Scottish Power bill increase error help!

[Donhill]

I am with Scottish Power for gas and electric. I have a smart meter. I was in credit by £800 and was expecting it to be used up by the winter months as usual.

My issue is that Scottish Power now seem to say all the credit has gone and I now am in debit by £200 all in just two months. I haven’t done anything different over the last 2 months (other than what you would expect from heating etc from winter months like every other year). On the app the graph of my usage doesn’t show a huge increase in the last 2 months (other than usual winter increase that should eat into credit but not make it all disappear in 2 months!). But the meter readings they are using are correct in that they are the same as the smart meter.

So what is going on?? Graph shows all as normal and in line with what we would expect from time of year. But meter reading seems to result in massive increase over last 2 months. And again, significantly more (3 times more) than I would expect from last winter’s figures. Resulting in £1000 usage over 2 months.

Any thoughts?? Help please! They want to
massively increase my monthly DD so I am financially screwed, it seems, even though I am careful and thought it was under control!

If you're using an immersion heater for heating water that could be incredibly expensive, especially if you leave it on a lot.

Is your gas boiler only set up for heating radiators and not hot water? Gas heating for hot water is by far the cheapest to run but you would have big costs of changing your system if it is not set up that way.

You can get under sink electric instantaneous hot water heaters which are more efficient than immersion heaters as you only heat what you use. Coupled with an electric shower you would be much better off, but you may struggle to have decent baths using the electric under sink heaters .

Agree with other posters, using an immersion to heat water is very expensive. Has it been left on for far longer than normal, as that may explain the very high usage.

2342/60 (days) = 40 kWh a day.

Pretty much 2 kW continuous consumption.

The only way you can consume this amount of power is probably by using it for heating. So for example a 2 kW electric heater would use this amount of electricity if it was left on continuously.

I think you would struggle to use this much with an immersion heater on continuosly, but if it was a badly insulated tank, an take off your normal house consumption (maybe as high as 15kWh per day) you might get there if it is a badly insulated tank.

Does your hot water talk feel hot all the time ? If so that may explain it. Immersion heater switches do tend to be the sort of switches that no one knows what they actually do. It is quite common for people to press them or kids to switch them without realising what they are doing and leave them on causing vast quantities of electricity to be consumed.

As an aside, if you are really using up this much electric then surely a gas based hot water system would pay for itself pretty quickly.

Did you have to pay the elec bill that they failed to bill for in one lump sum eventually or did Ofgem say you didn’t have to pay it due to SP error? I’m having same issues, they don’t provide me with an electricity bill. I’m on dual fuel but despite me questioning them twice about why my bills don’t show electricity usage and charges for 18 months they said it’s a technical error. They’re now going to send me a new bill retrospectively and charge me in one go for a huge elec bill that’s accrued die to their error for 18 months!! I have a smart meter and the readings are up to date and show on my account online but elec charges don’t show in the billing section nor appear on any statements or bills. They get daily meter readings from elec and gas which show correctly on my online account but billing only shows charge for gas not elec. I pay by monthly DD, and even send in meter readings manually a few times a year despite them getting daily meter readings from my smart meter for elec and gas. So I’m at a loss to understand how they have made this technical error which they say Sorry we were unable to provide electricity bills at this time. Thats going to leave me in debt when they finally do send me a bill. Despite me being £600 in credit I’m terrified what they will demand. I’m wondering what happened with you and what did Ofgem do? Did they decide you didn’t have to pay it all?