How stable are Octopus Energy? Are they strong enough to weather the current storm of bankruptcies?

[AE-NMidlands]

Getting there, 14.1 just now.

?Que? Was this intended for another thread?
A

[Stinsy]

Getting there, 14.1 just now.

?Que? Was this intended for another thread?
A

He was suggesting wind had gotten up to 14.1GW momentarily…

[Oliver90owner]

It’ll be a good deal more when embedded generation is added in.

[Stinsy]

Bulb next? 1.7m customers!

[AE-NMidlands]

The system really is broken (not that it could ever have coped with this scenario, so it was never fit for purpose.)
Let's hope that the ethical suppliers are hard-headed enough to refuse to take on extra customers with gas needs that they haven't hedged or resourced. Accepting the obligation to sell more fuel below the cost of purchase is commercial suicide.

I think they should play hard-ball, let the Govt set up a new supplier of last resort (not a coerced existing firm) and then a good firm could run that operation by charging the govt what they have to pay for the fuel - plus a generous fee. It would be a fraction of the price of the track and trace shambles.
A

[nowty]

Bulb next? 1.7m customers!

Bulb might collapse, as they have just lost money hand over fist year on year just to add more customers without the same level of innovation or financial backing of Octopus, so the government might not want them bailed out. In fact stories in the press and there are a lot of them suggest it will be kept going over the Winter by a special administrator even though its effectively bust.

If Bulb does go, I predict no other larger company than Bulb (including Octopus, especially as they have just taken on over 500k Avro customers) will be allowed to fail as it will be a house of cards after that with full nationalisation of the supplier industry inevitable soon after.

I note even Octopus are not accepting new customers online, you request an online quote and you get this,




Then you press, I understand and still want a quote and you get this.
I have not rung the number, but it would not surprise me if no one answers.

[Stinsy]

The house of cards is wobbling hard. The problem is the “price cap” forces companies to sell their product below cost. No company can sustain that forever! Government cannot prop up companies that have unsustainable business models, otherwise they incentivise those business models in future, but there is a big difference between allowing a company with 20k customers to fail and foisting those customers on another company, and doing the same with 1.7m customers.

Energy is expensive right now. Who should pay? Consumers, government, or energy companies?

[Andy]

What I find strange is that I am not even paying the capped price with Bulb. So they must be losing even more than they need. I’ve got rather more sitting in credit than I would like right now. I know there are protections but my last SOLR move took 10 months to sort out the mess left by the companies screwing up the meter settings. It wasn’t until I sent the small claims court documents that I got anywhere.

It’s all made more complicated by being on E10. Not many providers do that now.

[spread-tee]

I think we should be focussing on why energy is expensive right now, has it suddenly become much more expensive to produce? or has the "market" jacked the price up?

Consumers need to pay a fair price for energy, energy companies need to make a fair profit for supplying energy, and if poorer consumers are struggling they should be subsidised by taxation.

In my head anyway?

Desp

[AE-NMidlands]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... pens-ofgem:

Growing doubts over a rescue deal for Bulb Energy have raised fears that the UK is on the brink of its biggest supplier collapse yet, even as the regulator promises “bold action” to protect millions of households from the deepening energy crisis.

Bulb, the UK’s seventh largest energy supplier, is locked in talks with multiple companies to secure a bailout so it can continue serving its 1.7 million household customers amid record wholesale prices for gas and electricity this winter.

But sources have told the Guardian that the cost of rescuing Bulb, which is understood to be carrying between £600m and £1bn of debt, could be too steep for most companies to shoulder without government help, meaning the number of households that have been forced to find a new energy supplier since the start of September could almost double from its current level of about 2.1 million.
Previously when energy firms have exited the market, their existing customers have been allocated to a rival under the government’s supplier of last resort scheme.
However, a collapse as large as Bulb would probably require the regulator to use a special administrator to keep the company running over winter before prices normalise and potential buyers come forward to snap up the supplier, one source said.

Other sources confirmed reports that Ovo Energy, Octopus Energy and Shell Energy have shown an interest in buying Bulb. Centrica is also understood to be interested in Bulb and may opt to preserve the brand and business as a sister company to British Gas, which it owns.

The market model clearly needs changing, as this is inevitable every time prices rise steeply, regardless of the reason behind the rise.