PfP and MoneyPlus cease trading (collapse amid record surge in prices)

[Mr Gus]

PfP and MoneyPlus cease trading as power prices reach record highs, leaving 100,000 customers without a supplier

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -in-prices

Martin Young, an analyst at Investec, said about 1.75 million customers have been forced to change suppliers involuntarily following a company collapse since the beginning of 2018, due to the “tough backdrop in supply”. He expected more suppliers to crash out of the market or sell their customers to rivals to avoid going under.

[Stinsy]

The market isn’t sustainable at the moment. I pay 15p peak and 5p off peak (inc VAT) while wholesale prices are c. 13p. That has got to be lossmaking for the provider. How long can it last?

[nowty]

Oh dear, PFP are my gas supplier, I was with another supplier (who I cannot even remember) and PFP bought out the customers over two years ago. I got a good deal, then they offered me a 2 year deal at even better prices which is up at the end of this year.

2.99p kWh and standing charge of 14.96p (includes VAT), sadly not going to see those prices again, but maybe for the best as I keep saying gas is too cheap.

I was thinking recently of jumping ship a month or two ago and take the £30 exit charge in order to lock into a reasonable deal whilst some still remained. Now going to have to sit tight and await events.

[AE-NMidlands]

Interesting times... The article says

Tom Lyon, a director at Energyhelpline.com, said: “It is a tough market for suppliers with the wholesale cost of energy continuing to rise, forcing suppliers to operate on smaller margins and many have been affected by customers either having to delay or miss payments due to lockdown.”

In addition to shouldering the rising cost of energy, UK suppliers also face an annual deadline to hand over millions in renewable energy subsidies collected from bills to pay renewable energy developers.
The annual 31 August deadline has proved fatal to small suppliers in the past. Those that miss it have until the end of October to meet a late payment deadline, plus penalty charges, before the regulator begins the process of stripping them of their supply licence.

Martin Young, an analyst at Investec, said about 1.75 million customers have been forced to change suppliers involuntarily following a company collapse since the beginning of 2018, due to the “tough backdrop in supply”. He expected more suppliers to crash out of the market or sell their customers to rivals to avoid going under.

I wonder how far the failures are going to spread among the smaller suppliers? - The Coop has effectively been bailed out by (or merged with, or sold its business to) Octopus: do they count as small? The problem is the competition between companies trying to get customers but still make money.

You could say that this sort of outcome is inevitable in the circumstances (with the industry structure that we have.)

As energy is in short supply, and consumption (and waste) is one of the main drivers of climate change, could the UK change the ground rules completely?
Make it a monopoly, with (dynamic or weekly?) prices set to reflect availability, by a not-for profit organisation which will manage our supply but at the same time make sure that people know the real cost of their energy. This would avoid the repeated shenanigins of companies going bust because they couldn't predict the prices and consumers never really knowing where they stand.
It would also avoid the scandal of renewable subsidies being embezzled...

[Inskip75]

I was with PfP a few years ago as its a local company and part of a a Housing Association in Preston, but I emailed them about their energy and what percentage of electricity was from renewable sources and got quite a short reply saying it was confidential so after a couple more emails I left - I think the contract was coming to an end anyway.

[Mr Gus]

Confidential my ar...

A reply like that within the industry shows their incompetence within the field.
Better gone before they wreck their housing stock.

I wouldn't pass water on a firm like that, how far up the chain did your completely reasonable request for info go, or were you simply blocked at the 1st hurdle by a know it all receptionist with ambition!?

[marshman]

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[AE-NMidlands]

By coincidence I have just had an email saying my current Coop/Ripple contract is coming to an end: I shall be switching to a 12-month fixed one which is 80% higher for gas and 35% more for electricity! It had to come.. maybe it will push me into doing something about home generation.
They say

We typically add about 5% to the cost of the energy we supply, which covers the costs of running our business (including customer service, trading risk, rent, fees we pay to switching sites and referral credits).
Given the rising wholesale costs, we've cut this small margin further. That's why our standard prices are still below the Government's Energy Price Cap, and lower than any other big energy company's standard tariffs.

so I hope they are in a good position financilly.

At least my bit of the Ripple turbine will help cover the generation, if not the transmission costs etc.
A

[Inskip75]

Confidential my ar...

A reply like that within the industry shows their incompetence within the field.
Better gone before they wreck their housing stock.

I wouldn't pass water on a firm like that, how far up the chain did your completely reasonable request for info go, or were you simply blocked at the 1st hurdle by a know it all receptionist with ambition!?

It was phrased from the angle that a lot of customers may wish to know this and certainly as the time moves on it would become a more important issue - but after 3 or 4 emails I was getting nowhere - I wasn't even sure that they knew the answer!

[Paul_F]

Just got my price increase email today - no great surprise.

WhatsApp Image 2021-09-09 at 19.12.18.jpeg (62.03 KiB) Viewed 2942 times

Topical for us since we're a couple of weeks away from applying for planning permission to knock our current place down and build a Passivhaus. We used 17 MWh of gas over the past year, PHPP says we should get this to under 1 MWh of electricity for heating and maybe the same again for hot water (details being modelled at the moment. This for a house of nearly twice the size.