Statement of intent

News tonight:
"Scottish Power said it would raise gas prices by an average of 34% and electricity prices by 9%, effective from Monday 1 September. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7588375.stm

Apparently "Dual fuel customers will see their bills increase by an average of 25%."

See post #115 where I thought this would be the case... I'll update spreadsheet. It will mean planned savings will have to decrease to account for this i.e. amount saved per year to replace cars etc.

So just need to make sure there are sufficient jumpers and vests for winter, plus some extra-thick socks... (cut a fine figure don't I????). Must ask work to keep it colder this year; being 22-24°C in the day makes the home feel cold at 19-20°C at night!

Meter reading due 1 Sept, anyway, which will be the lowest reading of the year. The problem with getting up at 0500hrs is I already need the lights on first thing, and we have 4 more months of shortening days to go.

Just noted wind-up torch on desk, maybe this is the way forward - wind it up then read by the LED :rolleyes:

LM,
Thanks. As I've said before, we're in for a rough time until Nov-Dec 2009 in general, but for energy I think it'll extend much further to 2015-2020. Energy costs are going to simply continue rising whilst demand is there... the problem is, how can we reduce our demand?

On Scottish Power so get an online graph of useage; despite insulation in loft to 10" last summer, energy use was higher this winter than 2006-7. However, I think the temperatures were lower so this negated benefit from insulation. Keep on monitoring though, it can only be for the good.

I guess we should feel thankful we don't have to run A/C to keep cool.... that is one hell of a cost per year to operate.

Alternatives are there for supply, but not yet totally competitive to install, nor sell to us. However, with these prices, the alternatives become more viable at each rise. Also, security of supply is then addressed.

Politics aside, nuclear will give the baseload supply with renewables on top, but this is fraught with debate which I don't want to start here!

Well, after further trawling through data I reached the following conclusions, based on current energy annual consumption which is:
Gas 14229kWh
Electricity Night rate 1315kWh
Electricity Day rate 3871kWh

(Total Electricity 5186kWh with 25.4% as night rate)

1) Annual bill on ScottishPower Online Saver 4 would rise from £856 to £1065 using the prices applying from tomorrow.
2) Switching to British Gas fixed to 2011 would give an annual bill of £1212 i.e. a 13.8% premium over the the above.

Based upon previous checks I've done, this is the smallest premium I've seen to move to a fixed rate, it has usually been 20-25%. Also this is a fix over the next 3 years, and the majority of others are offering fix/discount to late 2009.

So, the logic is, provided that prices increase by 13.8% mid-way through this new tariff (i.e. by March 2010), then we'll be cost neutral. Any additional increase will mean we're then saving money.:money:

So, online application made (had to be direct, none of the switching services could offer it **Edit - should have checked Quidco £60 cashback missed - lesson learned, just forgot whilst in depth of reviewing data**). Had two problems, electricity supply number wasn't recognised (which I really hope does not result in issues at changeover) and something I've never encountered before, the account names when setting the DD.... quick call to bank resolved this (they're not what appears at the bottom of the statement )

The initial impact of this will see our DD rise from the present £71 to I assume about £100 per month :eek:, I just need to remind myself that the era of cheap energy is over and that it could be worse.

Now, we need to look at energy efficiency. Our night rate runs from about 0230hrs, so we set the delay on the dishwasher (only used when full but that's daily with us all here/me not away on business), plus often the washing machine and tumble-dryer run in the morning. However, we've not tried timeclocks on these so that will be our next test. Any comments from you on experiences, particularly washing machines?

I also ran the energy savers report on British Gas site (I did the Energy Savings trust one last year or so). There are some issues with this as it gave estimated running costs £2374 per year rather than the £856 it has been :eek:. I think this must relate to the response to the question about times for running heating.

OK, so I've now had to allow approximately £29 per month extra costs, next task needs to be one of savings.... guess it's the insurance documents after lunch as I don't want to reduce mortgage OP :rolleyes:

Ali
Many thanks for this; we're lucky as washing machine and tumble drier are not under bedrooms, so we shouldn't have that excuse not to do so. Your comment on not leaving things in the washing machine all day is a good observation i.e. need to have completed and into drier (I'm also a little unhappy at wshing machines etc running in the house when it is unoccupied).

A couple of other "small things" we're doing:

I'm also trying to make sure we charge phones whilst we are up; they only take about an hour, but our usual practice is to put on charge as we head to bed. Therefore in my case that's nearly 5hrs of charging whilst the phone is charged (yes, 6hrs sleep a night in the week for me) and even longer for OH and DD!

Also trying to remember to turnoff the power to the cable modem, wireless gateway, speaker system and network attached storage (all on one inaccessible muligang socket; in the past, modem was a "pain the @!#" to get back online with a sound connection speed, but Virgin appear to have addressed this. Only issue is the wireless mouse needs charging, not convenient when actually trying to use the PC :rolleyes: