You know you're taking on vested interests when several journalists contact you asking the same planted question - "are you advocating zonal pricing because it will increase Kraken revenue?"

In short - that's nonsense. We've pissed off incumbents and that's cost us sales but... 1. Zonal doesn't require software as sophisticated as Kraken, and there are many other platforms that handle zonal and (the far more complex) nodal pricing in many other countries.

Martin's right about the wholesale energy market

Suppliers' profits are capped at c.2% by the price cap, but wholesale costs are too high as the price is set by the most expensive generation in the country

We propose a fix- locational pricing- to lower bills for everyone

1/n

https://twitter.com/MartinSLewis/status/1887110462946390195

2/n
With locational pricing - instead of the price being set by the most expensive unit in the whole country, it'd be set regionally based on local supply and demand. Every region would be cheaper

Today's system is like every house in the country being priced at London levels.

@MartinSLewis 1/n Standing charges vary (adding to their inequity) but unit rates are v flat- with everyone paying London rates

Imagine that in housing? That’s how electricity is

We desperately need prices in other regions to be lower- and even London would fall too

octopus.energy/blog/regional-… @MartinSLewis 2/n
Today, when it’s windy, generators get paid - by everyone’s bills- to turn off wind farms instead of selling it cheap locally.

We could of course build more Grid but it costs billions, adding to bills and would take years.

https://twitter.com/octopusenergy/status/1864256152646680853

The scences from Valencia were awful last week, horrific.

It happens to be the home of @octopusenergy in Spain (@OctopusEnergyES).

This is the street where our main warehouse/depot is - and I'm going to share some of the messages from our team there. It's soberingly awful

1/n

This is from our Spanish CEO, @RobertoGiner on Saturday evening:

Thanks to @AnnaJonesSky for a grown-up interview on recent price cap increase.

Not only did Anna raise the immediate issues and concerns from billpayers who again face a winter of higher energy costs, but also discussed the solutions we need to bring bills down for good.

1/n

https://twitter.com/OctopusEnergy/status/1827286784327176401

2/n
Global gas prices are 3x higher than they were in 2020, and it doesn't help to produce more in the UK - it's a drop in the ocean in a global market. We are at the mercy of geopolitics and major fossil fuel powers.
And our outdated electricity market means the price of gas...

Make no mistake - there are real issues in energy caused by global gas and shortfalls in UK nukes - but the idea of "crisis" is being pumped up by the former Big 6 in order to try to bounce govt and regulators into restoring the cosy oligopoly they used to enjoy. Undoubtedly, there are idiot companies out there who offered bonkers low prices when market was low, and seek bailout now it's high. They don't deserve a place in a critical market. And the B6 habitually overcharged for their bloated operations through opaque prices.

Excellent piece by James Coney: although without competition we wouldn't have seen @OctopusEnergy. Sadly, until recently regulators used to model energy on market stalls while consumers prefer the world of supermarkets and online equivalents

thetimes.co.uk/article/compet… The regulatory community, schooled in Chicago economics, loves the idea of consumers haggling their way through noisy stalls, with each trader yelling their offer. A cacophony of buyer beware.

A social tariff is a ruse the Big 6 tried, to prevent the price cap.

They are addicted to schemes which avoid them having to compete, to push down costs and provide better service and pricing.

@OctopusEnergy invited many B6 into our offices to see what makes us more efficient..

https://twitter.com/richonlyinname/status/1421814797700583424

@OctopusEnergy Without exception they saw that it's not "easier customers" (more on this later) but investment in technology, processes and teams which made us up to 4x more cost efficient than them.
Most concluded "but I don't know how we'd transform ourselves to do it"...