Shit just got my electric bill!!

[2anddone]

Just got my electric bill it's gone up £200 compared to this time last year....it's going to get worse isn't it!
I have night storage heating which works on a thermostat and is set to low (17 degrees) plus a log cabin which I need to heat for my work (childcare so have to have heat!). I don't leave lights on unnecessarily, don't have my hot water heater switched on, only run my washing machine and dishwasher when they are full. The tv is on every evening but not in the daytime, don't have a tumble dryer.
I honestly can't see where I can save money on my electric bill (was over £400 this month)

If you know your usage, you can predict your bills with the new price cap, but bare in mind, that gas use is lower over summer, so in October, gas prices might increase more, at a time when we start using more gas.

Which we use in the UK to generate electricity.

@psychomath. It's because people are coming off fixes set a year ago, that were lower than the April 2021 price cap. Since then we've had a 30% increase last October and prices will increase again by 54%, which can multiply up to a factor of 2.2.

Suppliers are now setting direct debits to cover post April prices which is only a month or so away. Plus people might be in debt so need to catch up.

On the matter of health issues, smart meters use the mobile phone network to communicate, so some people think is dangerous, even though all properly conducted research finds that it isn't and nearly everyone depends on these signals to make the mobile phone, that they almost always have, work anyway.

How much direct debits go up depends on your supplier and how they charge, mine seems to be keeping the same at the moment, I'm on a fixed rated with BG until end of February and then will be in the price cap, I think that BG has taken this into account and I check every month that DD is on track, I expect it to go up soon she prices rise in April which I don't think has been taken into account yet. Some companies just split for the whole year though, rather than adjust when you give a reading so may have taken the large rise in April into account already

Ah I see - so for someone like me who's already paying the current cap rate the April increase will be in the region of 50% give or take, but for some people it's (proportionally) higher because up to now their per unit costs have been frozen at a lower rate than mine? That makes sense.

At the moment, fixed deals are above the price cap rate in April

What does this mean, sorry? I thought the cap was the highest the per unit costs were allowed to go up to?

What does this mean, sorry? I thought the cap was the highest the per unit costs were allowed to go up to

Not really.

A company can offer you a fixed deal. It's a bit like mortgage rates

You can get the rate linked to the bank rate. Or a bank can offer you a 2 to 5 year deal You don't know if interest rates will go up or down so you take the 5 year deal for stability.

If you don't take the deal the energy companies offer you, they then put you on the price cap rate. Which is fixed till October. And can change every 6 months. (although that may change to 3 months)

The price cap is the highest you pay unless you choose to fix.

Fixes can be any price and many fixes currently on sale are above the April 22 cap but people think they might be better than risking another rise in October, or they don't understand the current issue and think that they should always fix, because that was what we should have done to get the best price until recently.

The cap only applies to the variable rate. Until recently, the variable rate was the highest you would pay for your power and fixes were well below the cap. Now fixed rates are higher than the cap and people are choosing them today are paying a premium for the security of knowing that they won't pay further rises for the year/ 2 years of the contract.

I have done a spreadsheet which has my current rough monthly usage for gas and electricity and a list of the variables for the standing charge and cost per unit for each 6 month period.

I've made an estimate for October's change

On my estimate, my monthly January bill (bearing in mind that January will be the biggest) goes from £80 in a month to about £170 in a month. Obviously the impact over the financial year will be a bit different.

That's based on my current usage and the current price cap, April's Price cap and October's prediction (well, my prediction)

Some companies just split for the whole year though, rather than adjust when you give a reading so may have taken the large rise in April into account already

Yes that's another thing I was thinking - when people are saying their monthly bill has increased by 2-3x "and there's another rise coming in April", surely in many (most?) cases the reason it's gone up so much is that the supplier has taken the April increase into account, so that's factored into their current bill already. They've effectively just got the the increase a few months earlier and so it's slightly more spread out. At least I hope it's that people are getting this confused, and not that it's actually going up twice for them 😬

Personally I did not vote for this shit show and I'd rather it was the tossers who voted for it that paid for the mess, not me.

Slight issue - the green levies which now make up a quarter of your bill were Ed Miliband's idea. It doesn't matter which party is in power, there's little real difference in their policies. The Blair government shouldn't have dithered over nuclear power, we are now horrendously dependant upon gas turbines for our generation.

They've effectively just got the the increase a few months earlier and so it's slightly more spread out

This is why it's useful to know both your usage and your costs for the year so you can predict yourself what you will be spending rather than rely on your power company.

I have changed to monthly payment of my bill by Direct Debit. I know roughly what I think I will be paying at least till October - and not having a debit / credit makes things less complicated when switching. Less to worry about. I will put money aside to pay the higher bills that are coming. Just like Joseph did when he had his dreams of dancing corn

Aha got it, thanks everyone! I was on a prepay meter til fairly recently so all this fixed and variable tariff stuff is new to me.

@psychomath

Aha got it, thanks everyone! I was on a prepay meter til fairly recently so all this fixed and variable tariff stuff is new to me.

Do you know what tariff you are on at the moment? And do you know what your approximate usage is?

I know that companies can over estimate usage and hence increase DD's - especially if usage has increased as people were WFH last year but will be doing less of that this year.

@Limmers14

Our bill has doubled from this time last year. Used to be about £90 a month, now £186. Same usage, checked it against last years bills. Our supplier went bust in October and we were transferred to Shell where they put us on their highest variable tariff and we can’t change from it. Same usage but at the mercy of the energy company telling us we need to pay the highest price.

