Founder. Environmentalist. EV Enthusiast. Dad.

Why I moved our home energy to Bulb?

Not only are Bulb often one of the cheapest energy providers anyway (often cheaper that than the Big 6 + many others, although this does depend on your location/usage etc), they offer fully renewable electricity as standard something that owning two electric cars is now very important to me, alongside these other benefits:

Superb reviews, although take these with a pinch of salt as many of them (from around a year ago and before) are positive often in an attempt to promote the member’s referral code. The rules changed about a year ago so this has stopped generally.
  • they’re a certified B Corp company, which means they meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance
  • they’re growing quickly, Bulb had 480,000 customers in 2018 but by end of 2019 they’re suggesting they will have 1,000,000 customers, this, in theory, will give them great buying power and push them to generator more of their own power but with that growth comes other challenges!
  • they’re open about the costs, Bulb co-founder Hayden Wood said:

“Bulb is committed to supplying energy at a fair price. That’s why we have one tariff for all our members, which reflects the true cost of energy. When wholesale energy costs change, our tariff does, too

Bulb co-founder Hayden Wood on Bulb 2018 price increases
  • they offer smart meters with smart tariffs which provide an offpeak, peak and night rate.
iOS app ratings

The not so great:

  • they only buy 20% (higher is better) of green electricity direct from generators, Ecotricity buy in 75% and Good Energy buy in 122%, however, this Bulb in 4th place so they’re still high up (based on Which? / Energylinx data).
  • their gas mix is only 10% green, this has been like that for quite a while. It doesn’t seem a priority which is a shame, although I’m sure there is more to it.
  • the busy periods on their phones mean a long wait sometimes, I waited 32 minutes on my last phone call to them… this isn’t great although they do recommend times of the week where it’s less busy
  • It is clear they’re going through some growing pains currently, although in reality there isn’t much need to call them as you do 99% of tasks via the app.
  • the reviews on Trustpilot are primarily from people trying to promote their referral links, however, of the negative ones they do try and respond to them pretty quickly (you can see some examples here) and lots of the negative ones appear to be because people get an estimate of the costs so they presume that’s what they will get charged each month, without considering it’s an estimate! Always add like for like quotes when comparing!
  • standing charges are quite high, as we have a Powerwall and Solar panels often we don’t use much daytime energy so having a lower standing charge would be nice!

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