How do British Gas calculate their bills?

tishunt

Can anyone help?
I would like to know how B Gas calculate their electricity bills. Our bills show "first x kWh at z amount"...."next x kWh at y amt".

Both the numbers of kWh for each price change differ from bill to bill with no clear id as to how it has been calculated.

We do have a two tier rate, whereby I was advised that the first 12 units are charged at the higher rate - but this never relates to the number of kWh in first calculation.

Can anyone help me out as I am totally confused.......:think:

Premier_2

BG standard tariff customers get charged at tier 1 rates on the initial 670kWh per quarter (2680 kWh per year)

The number you see on the bill may vary slightly as they charge this pro-rata to the number of days the bill covers, sometimes 91 days, sometimes 93 days etc


Edit: actually it's the same for all BG tariffs currently available to new customers (except Market Tracker Tariff)


Edit 2: whoops, these values refer to BG gas accounts. BG electricity accounts will use a different value as explained by SwanJon below - but the principle still holds.
British Gas supplying electricity - catches me out every time

tishunt

Sorry "Premier" that doesn't make any sense to me.

Every bill I receive whether it is for 22 days or 200 days always states
"first x kWh at z amount"...."next x kWh at y amt".
How do they decide how much to allocate to the first rate.

I'm really confused

SwanJon

It is as Premier says.
They charge you the first 2680 (gas) or 500 (electricity) at the higher (tier 1) price. That can also be said as the first 7.34 (gas) or 1.37 (electricity) per day
So for a bill of 200 days you would be charged 200*1.37 = 274 at Tier 1 for electricity,
That's the 'first x' dealt with.
The next x all depends on how much you've used.
If you had used 2000kWh in the example above it would be 2000-274=1726.

Check the first x value against the length of the bill and see if this tallies.

(Price changes may split the bill into two smaller ones - one on the old price and one on the new)