Office of Fair Trading Wants to Hear from YOU!
By John Swindells
17 Mar 2011
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After a brief period of consultation and scoping, the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) is inviting heating oil consumers (and other off-grid customers) to share their experiences.
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The off-grid energy study, formally launched on 15 March 2011 and due to be published in October 2011, aims to investigate whether the 3.5M households not connected to the national gas network have a competitive market to source their fuel from. Heating oil is a primary focus of the study.
Key issues you can raise as a consumer:
- How many suppliers are in your area, and whether you believe these suppliers to be working independently.
- Have you received a fair and efficient service from your oil supplier(s)?
- What terms and conditions do you need to sign up to?
- What price movements have you personally experienced?
- Have you reduced your dependency on fossil fuels by installing a heat source based on renewable energy? If not, what is stopping you?
- Have you switched to electricity as your heat source, or used it to supplement your heating?
- What improvements can you suggest?
For more information on the scope of the study and how to submit your information, read the OFT's press release: OFT launches off-grid energy study. You may also want to read the Off-Grid Energy Market Study Statement of Scope [PDF doc].
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People, who have to use Oil, can barely afford to heat their homes as it is. It is outrageous, these Suppliers can do just want they like with no thought to the homeowner.
The OFT may have also noticed that gas suppliers also followed suit this time even though the wholesale price of gas was never an issue.
Heating oil suppliers and investors should be banned from investing in future prices of Kerosene as this market is far to sensitive.
They have now settled the price per Litre at around 60p! exactly what they set out to do in the first place.Holding Kerosene at this price will ensure they will more than be capable of paying back any fines they will face when acase brouht against them by the OFT is successful.
Shame on you suppliers out there we will never forget what your greed!!!!
My wife an I have just moved house to a newly renovated old cottage circa 1820's, and have spent a considerable sum ?25k on the central heating system for the house as well as spending over ?3k on insulation in the property. We have UFH, very efficent control systems, a thermal store which we heat via a wood burner and an oil system boiler (Grant Eco) and hope to install solar thermal at a later date. We're lucky in that we both have good jobs, but the price of fuel oil for many is crippling. So I have some comments.
We moved from another property in the village which is about half the size. This also had oil CH which we had installed around 6-7 years ago, as the property is smaller we installed a combi boiler (Worchester bosch) The first time I filled the tank I paid 18p/l I ordered oil yesterday and paid 61p/l !!! So that's an increase of over 300%
As the village has restricted access we are limited on what suppliers will deliver some will only deliver in a "Tiny Tanker" for which you'll pay at least 5p/l extra.
Short term fluctuations in pricing can be extreme. We filled our tank for the first time in November and paid 46p/l
Group Oil purchase schemes don't give that big a discount.
I have found that we are restricted on what suppliers will deliver to us due to access issues. But pricing does seems to be competitive between suppliers and it does help to shop around. It is easier to shop around by using the internet but this doesn't really help those not online or the elderly. There is no real differance in the services offered by each supplier. Although pricing is competative this is within very narrow price scales we're talking a few p per l
Levels of service from the two companies we have used over the years I have always found to be good, and I have never had an issue with supply. I placed an order Monday of this week and oil was delivered today (Wednesday).
We have considered putting an economy7 electric heating coil in our thermal store. This will probably cost around ?300 if the price of oils stays at current levels we might consider this before next winter.
Off-Grid also means we suffer a penalty in that we can't get duel fuel tariffs so we pay more for our electricity.
As we're only been in the property since January we've don't really know what our consumption levels will be. But my first thoughts are we are consuming about the same as we did in our old property, which is good as our new house is over double the size. This is due to the amount of insulation we have installed, more efficient boiler and the use of the wood burner. 1000/l should last us around 10-12 months meaning we will have spent over ?600 just for heating and hot water. This would be a horrendous sum for an OAP on a small income who requires more heat than we do.
Although we have a very efficient wood burner the cost of seasoned hard wood logs is also expensive. Unless you scavenge for wood it is expensive to use wood for heating.
The infrastructure costs of oil are far greater than for gas. Oil boilers cost more to buy, to install to service and to repair, you also have the added cost of the tank.
Planning issues STILL surround alternative fuel sources. We would like solar thermal and maybe PV as our house is south facing and gets plenty of sun. But as we're in a conservation area we would need to get planning permission which can be problematic. This should be addressed by central government urgently.
Building regs should also be amended to require the installation of PV or solar thermal on all suitable new builds (ie have a favourable facing roof elevation)
I paid over ?30 in VAT on my oil order a reduction in the VAT levels for off-grid energy should be considered.
I would have thought that restricted village access would have made group buying work for both suppliers' and consumers' interests. Do you get the feeling that the suppliers aren't bothered about cost savings?
Besides, shouldn't the price you pay be based on the price the supplier paid a week or more previously?
As for the global energy problem, that certainly is a major long-term concern.