David

Daily Mail accuses OFGEM for having made a deal with the suppliers to hide their profits – OFGEM categorically denies such allegations.
We neither work for OFGEM nor do we sit on the management board of any of the suppliers, so we will never find out what’s behind the story. But how comes that despite sharp fall of wholesale prices and no price reduction to customer’s supplier’s profits do not seem to have increased much?
If OFGEM and other industry experts are calling for bigger price reductions, where is the extra money going? Perhaps excessive director’s wages? These won’t show up in the profits!

Which? magazine published the results of their customer satisfaction survey showing most of the big6 suppliers at the lower end of the table.
Npower is still at the bottom with just 41% satisfaction score despite a recent £26m fine.
This proves that no financial penalties in the world can improve customer satisfaction. It is now time for OFGEM to take other measures and to audit staff training and system suitability and performance.

Alpine Utilities prides itself for assisting customers throught the contract period with any complaints customer have against their suppliers.
In recent months we succeeded to rectify numerous wrong billing and other problems on behalf of our customers.
With Alpine Utilties you can count on a professional after sales service!

Commenting on E.ON’s price announcement Ofgem’s CEO Dermot Nolan said: “This is a step in the right direction and it is good to see some movement in energy prices for consumers. We have consistently called on suppliers to explain why retail prices are not falling and this price cut goes some way towards addressing that challenge.”

Well, it’s a step in the right direction but prices should be cut far more especially for the many customers still on standard tariff.
There is no excuse to ripp them off just because they don’t know how to shop around and/or to change supplier or tariff.

OFGEM published today various market indicators @ https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/monitoring-market/retail-market-indicators.

Some interesting results: Retail Price Comparison; shows the avarage standard tariff from the big6 suppliers as £1098 compared to the cheapest tariff of all suppliers as £810 – a whopping £288 possible saving! For large properties this figure would be far more.

Not surprising other suppliers have increased their market share to 12%, which is equal to Eon. Only British Gas has still a 37% share but also theirs is steadily dropping.

Pre-tax margins of the large suppliers have overall slightly improved to 4.5% with only EDF still marginally in the minus.

The message is clear: shopping for the best deal should save you £££’s in domestic and thousands in commercial energy contracts – call Alpine Utilities Today for a professional and impartial service.

The Times published a story yesterday saying the regulator is “too soft” in promoting competition between energy suppliers and that it “has failed to crack down on door-to-door miss-selling” and on regular cases of overcharging.

OFGEM boss Dermot Nolan however strongly disputes this claim as he imposed in December a £26m penalty on Npower and he referred the market to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Consumers, however have yet to see the results: Wholesale prices have plummeted but not the domestic energy bills!

Also in recent months Alpine Utilities submitted numerous complaints to various big6 suppliers on behalf of our customers.

We belive OFGEM needs to do more regular checks and audits on whether supplier’s systems are working and not allow years to pass until suppliers admit they had a problem in their billing system.

ELN cites a First Utility Estimate that as much as 70% of households are still paying the standard tariff with their Big6 supplier.

As the cheapest tariff available was £305 cheaper (32%) in December 15 than the dearest standard tariff; most households could have saved £750 on their Energy bills in the last 3 years.

Again, what’s true for private customers applies even more to the commercial sector.

For a competitive quote and a professional service call now Alpine Utilities on 0161 708 8640

Greenpeace Co-founder and former leader Patrick Moore told ELN: The increase in Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not related to global warming and there is no definitive proof.
He believes the future will show the hysteria over climate change is a “complete fabrication”.
He added rich countries’ plans for wind and solar power “is a giant waste of money” as well as “unreliable and prohibitively expensive in the long run”.

While it is beyond my expertise to support or argue on such a statement it is certainly important that before jeopardizing our economy and endangering our energy supply; claims of climate change being caused by human intervention must be irrefutable proven and not just come from the renewables industry.

In this context there may be some good reason for the government’s proposal to slash renewables subsidies to new applicants and instead: It wants to rein in the spiralling costs of renewable energy subsidies and “protect” householders from higher bills as reported by ELN.

OFGEM has published its decision to fine BES Commercial Electricity Ltd and Business Energy Solutions Ltd (together referred to as “BES”) for their breaches in various consumer handling standards.

The first breach related to: SLC 7A.4(b) – Supply to Micro Business Consumers – These provisions require that, before a licensee enters into a Micro Business Consumer Contract, it must take all reasonable steps to bring the Principal Terms of the proposed contract to the attention of the consumer and ensure that the information is communicated in plain and intelligible language. These conditions were breached for the period 8 June 2010 to 12 July 2015 (Breaches 1 and 2).

While we are pleased that OFGEM has finally taken action against another failing suppliers we are disappointed at the fact that this breach has been going for over 5 years.

Once again we urge OFGEM to audit supplier’s performance and their system for being fit for purpose.

In recent weeks we have raised numerous complaints against different big6 suppliers on varying issues proving that many big and small suppliers are simply not up-to standard. Neither their human performance nor their computer systems deliver the service customers should be able to expect.

OFGEM published analysis on Non-gas heating customers.

It discusses primarily households with electric heating of which 1.7m use heating systems with the
capability to store heat. This allows households to use cheaper electricity at night
to charge the heating system, and to release heat during the day. Almost all of
these are storage heaters. A substantial minority (0.5m) use direct-acting heating
systems without storage functionality, which instead generate heat instantly when needed, and use electricity at that time.

OFGEM states: Electric heating and ToU customers most commonly seek advice on bills and
switching issues, then on faulty meters, and whether the ToU tariff they are on is
right for their needs. Although these kinds of queries are not unique to electric
heating consumers, there are some particular problems within them. For
example, billing complaints include suppliers reading the peak and off-peak
register of the meter the wrong way round, leading to incorrect bills; or faulty
meters which could lead to the heating and other appliances coming on at the
wrong time, with customers charged peak rates as a result.

Unfortunately this is not exclusive to domestic consumers as we have found commercial customers being incorrectly billed for their 2-tariff meter.

We would urge OFGEM to check on supplier’s ability and performance in getting their billing right.

In view of the “tight but managegable” electricity margin this winter; National Grid has now secured an extra 3.58GW of electricity to cover potential demand during winter 16/17 as reported by ELN.

This does not only give us some comfort not to expect any power outages but should put some pressure on electricity prices, too.

With Electricity prices already on a multiyear low; this positive development should encourage consumers even more to shop around and not just accept the supplier’s renewal offer.

For a comprehensive search of competitive prices please contact Alpine Utilities at your earlies opportunity.