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Bulb (energy supplier)

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modellingman
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Bulb (energy supplier)

#398911

Postby modellingman » March 25th, 2021, 1:36 pm

One of the "joys" of being a landlord is dealing with utility companies.

One of my properties, normally let to students, became empty just before Christmas. I am not currently in the UK. The property is empty and undergoing quite a bit of refurbishment. At the beginning of March I sent an email to the energy supplier (Bulb). I sent it from the email address for me showing in Bulb's welcome letter sent by post to me at the property. I presume the outgoing tenants gave the email address to them. Not a problem. My email explained the circumstances and provided up to date meter readings. Bulb already had the tenant's final readings.

Now you might think that my request was simple: here's the latest meter readings, send me a bill (preferably electronically), I will pay it.

It wasn't.

However, 22 emails later, I think we are getting there.

For anyone who has time to spare, I have compiled the emails into a pdf. It can be downloaded from here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/urmxj9qk ... d.pdf/file.

TL:DR
After dealing with the children and sulky teenagers employed by Bulb and its outsourced debt collector, I finally managed to get the attention of a grown-up.

modellingman

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Re: Bulb (energy supplier)

#399851

Postby stevensfo » March 28th, 2021, 5:24 pm

modellingman wrote:One of the "joys" of being a landlord is dealing with utility companies.

One of my properties, normally let to students, became empty just before Christmas. I am not currently in the UK. The property is empty and undergoing quite a bit of refurbishment. At the beginning of March I sent an email to the energy supplier (Bulb). I sent it from the email address for me showing in Bulb's welcome letter sent by post to me at the property. I presume the outgoing tenants gave the email address to them. Not a problem. My email explained the circumstances and provided up to date meter readings. Bulb already had the tenant's final readings.

Now you might think that my request was simple: here's the latest meter readings, send me a bill (preferably electronically), I will pay it.

It wasn't.

However, 22 emails later, I think we are getting there.

For anyone who has time to spare, I have compiled the emails into a pdf. It can be downloaded from here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/urmxj9qk ... d.pdf/file.

TL:DR
After dealing with the children and sulky teenagers employed by Bulb and its outsourced debt collector, I finally managed to get the attention of a grown-up.

modellingman


Oh, I loved it!! About 25 years ago, I returned from working in France for 10 years, desperate for normal, courteous communications. Over years, I realised that the UK had pretty much adopted the French way of screwing their customers and treating them like &%@!!! The only thing I can suggest is to always keep all major correspondence via recorded letter. Any emails not containing the full name of the sender should be returned with an explanation. Take a strong, professional stance and insist on reciprocation.

PS Small threats of suing for medical issues arising from harassment can work wonders! ;)

Steve

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Re: Bulb (energy supplier)

#402028

Postby Gan020 » April 6th, 2021, 2:11 pm

I have had considerable adminstration problems with this company over my bill.

It stems from them working out my annual usuage based on some algorithm which claims it allows for additional usage in winter than summer.

I do not know exactly how it works but suffice to say Bulb were overestimating my annual usuage by around 80% (which appeared to stem from me having solar panels so very little energy usuage in the summer and a heat pump so large energy usuage in the winter as no gas but their algorithm apparently feeling my monthly patterns were outside normal parameters). Every month for about 5 months I would input the reading into their software as requested by their email and every month they would ignore it. They additionally ignored by emails to the email address they offered for bill readings.


Eventually I found another email address for customer complaints (the one they implore you to use before you go to the Ombudsman) and they fixed the bill within 48 hours.


I now have issues with my water bill which is read electronically by someone driving down the street. Apparently the meter reading they get from this does not match the reading on the actual meter and they maintain the electronic meter reading sent to the van that drives down the street is likely to be the correct one! I have no expectations of it being resolved quickly as in the meantime they've billed the reading on the actual meter as a "customer reading".

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Re: Bulb (energy supplier)

#402050

Postby AleisterCrowley » April 6th, 2021, 2:51 pm

Ah reminds me of a never ending debate I had with another utility company...very frustrating being passed around, having to start from scratch each time
I'm with Bulb and I've found them excellent to deal with, although I've never tried to do anything 'complicated'

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Re: Bulb (energy supplier)

#416054

Postby modellingman » May 29th, 2021, 12:42 pm

Gan020 wrote:I have had considerable adminstration problems with this company over my bill.

It stems from them working out my annual usuage based on some algorithm which claims it allows for additional usage in winter than summer.

I do not know exactly how it works but suffice to say Bulb were overestimating my annual usuage by around 80% (which appeared to stem from me having solar panels so very little energy usuage in the summer and a heat pump so large energy usuage in the winter as no gas but their algorithm apparently feeling my monthly patterns were outside normal parameters). Every month for about 5 months I would input the reading into their software as requested by their email and every month they would ignore it. They additionally ignored by emails to the email address they offered for bill readings.


