Needs some sort of enquiry when this is all over. Government approved this crazy system and now it looks like we will shortly be back to a few suppliers. As for me I do not know where I will end up as there appears nowhere to go!

You answered the question yourself - you will go with one of the few suppliers that are left.

Less than 2 months with Avro and reading this afternoon that they have gone bust along with Green with more to follow. Needs some sort of enquiry when this is all over. Government approved this crazy system and now it looks like we will shortly be back to a few suppliers. As for me I do not know where I will end up as there appears nowhere to go!

We had a 'big 6' set of suppliers mostly derivatives of the old Electricity Boards. They were perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a cartel. Ofgem eased the bars to the market so as to encourage competition.

Smaller suppliers offered cheaper bills and gambled on their being able to purchase supplies with sufficient margin to profit. Those that had the resources used hedging or other deals to cover a situation where surges in the market upset their calculations.

Prices for supply fuels have gone off scale and companies without sufficient capital have gone to the wall.

Capitalism red in tooth and claw.

Yep I do have Smart meter but one of the later series 2 ones. My previous but one energy suppliers insisted. So far no issues because of it.

Hardly a free market, your supplier goes bust and Ofgem tell you who will take over your supply. I know you can leave them if you are unhappy and so you choose another who may go bust. How does the consumer know which supplier is safe, a right merrygoround.. I would like to know how the energy companies can claim to be supplying so called 100% green energy when it all goes down the same pipes and wires.

If your energy supplier suddenly goes out of business how would you deal with the issue then? Would you expect them to take time to give you a load of options and for it to take weeks? Seems how it works now is simple and easy and as you say if you are not happy then you can move anyway so why make it anymore more complicated?

You pay more for the green energy so pay more for your electricity to encourage more companies to invest in greener generation and they know what electricty they are buying as they have contracts in place with the suppliers. Obviosuly the electricity that comes into your house could have been generated ina multitude of different ways.

Back in July I fixed with BG for a year so am quite happy for now. I think if BG go bust then they're all in trouble!

I looked at Octopus Energy recent accounts.

I avoid like the plague.

Am with EDF - 3 year deal.

I worked in the North East for a supplier on the Electricity Market De regulation in 1998 plus other gas and electricity projects. The freeing up of the market so consumers could 'get' their leccie from any supplier was a good one and initially brought about price competition.

But a couple of things happened, the big suppliers started buying up competition and OFGEM set the market entry criteria too low so just about anyone with about 50 grand (or less!) could set up as a supplier.

A few cowboys entered the market and made a nice return before either being bought up of going bankrupt.

All these smaller suppliers are just middle men buying energy at one price and selling at a hopefully higher price. They dont forward buy gas like the bigger suppliers and A.C. leccie is generated on demand as it is virtually impossible to store for the grid.

Anyway, as an ex Avro customer, Ive just been informed my account has been shifted to Octopus. That isnt going to stay that way as they're one of the woke mob.

"... they're one of the woke mob."

?

Go Woke - Go Broke.

and then carried by road to the power station.

Not true, they come via train like the coal did when they were burning that.

You don't believe that climate change is happening so why so bothered about what the Drax powerplant burns?

From what I've been hearing personal impact is tip of the iceberg.

When a single company which spends £40m a year on gas is predicting an increase to £100m this has the potential to be bigger than saving the banks in 2008.

As of today I have heard nothing about impact on public sector such as NHS, Councils and railways which have a combined utility bill of almost £1bn. If they see a 2.5x increase on the horizon thats a huge gap which needs filling.

""and then carried by road to the power station"""

Eddie Stobart has a fleet of special trailers with a moving floor to carry biomass>

""You don't believe that climate change is happening so why so bothered about what the Drax powerplant burns? ""

Not true> Climate change has been happening over billions of years since the Earth was formed. Yes it is still happening now and will go on happening until our SUN eventually dies and humans can do sod all about it

The Drax power station with its very expensive subsidy only increases what we has consumers have to pay for our electric

I know Eddie Sobart can deliver it but didn't know they had a contract with Drax for it - are you sure?

I should have been more specific - you don't think humans have an ffect on the climate. So why worry what Drax is burning - most fuels even oil have subsidies everywhere.

