Changing energy suppliers every 12 months can be a pain, from looking around to find the best deal to the general hassle of switching. However, it has traditionally been the best way to keep prices low, especially when rates sharply rise after the first year deal. And then there’s the concern of wanting to use greener energy, but without the extortionate prices.
That’s why Octopus Energy have teamed up with Mumsnet to launch the Green Octopus tariff, which is the cheapest green tariff for the average household, anywhere in the UK. It offers 100% renewable electricity and carbon offsetting for gas, without the usual difficulties of switching and the shady price hikes.
Here’s what Jenny from Octopus Energy had to say: ‘We hear from a lot of people that switching supplier is just too much hassle. That’s why we’ve created this tariff: You can switch in two minutes from your phone, save over £200 a year for an average UK home on a Big 6 standard tariff, and go green at the same time. You don’t need a bill to hand - in fact, you don’t even need to know who your current supplier is. We’ll handle the switch with your old supplier, and we have really solid email and chat support too, so you can avoid call centre hell if you need to get in touch.’
To be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher take a look at the Octopus Energy website, get a quote and see how much you’ll save. Whether you decide to take up the offer or not, post below to let us know how it went. If you joined, how did you find the process, and if you didn’t, what stopped you?
Entries close midnight July 7th.
Thanks and good luck!
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Tell us what you think about Octopus Energy and win a £300 Love2Shop voucher! NOW CLOSED
EmmaMumsnet · 07/06/2016 14:38
Octopus Energy have reached out with some feedback, here is a message from Octopus Energy below:
First of all, a big thanks for everyone who’s taken a look at our website and tried out the quote process. The feedback – both positive and negative – is really helpful to us as a company trying to do things right for customers, rather than just doing things the way they’ve always been done.
We think the energy sector works reasonably well for the 15% of the population who switch regularly. Our driving mission is to fix it for the 85% who don’t. One option is, of course, to encourage everyone people to switch regularly – but after more than 10 years of the government, the media and the online switching sites all spending a lot of time and money trying to persuade people to do this, most of us just forget to do it in our busy lives.
It doesn’t have to be like this. The only reason so many people are get screwed is not because they’re lazy, but because most energy companies have business models designed to massively overcharge their most loyal customers.
About our tariffs
The cheapest 100% green tariff
We’ve put a lot of work into getting the pricing right for the majority of people - the savings we’ve mentioned are based on a “medium household” (Ofgem’s definition, not ours!), and we’re pretty confident that for the vast majority of customers there’s no 100% green tariff that’s cheaper. Energy suppliers have to publish their tariffs and we’ve checked them all. For an average household, none are cheaper. If your usage is particularly small, or you use truly vast amounts of gas, or you have certain Economy 7 meters, we may not be quite cheapest, but for the majority of the population you can’t get cheaper 100% green energy than with Octopus.
Our other tariffs
Beyond our 100% green tariff, our other tariffs are pretty competitively priced – not necessarily the very lowest but not far off the top of the table. But the key is what happens a year later: most other companies’ deals revert to their super-expensive variable tariffs at the end of the deal period, which means a very big increase for anyone who doesn’t switch immediately. We don’t do that (you can check this for yourself: our variable is currently the same as our fixed). We just don’t believe in luring people in with falsely low prices, then switching them to artificially high ones when they’re not looking.
(BTW, while we’re talking tariffs: even our regular electricity is targeted at 50% renewable – which is more than some of the products sold as ‘green’ on comparison sites)
With all that in mind, here’s our thoughts on some of the topics that have been raised.
Regular switchers
Wow, there’s a lot of really proactive switchers on the thread! It’s absolutely true that to get the very best prices for energy, you can sign up to a new fixed contract every 6 - 12 months. If this is you, well done and keep it up. And maybe this will mean we may not be the best supplier for you and that’s totally cool. By the way, although many commenters on this thread are regular switchers – that’s representative of only 15% of the population and the rest are hugely overpaying for their energy.
This is why we want to be a great energy supplier for the 85% who don’t switch regularly (for whatever reason). To be really clear on this: the reason that those 85% pay on average c. £300 too much for their energy because they switched in at an artificially low price of a fixed deal, and then get hiked to an exploitatively high price after a year.
