarche said:

lohr500 said:

rlatarche said:

Morning all, interesting thread, as I had exactly the same question regarding the TOU billing, is it UTC, GMT, BST etc etc, if you download the data from myWatts, it would suggest that it is not local time, but GMT as the tariff amount changes an hour out from "local" time.

I'm curious what and how are you contacting Tomato Energy, the email address on there websites, dont work for me, it always gets bounced back saying not available! Very frustrating

TE have assured several of us who have contacted them that the timings are definitely "local time".

They have also confirmed that myWatts is a work in progress and the data shown on it, and in the download from it, will NOT be used for the billing.  At least one person on the Facebook Forum has received a detailed bill and believes the correct local time tou rates have been used for the billing

I am expecting my 1st bill this week and will also be checking it very carefully to make sure that the correct tou, have been applied using "local time". I shall also check the kWh for each tou. to make sure they match with downloads from Bright and n3rgy. 

Yesterday I checked the half hourly myWatts data download for September. The half hourly kWh numbers exactly match the Bright & n3rgy data. All three raw data sets show the time as GMT. It should be noted however that myWatts and n3rgy show the half hourly usage for the 30 minutes BEFORE the timestamp, whereas Bright shows the 30 minutes AFTER the timestamp. 

The cost calculation on the myWatts download is incorrect, both from a GMT/BST point of view and the fact that TE have not recognised that the raw data shows the 30 minutes BEFORE the timestamp. But as mentioned above, TE recognise there are issues with the myWatts data so it is best ignored until they fix it.

However, in my opinion, the fact that they do seem able to extract the correct base half hourly kWh usage data is a good sign, as that has to be the start point for accurate billing.


Are you using customer.care@tomato.energy for the email address? That one seems to work OK for me.

Had my first bill through - they are billing us incorrectly, the Half hourly readings are out by half an hour, I've confirmed this as I have all my large electrical loads come on at 00:00, however they are showing it coming on in the time stamp reading 00:00 (which is actually the amount of energy used between 23:30 and 00:00) so all my usage has been billed incorrectly - i encourage everyone to check there bill as they are making money out of this, not replying to emails and the phone number on the bill is incorrect and is not recognised!

I agree, both my 1st and 2nd bill were incorrect due to the 30 minute timeshift error. 

I have been in discussion with TE by email and phone on numerous occasions to try and resolve matters and to get a refund. They have acknowledged the error and have promised a refund, but nothing has been forthcoming so far.

In advance of the Direct Debits, I told them how much I had been overcharged, but they took the full amounts anyway.

For September & October, the cmultive overcharge was £27.33

I switched away from them on 12th November as I had enough of their behaviour. 

I have raised a complaint with the Energy Ombudsman.

Largs

Would it not be simpler for them to say the cheap energy starts at 00:30? Seems a very odd situation.

bob2302

Largs said:

Would it not be simpler for them to say the cheap energy starts at 00:30? Seems a very odd situation.

It's not a good idea to rely on bugs, and they have already given out contracts that say otherwise.

For me, Tomato's usefulness would depend on making use of the two 2h slots at 14p/kWh. As things stand I'd probably avoid using any 30min slot that borders a full rate slot, effectively halving those 2h slots.