Tag Archives: Energy Costs

4 April 2014: Evening Standard report results of a survey commissioned by what appears to be a new collective switching business ThisIsTheBigDeal.com. Results not published on the company’s website, and the numbers of people surveyed not revealed, but the story sets out that “almost a million Londoners do not bother to open their gas and power bills despite being worried about the cost, a damning survey revealed today”. Likely a 1,000 or so people surveyed, so some heroic extrapolation going on here – but issues raised such as consumers getting confused by their bills, and not even attempting to review their energy costs have been similarly identified in earlier studies. It’s not clear from the story if Londoners are better or worse than consumers in other regions.

DECC interestingly undertake a regular ‘Public Attitudes Tracker‘. The February 2014 release says the following (p4):

• 47% of people were very or fairly worried about paying their energy bills, similar to September 2013 (48%). In December 2012 50% of people were very or fairly worried about paying their energy bills, compared with 45% in September 2012.
• 32% of people said they will or may switch energy supplier in the next 12 months, unchanged since September 2013 (34%) and December 2012 (35%).
• Four in ten (42%) of people trusted their energy supplier to inform them of the best tariff for them, similar to March 2013 (46%) and March 2012 (44%), when the question was first asked.
• Half of people (49%) said they trusted their supplier to provide impartial and accurate advice on energy efficiency measures, similar to March 2013 (51%) and March 2012 (53%), when the question was first asked.

Nothing however on whether consumers understand their energy bill.

November 2013: London Councils’ Transport & Environment Committee recently discussed its initiative ‘The Big London Energy Switch‘ (further background to which is posted here). There have been two previous auctions through the collective energy switching scheme earlier this year, in April and June, and the initiative is now open to registration to users for a further auction to take place on 19 November. The London Councils’ paper highlights that a total of 1,847 residents switched through the first auction, saving on average £114 on their annual fuel bill.

Two more boroughs are now participating in this switch, bringing the total to 23. The note highlights some findings from the evaluation of the programme, undertaken by the Energy Saving Trust, stating:

• The scheme was effective at engaging with vulnerable residents, as evidenced by the high proportion of vulnerable residents that signed up, compared to the average proportions in London’s population – 41 per cent of those that registered their interest in the scheme indicated that they receive benefits.
• The tariffs offered from the energy companies for the spring auction were not attractive enough to persuade the expected proportion of registrants to make the switch – only 9 per cent of full registrants actually switched.

The note also highlights that the auction was originally set to take place in October however – “following discussions with energy suppliers, the date of the auction would be pushed back to 19 November…  The reason is that there have been delays in Ofgem and the energy suppliers reaching consensus to implement the Retail Market Review (RMR) reforms, which are designed to make the market simpler and fairer for consumers.”

“Whilst changing the auction date is inconvenient for boroughs who have already publicised the date, the change increases the likelihood of energy suppliers providing bespoke tariffs in the auction and potentially increasing savings for the majority of residents.

“Overall we are disappointed that the date of the auction has been pushed back by a month, but hope that this will mean cheaper tariffs are offered by energy suppliers at auction and that more residents will be able to benefit from the scheme.”

The full EST evaluation report of the Big London Energy Switch, which includes 31 recommendations, can be downloaded here.

June 2013: The Chair’s report to the London Councils ‘Environment and Transport’ Committee, which took place last week, included the following update on the Big London Energy Switch, and a communication from London Councils to the Secretary of State at DECC on the Energy Bill.

Collective Energy Switching
2. The first auction for the Big London Energy Switch (BLES) was held on 9 April, with the switching provider (iChoosr) negotiating on behalf of about 150,000 residents across the country – the highest number of participants in a UK auction of this kind. The BLES secured 26,436 registrations of which 71% were able to save an average £122 per year.

3. The deadline for residents to decide whether they wanted to take up their offer from the auction was 20 May. Initial indications are that about 7% of those that signed up with the scheme accepted their offer, which is close to the proportions for previous collective switching schemes.

4. There will be another auction on 4 June, for which the BLES is doing low-key promotion rather than proactive engagement as for 9 April. However, we are planning another auction in early autumn with additional engagement targeted at signing up vulnerable residents and those in fuel poverty. This will use the remaining DECC funding (currently estimated at around £100k) and any registration fees from the April and June auctions.

5. We have established regular BLES meetings with iChoosr in the run up to the autumn auction to ensure improved liaison and knowledge-sharing and ultimately resident engagement. Our evaluation partner, the Energy Saving Trust, is beginning its evaluation of the scheme and we will build in learning from this for the autumn auction.

Energy Bill
6. Cllr West wrote to the Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, to highlight issues for boroughs on domestic energy tariffs and energy efficiency relating to the Energy Bill. We are now seeking a meeting with officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change to discuss these.

7. The Bill itself is due to enter the Lords shortly, after having been considered in the Commons, and we are considering what further lobbying activity may be required.

It’s interesting to see that only 7% – or 1,850 households eventually took up the Big London Energy Switch offer – and – as stated – such a percentage is typical of these collective swtiching schemes. The Chair’s note doesn’t say who the provider selected was: it was Sainsburys. The following blog by iharrow. com highlights that the offer didn’t work for everyone – which is to be expected.

As the Chair’s report notes, an evaluation process is currently being undertaken by the Energy Saving Trust – which will be interesting to see – and the output from that will feed into the next auction to take place sometime in the Autumn.