FYI My whole long career was in the O&G industry. The whole energy market is rigged by the government. We are facing regular significant increases over the next few years to cover the cost of the many new eco friendly wind turbines ( mainly foreign owned) a couple of new nuclear power stations ( foreign owned). These increases do not take into account the fact that gas has become very very expensve, with oil soon to follow, so the cost of UK energy is going to go very high. The O& G companies have cut back on new developmets world wide so the Mid East is now the big supplier to the world, with Russia and Norway . USA is now wholly independent for O&G due to their ongoing new developments within continental USA. We/UK are also facing power cuts because our old power stations are having to be shut down and we still do not have enough adequate new power available, other than wind power which is NOT reliable, as we have all discoved( even though government was advised by real experts not to rely on wind energy). We have millions of tones of coal availble to be mined in the UK, but we dont use it! (Unlike Germany, China, India, Russia, USA etc) Personally I have been with B Gas for many years. Every few years I check the market and at times have found a few alternative suppliers who appeared to be ~10% cheaper but I refused to change to some very new power company that was being run out of someones garden shed/office. Never made sense to me so I never changed. I have always found BG (for electricity and I dont get mains gas too rural,and use oil fired boiler for heating/ hot water) to be helpful and have no plans on changing anytime soon. For the future- I am getting a wood fired stove fitted, and am researching the use of a bunch of solar panels ( 6-8kw) with a smart battery pack but the cost is high (10k maybe more) and the payback time is approx a decade at current prices. However if the price rises dont slow down I might just go ahead with that plan, assuming the payback time drops to about 7 years. Goodnight and keep warm

Edited by sandy56 on 12/10/2021 at 20:30

Way back at the beginning of August Shell offered me a new fixed tariff which was some £500 increase on what I was paying gas and electric which is why I changed. In hindsight I reckon they knew what was coming!

How is the infrastructure paid for with all these companies selling particularly the ""invoicing" companies as FB so accurately describes them. It would appear that some are contributing more than others which does not seem quite right?

CNG going is a far bigger concern.

UPDATE ON AVRO

Well 2 months on from going bust I have still not had any acknowledgement from AVRO or Octopus as to where my final bill from Avro is or for that matter where my credit balance is. Octopus are today asking me to submit meter readings and say my balance with them is NIL

Since this fiasco started many more energy companies have gone to the wall and from what I am experiencing it must be sheer chaos in the energy sector.

Meanwhile after BULB hit the buffers we the tax payer are bailing the company out as it has over a million customers which is too many for any existing company to handle .

Bulb have been operating as I understand it with ALL customers on a standard tariff which is LOWER than the tariff that am forced to take with Octopus So in effect I am as a tax payer subsidising bulb customers as well as paying my own bills. How fair is that??

The whole energy business is unfair to the majority of domestic and is unsustainable pitting domestic customers against each other with hundreds of tariffs which need a computer programme to understand.

Bulb have been operating as I understand it with ALL customers on a standard tariff which is LOWER than the tariff that am forced to take with Octopus So in effect I am as a tax payer subsidising bulb customers as well as paying my own bills. How fair is that??

What would you suggest happens instead?

Well with hardly any energy suppliers left the system of shopping for the best tariff is bust. If anything the consumer is facing a monopoly from the few big players left. So the regulator needs to come up with something different to protect the domestic user. When the current round of fixed tariffs end and some consumers get their winter builds consumers will not be a happy bunch.

What ideas might you have?

Another one goes: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59488818

Shell was told by Dutch court to reduce emissions.

Shell has sold West Texas oilfield to a US Company.

Headline Advertisement in 2022 - Shell cuts worldwide emissions - BIG Tick for Greenies

Business Page

US Company raises oil and gas production to reduce gas shortages and keep US homes warm.

It is a net zero transaction - nothing has really changed.

"We are going to need oil and gas for many years to come and we should be doing all we can to exploit our reserves including fracking."

I take it you don't approve of drastically reducing carbon emissions and trying to reduce global warming.

(a) I would have thought asking a question was a contribution.

(b) It wasn't rhetorical.

(c) Your response is very illuminating.

""""It is a net zero transaction - nothing has really changed.""

It is high time the British Gov. started standing up for the interests of this country. Trying to fly the flag for the greenies is against our long term interests.

In what way is preventing/slowing manmade climate change against long term plans?

We are going to need oil and gas for many years to come and we should be doing all we can to exploit our reserves including fracking.

Rather late to this thread, sorry. I must assume that you don't live near an area threatened with fracking; if you did, your opinion might be different. That suggestion stirred up a vigorous protest in mid-Lancs, as you may know. Personally I think the notion, while clever, is asking for all sorts of unexpected consequences because of unforeseen geological difficulties.

And 'heating our homes': many people should start by doing something to waste less heat. Or perhaps put on another layer.

