The Energy Crisis

[Francoisvander or else]

I was thinking the problems the mother in law :lol: needless to say she’s only visiting during the summer months from now on

[mumbles87]

Wow I somehow saved some energy in that period .. dunno how

Says basically half a kw which is worth £1.18

Considering I did nothing just signed up and let me battery do the work I'll take that

[Jonah]

So far you've earned 2064 OctoPoints (or £2.58) over 4 Saving Sessions

<Insert YAY Slow clap here>

Considering the Smart Meter is 'unavailable' for the last 4 sessions...

[SammyLeeWasOffside]

Wow I somehow saved some energy in that period .. dunno how

Says basically half a kw which is worth £1.18

Considering I did nothing just signed up and let me battery do the work I'll take that

I think they compare it with last year's usage. So the battery doing everything will be similar to someone else shutting everything down.

[mumbles87]

I think they compare it with last year's usage. So the battery doing everything will be similar to someone else shutting everything down.

Negative, it's past 10 days .. if it was last year I'd save every single time because my battery only went online in October so previous usage would be huge

Last 10 days has been nothing must have been a day the wife had the washing on at the same time as the air fryer and pulled over 5kw which the battery is then maxed out at supply and pulls from grid aswell to top up

[SammyLeeWasOffside]

Negative, it's past 10 days .. if it was last year I'd save every single time because my battery only went online in October so previous usage would be huge

Last 10 days has been nothing must have been a day the wife had the washing on at the same time as the air fryer and pulled over 5kw which the battery is then maxed out at supply and pulls from grid aswell to top up

You are right it's last 10 days. Do t know where I got last year, thought I had read it somewhere.

Is your money for the 23rd/24th sessions. I got my result today but only for the last test one on the 19th.

[Up the Junction]

I used to have ones through A Shade Greener where they basically took the feed-in tarriff payments to cover the cost of installation (and probably then some) but things like that seem to have long since gone away now.

Most of their customers wish they would.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1085303108233695
https://www.facebook.com/groups/850688639013702
https://www.facebook.com/groups/168491345112336

[bubbles1966]

The windfall tax isn't working anywhere near the way it was claimed it would: https://www.cityam.com/what-windfall-no ... -december/

[Junco Partner]

Its almost as if it was designed not to work

Meanwhile we had record borrowing last month, borrowed to pay the energy co's while they report record breaking mega-billions of profit.

[bubbles1966]

Its almost as if it was designed not to work

Meanwhile we had record borrowing last month, borrowed to pay the energy co's while they report record breaking mega-billions of profit.

I guess that global oil companies have to pay their taxes in the places where they make their money, bit like we often say Google etc should, whilst we are disincentivising them here.

200,000 skilled jobs are claimed to be at risk if future North Sea exploration is banned in line with the proposed unilateral disembowelling of the UK energy industry that was being trumpeted at Davos.

[Junco Partner]

The instinctive and reflexive weakness the Tories have shown to big-power companies, who fund their party, will cost us for generations.

[mumbles87]

You are right it's last 10 days. Do t know where I got last year, thought I had read it somewhere.

Is your money for the 23rd/24th sessions. I got my result today but only for the last test one on the 19th.

19th for me aswell

Most I've made accross the entire thing, normally takes a few days for them to crunch the numbers

Now the postive for me is whenever these saver sessions have been I'm well within my battery range anyways, ie my battery on a bad day runs out 8-9pm .. if there is no sun or the Mrs has smashed the washing

So at least I should have power

One thing I think they should do to encourage smart meter take up is a financial reward. Ie standing charge is 50p a day. It should be slashed to 25p again if you have a smart meter as you can do your bit to manage energy and they want us to have them so encourage it

[Loftyhammer]

I've had 19th and 23rd through now...couple of quid each time. Both times coincided with me not WFH ...so not a huge surprise. Will be interesting to see what we get for 24th!

[Friend or Foé]

As an update, I’ve now earned over £15 in credit rewards for the 7 saving sessions I’ve participated in. These can be added to my octopus energy account to be used as payment towards my bill. This is also on top of whatever saving I made for reducing my energy use on those 7 occasions that all put together has amounted to about 9 hours between mid November and yesterday. None of this meant sitting in the darkness with candle burning and eating cold baked beans out of a tin. It was literally a case of deciding to either cook differently using slow cooker or microwave or just plan to cook around a one hour session. Turn off the telly for the kids and tell thrm to use charged tablets etc.. so pretty much no major upheaval to earn easy reward. The calculations for yesterday morning’s session has yet to be revealed to me, but seeing as my morning usage is traditionally low i doubt I’ll earn as much in credit.

[SammyLeeWasOffside]

We've not made anything like those amounts (£6 total). I assume it's because we don't use a massive amount usually at the times of the sessions.

