To think wtf is using all this electricity?!?

[Porthia]

Just got our monthly energy bill. It was £958!
Of that £737 was electricity.

I have been making a real effort recently to switch lights and appliances off, reduce energy usage, turn down the heating etc.

But what the actual fuck?

We came off our fixed rate in November, our supplier went under and then the last bill was £600 which made me fall over so I have been making a conscious effort to reduce things.

I am actually in tears. How is it this much? It’s going to go up again in April. How can we pay £1000 for energy each month?

We don’t have any crazy appliances that I can think would be eating this much energy, in fact our washing machine has been broken so I haven’t even been using that the last month.

We have a tv, computer, oven, lights - and I try to switch off as much as possible. What the hell could be drinking that much juice???

And yes it’s based on actual readings

I hate this because I feel like this money is just being sucked out without anything I can do about it!

@80sMum

Similar here, we were with Igloo and very simple to track how we were doing. Eon you have to scrabble around pages to try to get to it, they charged a wallop in one go, add in the rises.

I am horrified that they’re still making huge profits while people struggle. I’m WFH and by 4 I am so internally cold it takes me ages to warm up.

I bought an EV, and feel well and truly scammed as it is not working out as the money saver it was meant to be. With Electricity prices as they are, it’s just not balancing out against the cost of buying 😣😐

Why are people reporting increased energy bills? The price doesn't go up til April. Can someone explain? The people complaining now will have a real sjhock in two months time when it doubles.

@Silvershroud probably people whose deals have already ended and there aren’t any fixed deals cheaper than the cap available any more, plus those who have been moved from a cheaper provider who went bust to a more expensive one. But you are right it will go up more

@Silvershroud

Why are people reporting increased energy bills? The price doesn't go up til April. Can someone explain? The people complaining now will have a real sjhock in two months time when it doubles.

I had a small increase as my fixed tarriff deal ended and I was moved to the standard variable rate i.e, the capped limit due to go up in April. It'l 30 quid a month though. EDF have taken the opportunity to double my direct debit and inflate their estimates of my energy usage.TBH I was just going to let them as it's cheaper for me to buy now ahead of April.

Or is that not how it works?

Could you ask your neighbours how much they’ve paid, out of curiosity. Someone might be tapping in. 🙃

I bought an EV, and feel well and truly scammed as it is not working out as the money saver it was meant to be. With Electricity prices as they are, it’s just not balancing out against the cost of buying

Octopus do a tariff so you pay less at night when you charge as the unit cost is less. Your Smart Meter takes 1/2 hourly readings.

Of course, you may pay a bit more at peak times

@Silvershroud

Why are people reporting increased energy bills? The price doesn't go up til April. Can someone explain? The people complaining now will have a real sjhock in two months time when it doubles.

The price has gone up for a lot of people. Those who signed up to fixes a year ago were paying less than the April 2021 cap. Then they may have gone onto the October 2021 cap when their supplier went bust which probably increased prices around 50%, plus another 50%+ increase is expected in April, adding up to well over double.

We're still paying the DD amount that was set by Avro a year ago so are facing an increase from £94 to just over £200 pm for the same usage.

@Silvershroud ours has gone up because our previous supplier (fixed rate) went bust and we got put on the basic rate with a new supplier with no options to fix. Our elec £££ has gone from £60 per month to £133 already even before we get to April 01!

We're with Shell. We were with Pure Planet until they collapsed and we were transferred by Ofgen.

Shell have been slow in getting up to speed. I've just looked at the bill we got at the start of the month and between 24 December and 4 February we used 1,004 units at a cost of £210.32 (before standing charge and VAT). But we have a family of 2 adults and 2 teenagers, we cook with electricity and we have a large house and an electric car - at an informed guess something like 220 to 250 of those units went into the car (which unfortunately doesn't have its own submeter) (that works out at around 800 to 1,000 miles, which is what that car tends to do each month).

@womaninatightspot no - credit in your account is held as cash rather than pre-bought units of energy so would be used up against a bill at whatever rate the bill is at the time. Most people carry a credit balance over summer to even out their payments over the year but credit in the winter is only to the provider’s benefit, not yours.

