– It will be lower in Christmas gifts – E24

– Paying for an item I didn’t receive is totally unheard of. Obviously, I would change the supplier, says Anja Marietta Simonsen-Horn (36).

Two months after Tibber announced crisis measures, meaning customers would be billed two weeks in advance of the next month, dissatisfaction erupted among the company’s customers.

Tibber calculates that the price of electricity will be much higher in the early part of December than it was in November. Developed by the energy company A Average priceAverage priceIncluding additional fees that go to the statutory electrician certificate and trade taxes. NOK 4.23 per kWh in this period.

In November, the average price in southern Norway was around NOK 1.6 and on Sunday, according to electricity exchange Nordpool, it was NOK 2.7.

Thus, many of Tibber’s customers were surprised when they saw the number at the bottom of their most recent electricity bill.

From Anja, who lives in Ullensaker municipality in a separate house with her husband and two children, Tibber requested an additional NOK 4,000 for estimated consumption from December 1 to December 14. That’s almost twice as much as it was for the entire month of November.

– And this affects us financially, although as a family we have an income of NOK 900 thousand a year, as you say.

With the Christmas period approaching, Tipper’s snap bill was an unwelcome surprise. Anja says that Christmas, with food and gifts for the children, is funded exclusively by the half-tax in December.

– Now we have to spend 70 percent of the Christmas budget on Tibber expenses. Try to make the children understand, those who have contributed to the electricity supply at a high level.

Tired of being a Tibber Bank

Norwegian CEO Elisabeth Kerstad-Boe at Tibber made a post Friday in the Facebook group “Tibber – Tips and Tricks,” as a response to the reactions she saw to December’s high ratings.

– I see someone here reacting to the bill’s high estimate this month, as you wrote.

The fact that it is getting colder in the Nordic region, at the same time that there is little wind and one of Sweden’s largest nuclear power plants has stopped for maintenance, is highlighted as a reason.

29-year-old Joakim Refsdahl in Bergen is among the many Tibber customers who reacted with frustration in the comments section.

“Tibber had a great product and a good app. Now they just have a good app,” he wrote.

So the people of Bergen started looking for a new electricity supplier. He is tired of being Tiber’s “bank”. The advance estimate for the two weeks in December in kroner was more than double the consumption for the whole month of November. The wallet is marked.

– I don’t have several thousand kroner left after fixed expenses, so to speak. It’s hard enough to make ends meet now that all prices have gone up.

– So maybe there should be some priorities going forward, and make sure those closest to you at least can get a little gift for Christmas, he tells E24.

– I had to pay anyway

Tibber Gaute Haaversen-Westhassel, director of communications, explains that the estimate was made on the basis of December prices on the NASDAQ Energy Exchange and from third parties, depending on the price region in which the customer lives.

We are now entering a period that will be very interesting in terms of prices because there are nuclear power plants in both Sweden and Finland that are out of service. In addition, it seems that there may be a little wind in the future, while the whole of Europe will experience cooler weather than usual in this period. In short, this indicates that prices will rise in the future, and this is the estimate we start from.

– Why should customers act as a Tibber bank now, in a period when many customers had large expenses for Christmas shopping?

– We have a great understanding that it can be experienced in this way and this is of course very unfortunate. But the electric bill had to be paid at some point anyway, and we follow the regulations that allow this type of billing to the letter.

– What do you think about clients telling you that this is beyond their Christmas budget?

– It’s a shame if that exceeds someone’s Christmas budget, and we hope people take the opportunity to control their electricity consumption and move it to hours of the day where prices are lower.

– Have you lost a lot of clients in recent months?

– We lost one person and then others joined him. We are very sorry that customers are looking for other suppliers, but we also hope that people will see that there is great value in being able to reduce their consumption in the market that we have now, and that we have the tools to do so.

Haaversen-Westhassel E24 reports that the Tibber app is available to everyone, including those without a Tibber subscription. But as a customer, you have access to data on your personal consumption and the opportunity to use solutions, among other things, to manage smart heating and smart charging.