[mumbles87]

As an update, I’ve now earned over £15 in credit rewards for the 7 saving sessions I’ve participated in. These can be added to my octopus energy account to be used as payment towards my bill. This is also on top of whatever saving I made for reducing my energy use on those 7 occasions that all put together has amounted to about 9 hours between mid November and yesterday. None of this meant sitting in the darkness with candle burning and eating cold baked beans out of a tin. It was literally a case of deciding to either cook differently using slow cooker or microwave or just plan to cook around a one hour session. Turn off the telly for the kids and tell thrm to use charged tablets etc.. so pretty much no major upheaval to earn easy reward. The calculations for yesterday morning’s session has yet to be revealed to me, but seeing as my morning usage is traditionally low i doubt I’ll earn as much in credit.

I laugh when you see the FB group going wild for the saving sessions .. pictures of people using torches and such to save electric

So to avoid blackout's you are sitting in the dark reading

Think the point was missed there

[EvilC]

Octopus signals plunge in UK taxpayer bill for Bulb rescue
Energy group estimates government will lose just £260mn after takeover of collapsed power supplier

The purchase of Bulb is part of an ambitious expansion plan for fast-growing Octopus, which was founded in 2015 and wants to become the ‘Amazon’ of energy © Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Gill Plimmer 27 MINUTES AGO

Octopus Energy expects to repay the British government £1.2bn after its takeover of collapsed power supplier Bulb, as falling wholesale gas prices slash the final bill for taxpayers.

The Whitehall financial watchdog had predicted the government could lose up to £6.5bn as a result of Bulb’s 2021 failure, which prompted one of the largest state rescues of a business since the financial crisis.

But Stuart Jackson, chief financial officer and a co-founder of Octopus, said on Wednesday that the company had estimated the payback meant the cost to taxpayers would be just £260mn.

“Our numbers are based on forward prices but our view is that the total cost of taking Bulb into government ownership and then selling it out will net out at around about £260mn lost to the government,” Jackson said. “That is materially better than any of the numbers that have been bandied around previously.”

Martin Young, analyst at investment bank Investec, said the figures “seemed very plausible with wholesale prices having moved favourably”, adding that “there should be a collective sigh of relief”.

The purchase of Bulb is part of an ambitious expansion plan for fast-growing Octopus, which was founded in 2015 and wants to become the “Amazon” of energy.

In financial results released on Wednesday the company reported cumulative liabilities of £393.1mn for the year to April 2022, up from £213.6mn the year before, driven mostly by widening losses in its UK household supply business.

But revenues doubled to £4bn from £2bn as it increased customer numbers to 3.2mn in 13 countries from 2.1mn the year before, buying energy retailers in Spain, Italy and France as well as launching a new supply business in Japan with investor Tokyo Gas.

As well as offering energy to households, Octopus provides electric heat pumps, solar panels and electrical vehicle leasing.

Its low-cost IT and billing platform Kraken has meanwhile been licensed to a string of rivals, including Eon and EDF, two of the UK’s biggest energy suppliers. Almost half of UK households are now on Kraken, whose profits grew to £110mn in the year to April from £66mn in the previous 12 months.

“Some have compared Octopus to Amazon in both customer service and the technology, and we think that’s fair,” said Jackson. “We don’t think there is any other business that has the combination of the technology, customer delivery and renewable generation at scale.”

The Bulb purchase has catapulted Octopus into Britain’s third-biggest retail supplier with 4.9mn customers, although rivals have launched a legal challenge to block the deal.

The sale was agreed despite a widening operating loss of £161mn at its British supply division in the year to last April as it took on customers from other energy suppliers that had collapsed as a result of soaring wholesale prices.

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That included 600,000 customers from failed supplier Avro Energy, which Octopus said cost £150mn in reduced revenues and earnings. The company has submitted a claim to regulator Ofgem for additional support to cover the loss.

Octopus said the losses were also partly the result of its decision to charge standard tariff customers less than the maximum allowed by the government’s price cap for as long as possible, driven by the company’s belief that “doing the right thing by customers and society delivers long-run value”.

The company has high-profile backers including former US vice-president Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, which has invested £286mn to acquire a 9 per cent minority stake in the group, and has pledged an additional £25mn in 2023. The Canadian Plan Investment Board also bought a 3 per cent stake for £106mn, with a further £106mn investment planned this year.

[bubbles1966]

I saw another forecast (Investec) the other day that reckoned gas prices/cap would be falling by about 10% by July.

[Friend or Foé]

I laugh when you see the FB group going wild for the saving sessions .. pictures of people using torches and such to save electric

So to avoid blackout's you are sitting in the dark reading

Think the point was missed there

It’s daft really, if you gradually replace light bulbs around the house with LED types, to actually have them all turned on draws very little power. It’s the high load items that matter, oven, dishwasher, tumble dryer etc…
It really hasn’t taken much effort to earn that amount over so few hours. That will pay off a a good few days of electric for just 8-9 hours of adjustment.

[Friend or Foé]

I saw another forecast (Investec) the other day that reckoned gas prices/cap would be falling by about 10% by July.

That will be good to see. Although needs to be more like 50%