Surely the more remote you are, the more carefully they need to plan their journey, and the more accurate their estimated arrival time should be…?
I guess it doesn’t work that way in their world 
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I suspect it’s because they have to travel over here especially and can’t be here all the time, so they’ll make allotted trips every few months and get through as many as they can before heading back to the mainland. It’s the same if you’re trying to get a new phone line installed, but BT send engineers much more frequently, and I think they rotate them on and off the island. Always vans coming and going from the ferries.
Quite a few services operated that way prior to covid. Sadly not many have returned at all let alone to usual levels. We no longer have an NHS opticians for instance. So if you need tests and prescription glasses, you have to go private now. Unless Specsavers start doing their quarterly visits again.
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Is it a Scottish island you live on? I’ve always wondered what the impact of living somewhere like that is on something like this.
Presumably there’s a local presence from the grid operator?
Yep!
I’d imagine so! Blackouts aren’t uncommon with the sort of weather we can get at times, so we need someone to fix things. I’ve seen national grid vans and metering systems vans about.
Thank you. Better explained than my flawed attempt.
It’s been going on for years hence why so many complaints by customers having their direct debits increased far in excess of their projected energy use.
It’s the main reason why before smart meters, I religiously submitted monthly meter readings to whichever energy company I was with at the time because some of them absolutely tried their best to raise my direct debit well beyond what I was actually using. It was absolutely unjustified and they knew it.
I’m not sorry to say I have no desire to assist any energy company by needlessly funnelling huge wads of cash into their coffers when I can stick it in a savings account and earn interest on my money. This is why working smart meters and the choice of paying monthly on variable direct debit is for me, the best way of managing my energy account.
I wonder if anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation to myself. I have just received my monthly energy bill. Within a few pence, my electric bill was an actual smart meter read bill of £46. I now find myself in credit by £20 (within a few pence) due to the Government rebate of £66.
I’ve done a few calculations and I can pretty much say with certainty, that my electric bill won’t exceed £60 a month over the next four months. And to be clear again, I pay monthly on variable direct debit.
I guess this means that for at least the next 4 months, I’m getting free electric courtesy of the Government? or have I just totally got this wrong? I completely understand that there’s due to be another hike in energy costs come January.
As for gas consumption, well that came to a metered £19, so with the rebate it looks like my gas and leccy has cost me nothing for the last four weeks.
Aren’t they frozen for two years now.
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Ah yes, just had a quick Google and it seems I missed that one 
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Truss said the cap would be in place until after the 2023 winter and she wouldn’t U-turn on that…would she?
It’s the one thing I can’t see them U-turning on
Haha true. Can never trust any politician when the deal sounds too good.
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Hopefully that helps a bit better. I know for sure after seeing what the prices could of become I feel less stressed and anxious. It’s still bloody expensive though 
The coldest months are October to March, inclusive. So I’d think about the £400 Winter fuel discount as a contribution to those months, even if it might have started as a payment toward your September usage.
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To be fair I’m not particularly concerned about the winter months. It’s milder here on the SouthWest coast than in many places in the U.K and our heating bill was quite a bit less last winter where we live now than our previous home up North.
Our monthly bills are undoubtedly going to be much less than a four + household because there’s only the two of us, so no hours spent in front of the TV gaming, no endless heaps of washing to be done etc.
Basically, I’ll just view the energy rebate as a nice little bonus while it lasts.
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Electricity prices vary by nearly 4p per unit Electricity prices vary by nearly 4p per unit - BBC News
Me too. The rebate is going to pay about 70% of our monthly electricity bill. R-
I never really thought of it that way as I get a dual energy statement but, looking at my typical monthly electric bill portion, which rarely changes tbh, it is always below £66.
Leaves me just to pay for the gas then 
I really like the way the rebate is managed when you pay by monthly variable direct debit as I do, i.e. the £66 is credited against the account and remains there until the next bill. I see when you pay by fixed monthly direct debit, any remaining credit is returned to your bank account. To me, that seems daft because it can then just get swallowed up by other expenses and used for literally anything else. I suspect though, the vast majority of households will far exceed the £66 a month rebate and so they’ll never actually get a credit back to their account, unless of course they’re overpaying a ridiculous amount every month, which I find perfectly barmy 
but hey, each to their own!
I had a direct debit of £120 with Octopus which they automatically reduced to 54. I chose to raise it to £70, and guess what happened? They took £3 from my account. They did 70-67 I guess. Yet their email said they could effect it as long as I made the change within 4 days of receiving the email.
Edit: I have a credit of £548 at the moment. Monthly bills for dual energy during summer have been averaging £50.
So now I have decided to leave the £3 DD adjustment they made so that I use up my credit this winter.
They could only let me withdraw £48 to my account online or have to call them if I want more than that.
I absolutely get why you’re doing it, but for me personally to have over £500 sat in my energy providers bank account earing me zero interest, I’d find horrifying. I get it. You’ve given yourself this buffer, but you now have little control over your own money, i.e. in order to lay your hands on it, you’ve now clearly got to jump through hoops to get it back if you so wished.
I’m of the opinion that energy companies shouldn’t at all be allowed to hold on to customer credit so large and if you want your credit back,it should be a same day transfer.