OT: Renewable Energy Providers

[Screwdriver]

I read through the Shell Go thread and it made me wonder how of us care about reducing our carbon footprint? After looking up providers like Octopus, I recently signed up for Bulb Energy, which supplies green electricity and gas. While I'm no expert, I was impressed to see our monthly bills drop by ~25% (vs. EDF energy and British Gas who we used before)

Makes me wonder how a London based energy startup with a slick app and great customer service can provide clean energy at such a relatively low price and when the big six energy companies don't? I've since referred my social circle. Each referral gets £50. If you'd like a referral link, please PM me or click above.

 

[MercedesDriver]

We’ve changed our tariff (gas+electricity) last month with British Gas to a renewable and like you had a bill drop with approximately same percentile. Price difference on yearly basis, based on previous annual consumption, is substantial.

 

[Deletedmember130310]

The new firms aren’t paying their board squillions and aren’t spuffing millions on cuddly toy ads...

 

[Germgh0st]

I use Bulb, cheaper than most and use all renewable sources

 

[c63chris]

The “big six” have a very deliberate pricing model. That is they rely on customer apathy. Most customers don’t switch despite it being almost certainly that they will save money if they are with a big six provider. It’s why the government brought in the price cap. Bulb are a current star and winning awards due to their success.

 

[Deleted member 126969]

I was about to swap to Outfox the Market, but see they have such a bad rep, money saving expert have refused to recommend them. Went to EDF this time round, moving from GNE. It’s all a bloody joke though, why oh why can they not just be honest and try rewarding loyalty? It’s so easy to switch now, hard to imagine anyone won’t do so as soon as the tariff changes?

 

[190]

I switch regularly but having had two suppliers go bust on me I no longer automatically go with the very cheapest. Currently with Avro who seem to be efficient. You can't lose out when they go bust although it can take 6 months to get any credit refunded. If a supplier messes you about then escalate complaints to the ombudsman asap, it's the only thing they fear.

 

[Screwdriver]

I've monitored the cost of my energy as well - Bulb is consistently in the lowest costing 3 energy providers based on my actual usage. The fact that 100% of the energy they supply to me is green, helps me sleep better and is a great conversation starter

They claim each household is like saving 1600 trees worth of CO2. I've referred 19 households to Bulb, which means I've saved half of Epping forest!

 

[moonloops]

I moved home last month and switched to SO Energy, recommended by Moneysavingexpert or somesuch., Painless and easy to use website etc.

So Energy – Great value green energy made easy

 

[m80]

Listening to this thread I've just switched to Bulb, so we'll see.
Sorry to someone I could made you £50 for a recomend.

Easy though, 2 minutes.

 

[190]

I ran the tariffs through my spreadsheet and Bulb is £30 a year more than I'm paying with Avro. SO Energy is £4 cheaper than Avro. SO is a fixed tariff where Bulb is variable. I would never have a variable tariff again as my last supplier raised the tariffs twice without telling me which is totally against the rules. I would have complained but they went bust anyway.

Can't be bothered switching for £4 but I'll keep an eye on it and review it at least once per year.

 

[neilrr]

I've found OTM to be a trouble free experience. The couple of people I had to speak to when they did their silly variable DD thing a while back ( since rescinded) were intelligent, helpful & did what they said they'd do, which, with utility companies is not as common or straigtforward as you would expect.

 

[Abcan]

I’m with Octopus Energy. Best energy company I’ve ever been with with. Bulb were good but slow in repaying credit when I was with them. Octopus have a great app and are very easy to contact. If anyone wants to switch to them and get £50 credit I have a link (I’d get £50 too). PM and I’ll send it over.

 

[Screwdriver]

The problem with most smaller green providers has to do with a market that is rapidly consolidating, which means that you could get pushed to a provider you didn't want to should things go wrong. Here's an example of what happened with Solarplicity, a prominent green provider.

Bulb is the largest, with over 1.5MM customers, or ~50% larger than Octopus. What's more, they are well funded. Both are great companies. I went with Bulb because I love their app and their story. For instance, I follow their blog as it highlights that the company and its founders really care about the environment. At the end of the day, both companies are better for us than EDF, British Gas and the others that supply fossil fuel energy.

To get an accurate comparison between your existing rates and Bulb, i'd enter your actual KwH usage into Bulb's comparison tool. I'm yet to find anyone who doesn't save by switching to Bulb but I could be wrong and you could be the first.

 

[Scott_F]

I was about to swap to Outfox the Market, but see they have such a bad rep, money saving expert have refused to recommend them. Went to EDF this time round, moving from GNE. It’s all a bloody joke though, why oh why can they not just be honest and try rewarding loyalty? It’s so easy to switch now, hard to imagine anyone won’t do so as soon as the tariff changes?

The big providers are not interested in honestly and loyalty. They worked out from the start that they can make much more money by covert collusion than by competition and customer apathy also plays a critical part in their business model.

The latter may change now that more small companies are breaking into the market but it is a relatively new phenomenon and it has taken decades for the dominance of the major players to be seriously challenged.

 

[400ixl]

With Bulb as well. They are taking a bit of a hit at the moment with the rollout of their SMETS2 meters not going so well and 25% of installs not working correctly (for the consumer visibility, the actual usage back to Bulb is fine). This is causing their service desk to take a bit of a hammering and some of their ratings to drop. They will no doubt get over it and currently I would still recommend them to others.

Bulb are cheaper for me than Octopus.

 

[Mattns]

The whole energy sector is an interesting topic, there are generating companies and distribution network companies and most of the companies we deal with for our bills don't own either the network or the generation. As they all feed into the national grid the electrons that pop into my house to keep the lights on probably don't know where they came from. however like a growing number of us I switch regularly as a amount of heat/light I get for my £ is important I trust (or maybe not!) the government to set legislation that drives overall UK energy policy and our efforts to cut down emissions and damage to the environment from Generation. As a consumer please keep the electrons flowing one way and the holes flowing the other.

 

[Dryce]

The fact that 100% of the energy they supply to me is green, helps me sleep better and is a great conversation starter

There isn't a separate 'green' grid so unless they stick solar plus wind turbine in your garden then you're just getting a portion of the shared supply that is notionally renewable. At the same time the security of your supply is still depedendent on non-renewables. You *need* those who are not so-called 'green' to guarantee your supply when the wind doesn't blow.

The only real way to go green is to reduce your consumption.

One thing I point out to friends and neighbours is that a significant amount of ther energy use is their vehicles (predominately fossil fuel) and domestic heating (often fossil fuel). Cut these down and you'll likely have a more significant efect on the environment than signing up for one electricity package over another.

 

[PXW]

We have been with Pure Planet for the last few months - can’t currently beat their prices for our usage so staying out for now. All renewable electricity tariffs. We will probably review again in the spring - our usage pattern has been a bit haywire since we swapped the gas pool heater for an air source heat pump earlier this year, and to add to the confusion we will shortly swap the car for electric. Putting those two together makes it quite hard to work out the best tariff, so we want a bit more real world data before we settle.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Pound for pound “renewable energy” costs more to produce than the more traditional methods (it *will* be the future of generation though) which makes the prices of Bulb a mystery.

I have spent the best part of two years financially involved in the energy market, most recently dealing with FFR, and can say with some confidence that the “disrupters” like Bulb are built on debt and leverage and the reason why the Big 6 control so much is that they’re not bothered about beating this upstarts, they just need to outlast them which with their financial strength they can and do.

In theory, electricity generation should be in government hands and we’d buy from them - taxpayers subside it currently anyway - but the U.K. government, and especially the Tories, don’t want the liability on “their” books even though it would be to the benefit of the population.