My own interaction with Bulb rumbles on, now up to about 35 emails. However, I have at last discovered something about Bulb's estimation process which may be of interest to you. I suspect a lot of other providers use the same approach because it is cheap, they don't need to do any load research on their own account and the regulator (OFGEM) no longer seems to give a toss about the accuracy of estimated bills. Decades ago, I worked for British Gas and, following its privatisation in late 1986, Ofgas (the then regulator) took a very keen interest in the subject. Monthly monitoring data was provided to the regulator to measure performance against a number of standards of service, including levels of bias in estimates of consumption used for billing customers.

Back to Bulb but first a little background on how the energy industry works in the UK. Both gas and electricity have suppliers who share the pipes and wires and, broadly, each supplier is required to put into the pipe/wire network the energy that their customers take out. In gas this balancing of inputs and outputs is done on a daily basis and in electricity it is done every half-hour. The input side is relatively straightforward to measure, but, in the absence of universal smart metering, the output side is more of a challenge. The required outputs are estimated by first estimating the annual consumption for each domestic and smaller non-domestic customer. Such annual consumption estimates are specific to the meter (or supply point in industry jargon) and each meter's estimate is updated every time the meter is read (more on this below). The required daily or half-hourly consumption values for the supply point are then calculated by applying a profile to the estimated annual consumption value (1). For any daily or half-hourly period, the estimated consumption values are totalled across each supplier's supply points (ie customers) to get the supplier's output value for the daily or half-hourly period. There are other aspects of the system which incentivise suppliers to balance their inputs and outputs in each daily/half-hourly balancing period and which keep the networks as a whole in balance. These are not particularly relevant here, except to note that the whole process is generally known as balancing and settlement and, fundamentally, it is balancing and settlement that facilitates the UK's market system of energy supply.

The annual consumption estimates at the heart of balancing and settlement are calculated centrally rather than by the suppliers. As part of my ongoing correspondence with it, Bulb has confirmed it uses these industry estimates for calculating their own estimates of consumption for billing purposes. No doubt they also use the standard industry profiles to convert the annual consumption estimates to the sub-annual values required for billing. I suspect that most, perhaps all, the suppliers that have emerged over the past few years do much the same.

Because the annual consumption estimates play such a central role in balancing and settlement, there are tight rules on how they are updated in response to new meter readings. Calculation of any consumption requires two meter readings: an "opening" read and a subsequent "closing" read. For annual consumption purposes, a new meter reading provides the "closing" read and, under the rules for gas, this sets a target date for the "opening" read which is 365 days earlier. The historic meter reading closest to this target date is selected as the "opening" read provided that it is not less than 9 or more than 36 months prior to the closing read (2). In the very likely event that the opening and closing reads are not exactly 12 months apart a mathematical formula is used to correct the consumption value obtained from the two meter reads to an equivalent 12-month value. This then becomes the updated annual consumption estimate for the supply point (3). In the event that there is no "opening" read meeting the >9 and <36 month conditions, the supply point's annual consumption estimate is left unchanged. The process for electricity is broadly similar.

This means that where there is a sudden change in consumption (as happens when a property becomes unoccupied) it will take 12 months before the annual consumption estimate realistically represents current patterns of consumption. So, in these circumstances, a supplier using the annual consumption estimates from balancing and settlement will issue unrealistic estimates and bills. This certainly explains why the estimates produced by Bulb in my own situation have been and continue to be grossly overestimated despite the fact that I have now provided several sets of meter readings to Bulb.

Bulb (and similar suppliers) are not obliged to use the annual consumption estimates from balancing and settlement to generate consumption estimates for billing purposes. They choose to do so because, as noted above, it is cheap and there is little penalty from regulators for getting it wrong. It is cheap because it avoids the cost of creating an alternative estimation system which perhaps utilises additional information obtained from the customer (such as "there is no one living here, you morons"). In terms of regulation, OFGEM washed its hands a long time ago of tackling issues which directly affect consumers, preferring instead to take the view that competition in the market is the way that best serves energy customer interests. The Ombudsman service, which is where customers are directed when disputes with energy suppliers are not resolved, seems incapable of abstracting the broader issues from the cases it does deal with and feeding these through to OFGEM.

For those of a nerdy disposition, there are a few references below as to how it works for gas. Electricity is broadly similar.

(1) see paragraph 2.2.1 of Section H of the Transportation Principal Document (TPD) of the Unified Network Code. The estimated annual consumption is called the Annual Quantity (or AQ) in the TPD. The estimate of consumption at a supply point on a particular day is the SPD and is calculated from the supply point's AQ. The acronym NDM means non-daily metered and refers to a supply point with a standard index meter.
(2) see paragraph 2.3 (and particularly 2.3.7) of Section G of the TPD. The consumption derived from the two meter readings for a supply point meeting the >9 and <36 month criteria is called the AQ Metered Quantity (or AQMQ) in the TPD.
(3) see paragraph 3.2.1 of Section H of the TPD for details of how the AQ is derived from the AQMQ. The calculation utilises the same profile values found in reference (1) for deriving the SPD from the AQ.


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