Understanding My Electricity Bill!

Ryan23

Like most people on this forum I am of reasonable intelligence. However, I can rarely make much sense of my electricity bill. I wonder if that is intential on their part - despite all their declarations of "clear English" etc. Well, here goes. I have my Electricity account (no gas) with Scottish Gas. On the bill so many units are priced as "First 126 kWk at 24.825 pence and then: NEXT 1381 kWh at 10.825. I actually phoned them up the other day and asked for an explanation. I said I understood....as she speedily ran through how it all worked...."we used to have standing orders" etc. I didn't really understand. What determines the FIRST more expensive number of units??? Time of day? Percentage of the overall units used??? What??? Why the two-tier system??? Is there ANYBODY out there who can explain this to me in simple English? :rolleyes:

Magentasue

Energy companies make a Standing Charge - you pay this before you pay for energy used.

Now there are two ways of paying this. 1) You pay a standing charge each quarter and then x pence for every kwh used. 2) You pay a higher unit charge for the first x kwh used and then a lower unit charge for the rest. By the time you've used the higher charge units, you've effectively paid a standing charge.

For most people, it make little difference which way they pay. If you use very few units some quarters, it make sense to have the No Standing Charge option.

KimYeovil

Take the tier 1 price. Take the tier 2 price. Subtract the tier 2 price from the tier 1 price. Multiply that by 75. That's your monthly standing charge. Your units are then charged at the tier 2 price. This is secondary school stuff (and most primary school children understand it.)

24.825 - 10.825 = 14p ; 14p x 75 = £10.50
So your cost is £10.50 charge every month plus 10.825p for every kWh used.
(This will be different if you use less than 225 kWh over the quarter.)

The Tier 1 allowance is 225 kWh per quarter. This is adjusted pro rata if the bill does not cover a whole quarter.

(Sorry, you claim to be of reasonable intelligent but your post belies this. You do not have reasonable knowledge or common experience or elementary arithmetic.)

littletommytucker

Ok Kim... Calm down. Unless you have it explained to you, it isnt allways clear on the bills.Give Ryan a chance.

The best way i feel that there is to describe it is...
Each quarter you pay the first 125Khw at a higher rate of 24.825pence per KWH, anything after that is charged at the lower rate of 10.825pence per KWH.

The higher rate is there to cover the admin costs like sending you bills, getting your meter read etc.

Think of it like a pay as you go mobile... where the first 3 minutes cost around 30pence per minute and anything after at 2pence per minute.

Hope this helps.

Fire_Fox

Ryan23 wrote: »

Like most people on this forum I am of reasonable intelligence. However, I can rarely make much sense of my electricity bill. I wonder if that is intential on their part - despite all their declarations of "clear English" etc. Well, here goes. I have my Electricity account (no gas) with Scottish Gas. On the bill so many units are priced as "First 126 kWk at 24.825 pence and then: NEXT 1381 kWh at 10.825. I actually phoned them up the other day and asked for an explanation. I said I understood....as she speedily ran through how it all worked...."we used to have standing orders" etc. I didn't really understand. What determines the FIRST more expensive number of units??? Time of day? Percentage of the overall units used??? What??? Why the two-tier system??? Is there ANYBODY out there who can explain this to me in simple English? :rolleyes:

The first units are literally that, the first units you use in any given billing period (usually quarterly). Once you have used up the 126kwh - which might take you, say, two weeks - all additional energy is charged at the cheaper rate. This is instead of a standing charge, a sort of daily rent on your electric meter (mine is 14p a day).

Cardew

Most Scottish gas tariffs for electricity use a figure of 125kWh at tier 1 Prices(500kWh per year)(not 225kWh as used to be used and is usrd by most other companies)

This is actually pro-rata per day 500/365 = 1.37kWh per day

Ryan23

:T Many thanks all - I think I now understand! Clearly Kim was having a very bad day at the office. Hopefully she doesn't work in Customer Services! I suspect she might be a teacher - and one of the old school at that!:rotfl:

Cardew

Ryan23 wrote: »

:T Many thanks all - I think I now understand! Clearly Kim was having a very bad day at the office. Hopefully she doesn't work in Customer Services! I suspect she might be a teacher - and one of the old school at that!:rotfl:

I suspect She is a He!!

FannyHill

I was watching Watchdog tonight and didn't realise until now you can get a metric or an imperial meter.

This as shown on the prog can lead to very expensive problems if the utility company are a bit fuzzy on what you have.