I bought an EV, and feel well and truly scammed as it is not working out as the money saver it was meant to be. With Electricity prices as they are, it’s just not balancing out against the cost of buying

I was always suspicious of the cost benefits of EVs especially given the higher the purchase cost. They probably work out a good deal if you do a lot of mileage in regular medium length journeys so can charge at home, or if you can access free or cheap charging at work.

However, service stations at least can work out more expensive per mile than petrol or diesel, so no cost saving there if you do long journeys so have to charge on the go. Or if you don't do a huge amount of miles so just don't have the petrol spend to offset.

[quote Bunnyfuller]@80sMum

Similar here, we were with Igloo and very simple to track how we were doing. Eon you have to scrabble around pages to try to get to it, they charged a wallop in one go, add in the rises.

I am horrified that they’re still making huge profits while people struggle. I’m WFH and by 4 I am so internally cold it takes me ages to warm up.

I bought an EV, and feel well and truly scammed as it is not working out as the money saver it was meant to be. With Electricity prices as they are, it’s just not balancing out against the cost of buying 😣😐[/quote]
Petrol and diesel are skyrocketing too. It depends on what car you have and how you drive it, but I am still paying the equivalent of around 6p per mile if I charge at home on a standard tariff, while DW's diesel is more like 15p a mile.

The other thing to bare in mind is the higher reading is over Christmas. Did you have any outdoor Christmas lights on? Because they cost a fortune.

Also - remember that things do balance out, winter months you will always pay more because you need lights on constantly, people use tumble dryers, heating is on more and really daft things - people eat more warm food and drink more hit drinks.

Summer roles round and you should see a big reduction in electricity usage without even really trying - e.g lights just don't get switched on.

We used to be with Pure Planet, with a "no longer smart because you switched" smart meter. It meant that we have been in the habit of submitting meter readings every month.

When we were switched to Shell and i eventually tracked down the tariff we estimated that our bills would increase by £600 per annum. This is BEFORE the April 2022 price cap comes in. Our bills will shoot up again then.

The first bill is likely to be odd because some failed suppliers had better systems than others. Shell have only just managed to give us our first bill (our old co failed in October).

I urge everyone to take regular readings and keep in mind how much in credit or debit you are.

We had a bill for 1000 and we were not even living at home that month. I could argue it at all :(

Also, as you have recently changed supplier, check your transfer didn't accidentally mess with which meter is yours.
We also live in a detached property, our neighbour half a mile away changed supplier and we started getting billed for their energy because with your energy supplier your address has an id code (MPAN) and your meter has an id code (MSN). If the wrong one gets picked up it can cause an erroneous transfer! It took me a year to sort that out when it happened to us!!
So on your actual meter check its MSN number which is just on the front on display, then check that matches the one on your bill. If it does you know it is your energy you are paying for not someone else's! It's not common but it happens.

I've just been sorting out a similar shambles at work with their business electricity account. The opening meter reading was a figment of their imagination.

What was the last meter reading on the last bill you received from your old supplier? Was it an estimate, actual, or a customer reading? Compare that reading with the opening reading on the new bill.

A while back our electricity bill tripled overnight. My energy supplier couldn't explain why, just that usage had gone up x3. I went through a lot of bills to realise that the formula used for my consumption was in cubic feet rather than meters. They thought I had an old meter and basically had been dividing my consumption by 3 for years until someone realised. Could it be that the formula they use is incorrect? There should be a formula at the bottom of the invoice explaining how to convert units into price.

Caddycat, cubic feet or cubic metres is a gas consumption measure though you maybe be billed as a duel fuel customer by an electricity company. But that's not electricity.

Anything that involves heat and being on for a long time will significantly increase your bill.

LED lights cost virtually nothing to run.

Everything else between those two.

It could have been me who wrote this post……. Ours has gone up a lot - we are trying to have the gas on as a cool background and heat just the room we are in and wear a jumper.

Next door growing something in an attic/shed?

Immersion heater burns it up

Yes but what was your useage?

But what is your useage?
Are they using correct readings or is it estimates?

There is no point I feeling sick until you have checked out all the figures.

I suggest that you give them a reading every month AND take a photo of the reading so you have proof if things aren't accurate. I have a little meter reading folder in my photos!

The £507.73 is Estimated.