energy price increase for my electric bill which i think is unfair

[masterofdoomv1]

im with sse energy i changed to them (stupidly ) August last year and i was told it was a fixed price for 2 years no increases my direct debit was set up for £46 for electric and £41 for gas sse have now told me theyre increasing my electric from £46 a month to £67 a month as ive just got bill in saying my electric is supposedly £34 in arears which i find weird as i live on my own and i only use electricity for one room at a time i think its bad that they can increase your direct debit like this without concent i was with scottish power before if you fell in arears with them they allowed you to catch up or make a payment for any outstanding balance they didnt just increase your direct debit by 50% how should i handle this? as im worried and angry but dont want to phone them with an attitude and make things worse

Didn’t say I didn’t like them, it’s just what I’m reading here, about estimates and things, why do you get an estimate if it’s continuous reading, as I say, I haven’t got one sounds too much faff for me, ours is still read manually every 4 months

[quote BearOfEasttown]@masterofdoomv1 Did you miss the memo that said energy prices are going up massively?

Yes even for you.[/quote]
Did you miss the bit of the OP where she said she signed up for a 2 year fix in August?

Unless she was sold an exceptionally bad deal, she'll be well below the level of the new cap.

582. Just googled the accuracy of these things & was shocked to read that some can over read by 582%. That is not good in anyone’s book

@mogsrus

Didn’t say I didn’t like them, it’s just what I’m reading here, about estimates and things, why do you get an estimate if it’s continuous reading, as I say, I haven’t got one sounds too much faff for me, ours is still read manually every 4 months

My Smart Meter gives regular readings. However, Shell could use these to estimate what they think I will use over the year based on the readings they get. They could then work out what I will spend in a year and adjust my DD based on this.

In theory, the regular readings should help them track my usage and adjust this yearly estimate as they get more data.

However - I pay my bill monthly via DD so they don't need to estimate my yearly usage.

Submitting regular readings yourself also helps track if you don't want a Smart meter.

It also definitely helps with seeing what you are spending daily

@mogsrus

582. Just googled the accuracy of these things & was shocked to read that some can over read by 582%. That is not good in anyone’s book

How accurate do you think 'old fashioned' electric and gas meters are?

Thanks for that cake or wine I will carry on being read by a human.

@mogsrus

Thanks for that cake or wine I will carry on being read by a human.

Your choice.

I guess in the future, there will be cheaper tariffs if you are on a Smart meter.

And of course, there will also be more variable tariffs so you get cheap electricity at night to charge your EV but maybe pay more in the evening when the demand is higher.

Do you know whether the new fixed price deal you arranged last August is higher per unit than what your household was on before?

I would say it’s still good you arranged a fixed price last August as will not be going up further in April if the fixed price is lasting for say another year.

@FlowerArranger

To summarise, *@masterofdoomv1*...: Your parents were most likely on a cheaper tariff than the one you fixed back in August. Because by then energy costs had already risen considerably. Because you switched to SSE, you probably hadn't built up a large credit balance over the spring and summer. Which means that they had to raise your DD when your usage increased during the autumn/winter. You may be able to get this reduced as we move into spring. The good news is that your tariff is fixed for another year, so you are probably paying less per unit than many/most people.

It's also worth bearing in mind that even though there are fewer people living in the house now, you cannot necessarily expect energy costs to fall significantly.

Can you look at current and past energy bills to compare usage?
This will tell you more than focusing on the total cost you are paying.
Also make sure you submit regular meter readings.
And check the energy efficiency of your appliances, shower etc.

It may be that this house is just too big and/or unaffordable for you.
In which case you might consider getting a lodger or selling up and moving to a smaller/cheaper property.

I missed this when wrote my comment. Flowerarranger explains it all v well.

@masterofdoomv1

strange that inthenight my parents paid £100 per month with three of us living at the same property yet im living on my own at same address and im paying £108 yet im using less because im living on my own what a rip off

The fixed contract you took out in August may well be alot higher priced per kwh than the previous contract.

