Uncategorized

According to an ELN report Steve Holliday, former boss of National Grid, who believes the nation has enough electricity capacity to meet demand even during peak times.

Last year National Grid increased the gap between total power generating capacity and peak demand to 6.6% for this winter – up from from 5.5% for winter 2015/2016.

Mr Holliday told BBC News: “It’s time for the headline of Blackout Britain to end – it’s simply wrong. We’ve been talking about blackouts for 15 years every time it gets cold but it’s a scare story.

“The lights haven’t gone out yet and thanks to the measures the government is putting in place this week, they definitely won’t go out in future. The UK has one of the most stable supplies of electricity in Europe.”

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) agrees, adding “it’s time to put Blackout Britain scaremongering to bed once and for all”.

“Britain has one of the most reliable electricity systems in the world and it’s remaining reliable as renewable generation increases. It used to be said that the grid would fall over when 5% of our electricity came from wind and solar power – we’re now at three times that level and the lights are staying stubbornly on, just as they are in Denmark where wind provides about 40% of electricity.”

However another report expects this year the first cyber attack on a utility firm – should this happen, your lights may go out nevertheless.

ELN reports that OFGEM is trying out various measures to increase the number of domestic customers switching from the most expensive standard tariffs.
They will start by this summer and will cover issues including:

• Suppliers telling customers what the cheapest deals are across the whole market
• Changing the name of standard tariffs, for example, to ‘out of contract’ tariffs
• Different ways of presenting information in domestic bills
• Changes to information customers receive once they come to the end of a fixed deal.

At a time when energy prices are so high and households desperate for more spending power it is inconceivable that 70% of customer unnecessarily overpaying for their heating and electricity.

What is true for domestic customer applies even more to the commercial sector!
Call Alpine Utilities today for a cheaper deal on your energy!

We are pleased to note that both CNG & Gazprom have now followed most big6 suppliers in compliance with the recent CMA directive to allow Microbusinesses to terminate a rollover contract anytime by giving just 30 days notice.
Microbusiness customers who fail to terminate ahead of the renewal will no longer be locked in on an expensive 12 month contract. For CNG customers at renewal prices will obviously change but the customer can still negotiate a better deal and terminate long before the end of the 12 months. Gazprom microbusiness customers will go out-of-contract and will not require any termination.
For CNG the definition of microbusiness does not tally with the industry guideline but rather refers to any customer using less than 723’000kwh gas.
Alpine Utilities Ltd has communicated this inconsistency to the supplier.

Lately an increasing number of visitors are misusing our news section to post spam comments.
While we welcome genuine comments about the news item posted we do not tolerate spam or marketing messages. These are all being thrashed and not given any consideration whatsoever.
Should this abuse of our website continue we will have no choice but to take legal action against those spammers!

OFGEM published today some interesting figures regarding the Domestic Variable Standard Tariffs on
Accordingly about 20m domestic customers are still paying over the odds on the higher variable standard tariffs instead of saving £££’s on cheaper tariffs.

It’s time for customers to make the most of the competitive energy market both in domestic and business and save hundreds or even thousands of pounds.

For competitive business energy contracts contact Alpine Utilities Ltd @ info@alpineutilities.co.uk

OFGEM’s latest press relies says OVO Energy pays £54,000 in redress and a further £4000 to a charity after agents missed appointments and failed to pay the statuary compensation to customers.
This is good news for consumers and should send a timely message to big and small suppliers to put their house in order.

ELN reports that water billing issues were a common occurrence, with 37% of firms having experienced it and half of them being overcharged.
So there is a high chance you are being ripped off as well.

Take advantage of our FREE audit of water bills and you could save a fortune.

Further to our Alpine Utilities Ltd’s intervention (see our post 29th July 16) it appear that Scottish Power have now reduced the wait time for an automatic re-application to just 10 days from previously 29.

While we welcome this change, which inevitably will save many customers from going onto the excessive out-of-contract rate unnecessarily for too long, we still would like them to introduce a manual override mechanism to re-apply earlier and/or for a specific start date.

We are delighted to inform you that we have now partnered with a Market Leader in Water Management

With suppliers overcharging customers in 1 out every 3 water bills, expert scrutiny and advice is essential to ensure charges accurately reflect the services you receive, and with deregulation just around the corner (April 2017) now is the best time to act.

Our partners are experts in Water Management, offering water audits, bill validation and procurement, as well as advice on any water industry matter. They have saved over £103M since 1990 for their customers

Initially, we are conducting free audits for our customers to highlight the opportunities to save money. Please send us your water bills for us to review – we will report back to you within a few days with a no-obligation recommendation.

Water Audits, how they work
Combining on and off site investigations, errors can be found and corrected. Inefficiencies can be highlighted, and we will recommend the best course of action to reduce and recover costs. Some of the aspects that will be looked into will include:

● Over-estimated bills
● Data errors
● Billing errors
● Charges for incorrect properties
● VAT amendments
● Closed premises but still being invoiced
● Converting unmeasured properties
● Incorrect meter readings
● Meter size reduction

They also specialise in checking and correcting charging assessments of surface water and highway drainage, investigating banding reductions, RV checking and drainage to cancel and reduce charges that do not connect to public sewers.

Send your recent water bill now to info@alpineutilities.co.uk or fax to 0844 3588 613 for a free no obligation assessment of the hard cash that we can save for your organisation.

Dual Energy has sent the following communication to its brokers:
Due to recent increase in prices & as per their terms and conditions, DUAL Energy have notified us that some of their customers that have signed up with them for a start date from 01/01/17 – 31/03/17 will be having a price change. The reasoning for this increase in the agreed rates is due to the increase in the wholesale cost of electricity. They have absorbed as much as possible of this; however are now having to pass this increase over to some of their customers.

In response to our enquiry Dual Energy has confirmed:
The communication which will go out to the customer in the coming weeks, does give the opportunity for customers to cancel if they are not happy to continue on the new set of prices offered. We are of course covered to do so by the T&Cs (4.2, 4.3, 8.1.1) but this is not something we ever wanted to use.

It is the result of a combination of freak incidents within the industry where supply has been hindered, leading to a wholesale increase beyond what we can support (absorb). Up over 70% since April https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/nov/12/electricity-bills-rise-energy-supply-cuts

So the customer will always have the right to opt out at a price change juncture, within the set time frame of notice.

We are still reluctant to accept that their T&C’s cover a price increase simply due to the rise in whole sale prices but this is something Dual Energy customers should discuss with their brokers and/or legal advisors – voting with your feet is always an option.
However it is important for all Dual-Energy customers to check their post and act quickly in case the supplier decides to pass on prices rises to all current customers.