In exactly the same position as you - my provider (which I was put with because my original provider went bust) went bust in October, and so I was put with shell. It's taken till last week to get a bill off them, which is over £1k for that almost 4 month period. They want to raise my DD from £110 (which I'd been paying for years) to over £300. I've not increased my usage, but I've been put on Shell's highest rate and only just found out about it. I've always picked suppliers really carefully to go on the best rate for me and switched when it made sense. Now I've lost all choice.

The rate you will be on with shell will be a price cap tariff, it won't be the highest because it's the only one.

There's no point changing to another supplier as the price cap is the same for everyone.

You might be able to sign up with a fix with either shell or someone else but it will be significantly more expensive than what you're paying now.

but I've been put on Shell's highest rate and only just found out about it

Is that the price cap rate?

I was moved to Shell as well and they put me on the priced cap rate. That's the Flexible 6 Direct Debit ebill which is the price cap.

If you know your usage, you should be able to work out your bill for the year.

we can’t change from it. Same usage but at the mercy of the energy company telling us we need to pay the highest price

You can change. However, other companies will either offer you the price cap rate or a fixed rate that is higher than the current price cap rate.

@cakeorwine yes, I'm on the flexible 6.

Had my very first bill from them on 10th feb, after being placed with them on 19th October (I was a planet energy customer). This was the first time I've been told the rate and now I've got a bill for over £1k.

I get it's the price cap rate and I realise things have changed and I won't get a better rate anywhere. I'm just so frustrated that no matter how much i put into planning for energy costs, it's taken out of my hands. I've been moved companies 3 times now as companies go bust. And each time I seem to end up with a massive debt.

cakeorwine yes, when I first started paying by DD I didn't have a smart meter and was completely ignorant of how it all worked, and I didn't submit readings often enough so the amount I was paying was way off. Luckily it was way off in the right direction so I racked up a huge amount of credit, which I've been slowly running down over the last couple of years by underpaying. There's still quite a bit of credit left on my account so I'm not overly worried about the price rise just yet. But it was scary to realise I could easily have gone the other way and got into loads of debt without knowing, so now I'm trying to make sure I completely understand how it all works before April so there's no more surprises.

I have a smart meter now but annoyingly the function that shows usage in kWh doesn't work - it reckons I use about 0.02 kWh per week (My guess is the designer got confused by the 'kilo' part and divided the number by 1000.) So if I want to know my actual consumption I have to work backwards from the cost, or note down the reading and check back later. But to get a rough idea of the consumption of individual appliances it works well enough to see how quickly the £ amount changes when they're in use.

it's taken out of my hands. I've been moved companies 3 times now as companies go bust. And each time I seem to end up with a massive debt

I was with Tonik who collapsed. I moved to Pure Planet. Who collapsed. I am with Shell. I don't think there will be much moving for a while.

Been through all our outgoings. TV payments, internet company we can change, everything and cut outgoings by £430 a month! Lucky cos DH about to have a pay cut as moving from stressful job as SEN teacher in a pRU.

Things really don't need to be so complicated. My Smart Meter showed me that we used 2.98 Pounds worth yesterday - normal living although a lot of TV - maybe 6 plus hours due to rugby plus one wash and one tumble dry.

I read somewhere about people charging their EV at night with cheap power and then not driving, so they could then use the energy in the EV in their house

Ah yes - Vehicle to House (V2H) and then also Vehicle to Grid (V2G)

Most cars are currently not capable of it, but it will be coming. There has been a trial involving Nissan Leafs and a very specialised bidirectional charger, in which people got paid 30-35p/kWh when the grid asked for energy from their cars. That may not sound great, but it is phenomenal compared to what you could get for exporting from solar panels. They found that it did not degrade the batteries (one of the fears around using an EV this way), it was neutral or actually improved them.

If you have a house battery then you do the same - charge at a cheap overnight rate and use it during the day. In fact my house is currently running from electricity which I imported for 5p/kWh in the early hours, mixed with a bit of solar.

Batteries are expensive, however. Mine is 5.2kWh, and on a miserable rainy day like today when I get very little solar generation, it will run out at some point and then I’ll be paying the day rate. My car has a 64kWh battery and would run the house for days. The car can also charge at 7kW and could presumably discharge at that or higher - it has to when I’m driving it. The house battery can only charge and discharge at 2.6kW. So when I put the oven, hob and kettle on at the same time, we draw from the grid.

I think V2H and V2G are a big component of how we will balance the grid in the future. One of the downsides of wind and solar is that they produce electricity dependent on conditions, not when you need it. Storage is the answer to that and EV’s on people’s drives could be a significant part of the solution.

There will be safeguards, e.g. you specify a minimum charge level so you know you will always be able to get somewhere in an emergency or have enough to last a 2-day blackout.

Storage is the answer to that and EV’s on people’s drives could be a significant part of the solution

Storage is a massive answer to this.

We are capable of producing a lot of energy when it's sunny / windy that we don't need at the time. Same for energy production at night.

Finding a way of storing it is a very interesting solution.

As I said upthread, just like Joseph did with the grains of corn. When famine comes.

I read my meters this week. I live in a flat where everyone's meters are behind a locked door so need to request access. Am fortunate that the building is relatively new and well insulated so bills are pretty cheap and I have no gas so only one standing charge per day.

I found my overall usage was roughly what Shell had estimated but the day / night mix was different (I have storage heaters).

When I logged the readings I realised I hadn't given a reading since July 21 and Shell hadn't read the meter in that time either. During that period my fixed rate deal ended, I am now on Flexible 6 and my direct debit is about 40% higher.

Is the way they adjust my bill regulated ie they have to assume my usage was spread over the period before and after my fixed rate deal ended? Or will they just adjust the estimated readings to actual readings at the current higher rates? I'm not sure which method would be most beneficial to me financially.

Presumably while rates are so high I should be giving accurate readings to Shell every month or two?