@mogsrus

Thanks for that cake or wine I will carry on being read by a human.

Good job people never get things wrong.

All a smart meter does is send the reading to the energy company. It’s no different to having it done by a person except you don’t have to be in.

@mogsrus

Thanks for that cake or wine I will carry on being read by a human.

TBH - I was against a Smart Meter but I moved to a cheaper tariff and as part of it, they wanted to put one in.

I now love it. It's great.

But I was like you before. Then I saw the light. And promptly turned it off.

Because I live on a holiday site & all power is centrally distributed none of the residents can have one, I’m happy

@Alexandra2001 Do you know why Green Energy prices are tied to fossil fuels? That money is paying to keep coal fires plants switched on and ticking over. When the wind stops blowing the coal plants have to take over quickly -if they were powered right down it would take to long to get them up to speed and we’d end up with power cuts.
Green energy is not as green as you think.
Sadly Scotland’s dependence on wind power is not good- we should be looking at hydro.

I’d correct all my spelling if there was an edit function…

[quote Whattochoosenow]@Alexandra2001 Do you know why Green Energy prices are tied to fossil fuels? That money is paying to keep coal fires plants switched on and ticking over. When the wind stops blowing the coal plants have to take over quickly -if they were powered right down it would take to long to get them up to speed and we’d end up with power cuts.
Green energy is not as green as you think.
Sadly Scotland’s dependence on wind power is not good- we should be looking at hydro.[/quote]
Are there still some coal fired plants in this position?

I was professionally connected to one such power station that did this for a few winters, but it was permanently closed a couple of years ago and is in the process of being dismantled.

As it happens, last time I dealt with them, they were talking about the possibility of a gas power station being built on the same site, I don't know if this could still happen. Obviously the economics of gas have changed massively over the last couple of years.

But apparently they are much smaller and quicker to build so it would have been something that could have been started on the outer edges of the site before the rest was fully cleared. I expect that most of the site will eventually be converted to industrial units, another Amazon warehouse, or even housing.

@Whattochoosenow Hydro is incredibly destructive to upland rivers, the Eco structure & with climate change (irony!) you can't depend on rainfall either.

We need a multi prong strategy, energy efficiency being no 1 and quickest to act on, hydrogen power and nuclear too. ... given events today, we are bit late on all of this.

@UnCivil

That sounds low to me. Have you been submitting meter readings or are your bills estimated?

Isn't this funny? I was paying less than that on a 3 bed house last year and it wasn't considered low either! We've all now come to accept stupid prices for energy.

(The OP fixed before things went crazy so it isn't actually low...it was pretty standard last year)

@Alexandra2001 I agree with you on the nuclear thing. The problem in Scotland is that our government is anti nuclear.

My mistake on the coal thing. It’s oil and gas

[quote Whattochoosenow]@Alexandra2001 I agree with you on the nuclear thing. The problem in Scotland is that our government is anti nuclear.[/quote]
Yes a problem that many people are anti nuclear without rationally thinking about the consequences in that, any time someone decides to build a nuclear power station, they are tied up in years of red tape and planning arguments because people don't understand that the risk of something going wrong from modern day plants is far less than the existing older ones and if only the same issue could be overcome for the much needed deep geological storage facility (which will mostly house all the old dangerous crap currently cluttering up long closed existing plants) then waste won't be so much of a problem either.

Alternatively, we could make do with far far less energy being available, because we can't make enough with solar/wind, especially given the push to electric cars, where's the power for all those going to come from?

Alternatively, we could make do with far far less energy being available, because we can't make enough with solar/wind, especially given the push to electric cars, where's the power for all those going to come from

Are you suggesting this hasn't been thought through

I think the plan is more green energy, using green energy to produce hydrogen via electrolysis of water, energy storage in summer and maybe nuclear?