Detailed quotes
Fanjango you can enter your actual usage when getting a quote by selecting “actual usage” on Question 4 of the quote form (and please do! If you have that to hand it makes the quote more accurate and helps the switch go more smoothly).
A few people (austere , imposteracademic , Fanjango) have mentioned the ability to get a quote with a comparison to your current tariff and supplier. We used to do this, but found it really slowed down the process, and a lot of people didn’t have the info to hand so just dropped out. We’re creating a slicker version and will add that in fairly soon.
Generally, it’s the people who don’t have usage info or current tariff details to hand, who are the ones who really need to switch suppliers to stop paying way too much money. This is why we don’t ask for it up front.
For those who’d like a detailed comparison of unit rates versus their current tariff, drop us an email to //[email protected] with a recent bill, and we’ll get back to you with a comparison to both our green and variable tariffs. This will also be a useful check if your current direct debit is set cheaper than the level we recommended (Larnipoo , ButterflyOfFreedom , CopperPan).
Default to the Green tariff
Trashcansinatra mentioned we default to the more expensive Green tariff - this only happens for visitors who arrive at our site from Mumsnet, because we’ve developed and launched the tariff in conjunction with Mumsnet HQ (and we’re really proud of its sustainability!)
We thought it better to default to the new tariff we’ve talked about on the site, rather than presenting Mumsnetters with a cheaper price which they later found out was not as green.
However, based on your feedback, we’ve switched it to default to the standard (cheapest tariff) even for MNers and then you can choose the green one if you prefer. But please don’t complain that we’re promoting 100% green and then defaulting to the other 
Estimates, estimates, estimates
We hate the fact that energy is so confusing. A lot of the work we do is to try to make it simpler for the 85% of the population we mentioned earlier – many of them busy parents who just never get round to switching.
One of the hardest things is the amount of estimation. When you switch you give an estimate of usage – but everyone’s usage varies according to loads of factors, especially the weather. If your usage is higher or lower than the estimated usage, the right tariff for you can vary substantially. That’s one reason we believe in long term good value – it’s awful when you switch for the best deal, get locked in for 12 months by exit fees, and then find it wasn’t the best deal anyway. That won’t happen with Octopus because we don’t lock you in.
And then there’s the difference between your direct debit and your bill. We assume that your monthly DD payment is 1/12 of your actual bill. But of course, the projected bill itself is an estimate and will vary based on your usage. So, when you compare prices you may think our monthly payment is too high or low compared to your own – but your current supplier may be charging you based on different estimates.
So, it really is a bit complicated and there’s no great solution that works for everyone. That’s why we talk about an average house on a standard tariff – because at least that’s a common baseline.
Of course, if you are more au fait with your energy, you’ll be able to sniff out the very best deal – but for many people it’s a vast improvement just to know they’re getting great value and are definitely not going to get screwed.
Finally, on prepaid meters (chanice)
We will offer tariffs for prepay meters in the future, but we’re not there yet - watch this space!
Sorry for the long post, but we’re passionate about this stuff. We obsess over it. Hopefully it helps with some of the questions and topics that have come up.
Thanks everyone, and keep the feedback coming! Thank you!
New customers always seem to get offered the best deals which is why I regularly change provider. Not just for energy, but phone, broadband and insurance.
The policy and terms are set out clearly for Octopus energy which is good but it's a strange company name.
I tried this today, I'm currently in prepayment meters and it initially showed up as more than what I currently pay. I then changed the setting to non green energy making it lower.
Concerned me that it didn't ask fir actual consumption and also couldn't allow smart meter as an option. 
I think for this to be if any use it needs updating to get all of the information like other comparison sites. So on this occasion I won't be using it.
I have just checked using my actual usage and I could be £20/month better off. Will definitely be taking a closer look at what is offered. Thanks Octopus
My quote was £61.90 per month - about ten pounds a month cheaper than Ovo energy, who we are currently with. We have just renewed with Ovo but would definitely consider octopus in the future. I like the green aspect and am happy to switch suppliers for cheaper energy bills. 
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As a postscript, I've just found my energy usage from the MSE Cheap Energy Club account and, evidently we use far more than average electricity 
so my updated Octopus quote is now £90 which is much closer to what we are paying. It wouldn't be enough of a saving to switch from my fixed tarrif.
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