Reported today that some of the directors of the failed energy companies were called before a committee of MPs. Of interest a director of BULB is retained by the tax payer to help sort out the mess his company has got in. Salary reported to be £250k Some of the directors of AVRO have been taking company loans, common practice it appears with a lot of companies. Your best bet is to be on benefits and have your bills paid or be an asylum seeker and get full board in a Holiday Inn. or being detained in prison! I can see a lot of people going to the pub and spending all night over a half of bitter. Whatever none of the present proposals address the severity of the problems facing people and what they have come up with so far is grossly unfair to a lot of us

Gas price in the UK is world gas price - some countries have much cheaper oil & gas - eg USA, Saudi Arabia. Son in Texas pay 8c (6p) per KWh for electricity - I pay 20p. His gas is also cheap but he burns very little as it is really only for cooking and a simulated fire in the lounge. Despite 6p per Unit he is £4,200 /year - mostly for aircon during 8/9 months of the year (semi-desert climate)

UK Electricity comes from Gas, Nuclear, Wind/solar, some biomas, some Hydro & Pumped Storage PLUS Imports from France, Belgium, Holland, Norway. Last 2 x coal stations have been given a stay of demolition as it is a stable supply and needed in winter

Of the production there is the base load - Gas & Nuclear - Gas is UK North Sea & imports - Norway, some Russian via EU pipelines, Qatar & USA by LNG Tanker.

Gas on North Sea can be contracted by BG but most is bought on World Price - Hence Electricity jumps in price as gas increases. Wind/Solar is unreliable but is again sold in 30 min slots throughout the year - you cannot rely on Wind so we need the Gas/Nuclear to stabilise the National Grid as well as supply power - if the Grid falls over it could take many days or even weeks to get everything back.

Just received my April Octopus bill. Cannot understand why the standing charges have almost doubled from March, surely the infrastructure prices have not gone up that much. yes I understand that we are paying for all the green levies but I nice little earner for the energy companies and the VAT I can understand why the gas prices have risen but how do the energy companies justify the electric increase? How mad is it to be burning GAS to generate electric if this is the reason?

The electricity companies are not having a nice earner though as what they pay for electric is more than the government allows them to charge, that why lots of them have gone out of business.

If the UK does not burn gas for electricity how will the lights stay on? There is not enough generation in the system to turn off all the gas power stations.

Then turn them back to good old coal. This green nonsense has gone as far as most people will tolerate and making poor people even poorer.

So you clearly don't believe that creating more CO2 by burning carbon or hydrocarbons has any long-term disadvantages. If we are to do that we should stick with natural gas, which at least is a lot cleaner. I suppose building a raft of new-tech gasworks might work, but we will need a new generation of guys who are happy to get dirty going down t'pit - unless we develop efficient methods of underground gas generation.

But what the heck - the next generation can look out for themselves.

We should be fracking for gas and are now miles behind the curve.

IMHO fracking in this very populated country is a potential disaster. I'm afraid I am with the mid-Lancs protesters who don't believe it is something they want to live near. Not many people actively want nearby wind turbines (personally I don't mind them, there are over a dozen within a mile of me) so I suspect the nimby opposition to frackers will be strong wherever it is proposed. It sounds to me like an uncontrollable process - tho a clever idea.

The world is trying to alter the laws of physics which is an impossible task.

I don't understand this comment - what laws of physics is the world trying to change?

"""If the UK does not burn gas for electricity how will the lights stay on? There is not enough generation in the system to turn off all the gas power stations."""

Then turn them back to good old coal. This green nonsense has gone as far as most people will tolerate and making poor people even poorer.

So swap one fossil fuel for another dirtier and more polluting one?

You need to improve things in the future not make them worse - we should have move to more renewables decades ago.

"As to the laws of mass..."

What does this mean?

"... the green lobby are trying to convince people that green forms of energy are something for nothing or less damaging than fossil fuels."

Two entirely separate issues. Quite clearly, green forms of energy are less damaging than burning fossil fuels, but I have never come across anyone alleging they are "something for nothing".

""

You need to improve things in the future not make them worse - we should have move to more renewables decades ago."""

Try telling China and some other developing countries, as that bloke in Russia said we are a little country.

As to the laws of mass, the green lobby are trying to convince people that green forms of energy are something for nothing or less damaging than fossil fuels. Some are being led to believe that CO2 is bad and the end of life.

Don't worry about what others are doing or not doing - that should not stop you from doing what is the right thing to do. Also you do have to bare in mind that China has a lot of pollution as a lot of the manugacturing it does is what used to be done here - ie steel making. We have just moved the pollution from here to there.

Green forms of energy are better than fossil fuels - compare the pollution from a coal power plant and the pollution from wind turbines.

Co2 on it's own is not dangerous but too much of it in the atmosphere is bad as it warms the planet which then melts ice which increases sea levels and affects the climate...do you not find that bad?

<< CO2 on its own is not dangerous but too much of it in the atmosphere is bad as it warms the planet which then melts ice which increases sea levels and affects the climate...do you not find that bad? >>

And don't forget what will follow if/when the thawing of the tundra permafrost gets properly under way. That means a lot of methane, which is a good deal worse than CO2 as an atmospheric blanket.

Logically then, it would make sense to collect the methane and burn it to make electricity to minimise the warming effects.

Do you have any figures for just how much the global sea level is actually rising per year?

Yes, here you go:

climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

Well here we go again.

Part of the problem is that we have all got used to things 'getting better', or at least expecting them to. But there is a war on, and although we aren't directly involved, that is the source of the trouble. Things have just stopped getting better, which will call for some unpleasant adaptation I'm afraid.

Our friends in the rail unions aren't exactly helping either. Funny that some of them have distinctly communist leanings.

Well Rushi has come up with some very welcome cash in these hard times. He still however has left the VAT on our bills so on the price cap of some £2800 in October he is getting back some £140 per energy customer! Nice one!

All he's doing is paving the way to reduced inward investment and recycling our money through the inefficient Whitehall wash, taking a sizeable chunk out.

The politicians and journos conveniently forget that the increased revenues from higher gas, oil and petrol/diesel prices are offset (and for some companies, more than) by significant losses through pulling out from Russia which they have to endure or their insurers will, which will be passed (eventually) onto us consumers.

It would've been far better to reduce the VAT on energy to zero, get rid of the 'green levy' on gas and electricity and to reduce taxes generally (instead of raising them and wasting them on more bureacrats), given they are already raking in more money anyway because of the higher prices. That and getting rid of the price cap, which reduces competition and distorts the market.

Note that a reasonable chunk of the price (cap) rises are because small 'challenger' utility comnpanies went bust because they couldn't raise prices above the price cap and the regulator / government bailed them out with our money via raising the cap.

Price controls and giveaways with our own money never work in the long term, as the piper always has to be paid.

That and getting rid of the price cap, which reduces competition and distorts the market.

Would getting rid if the price cape be wise? Wher I work Energy costs have gone for £100k a year to over £600k - Think a lot more people would struggle if their energy cost miltiplied by 6.

The problem isn't supply - Russia just sells their gas and oil to others (like China or countries not participating in any sanctions), IMHO it's the market price being driven upwards artificially by 'traders' and possibly at the behest of certain globalist world players.

A proper market (i.e. supply and demand) would've evened out by now. We don't have a proper (open) market at the moment, made a LOT worse by the price cap and geopolitics. How ironic that people now love price controls, something that Russian people know all about and how 'brilliant' (or not) they were during the era of the USSR.

I'm wondering if energy prices in the UK will ever drop back. Prices seem to be crazy. We rent out several properties back in the UK and one of our tenants is seeing her electricity bill rise from £134/month to about £250/month! This is for a small two bedroom flat with storage heating.

I can't understand why UK prices are so high. In Thailand we pay about 4 Baht per kWh (about 10p). Current UK prices seem to be 3x that! April was a very hot month and we were running our 3 A/C units for many hours each day. The bill for April was 1600 Baht (about £40), the most expensive bill of the year. In Spain our electricity is also cheaper. Its hard to work out the rate because the Spanish billing system is so complex - but even so it seems that we'll average out to a price well below UK costs.

This year we are planning to be in UK only for July and August - so hopefully heating won't be required. For those of you who are retired, or having a passive income, and facing what look to be huge bills next winter I honestly suggest temporarily locating to warmer climes over the cold season. Much better for your health and wellbeing too!

For the last year I have been paying 3.88p per kw/h for gas and 20.38 for electricity as I was locked in to a 12 month tariff. Now my renewal is a choice:

Variable tariff 7.48p for gas and 28.45p for elec

or fixed until July 2023 at 11.38 for gas and 38.81 for elec.

So do I go on to the better variable rate or fix? It's all a gamble as we don't know what the new price cap in October will be. Anyone got a magic ball!

You have to know your annual units and do the sums. Do the standard charges increase on the fix? You will get the GOV £400 plus the uplift on winter fuel allowance if you get it now.

Unit for unit there is quite an uplift to Fix. I think I would stay on variable tariff which most people recommend and hope for another mild winter