Electricity Help Please!!!

lynne1985

Hi i've recently moved into a 4 in a block upstair cottage flat i have 3 bedrooms and their is me, my 3 yrd old and my 7 month old that live in the house.

I currently pay £30 a month dd to Scottish Gas for my electricity im not to sure about these kWh's etc but since 30th dec until 27th march i have used 1455 kWh's can anyone tell me how many approx kWhs i would use in a year? My heating is all gas other than an electric fire in the living room, cooker and shower are also electric. Does £30 a month seem a fair price? I noticed that Scottish Gas have recently increased their prices i haven't recieved any letters or phone calls regarding this so im not sure how much my monthly dd will rise.

Any advice on wether to stay with Scottish gas or not is appreciated?

Thanks in advance
Lynne

Poppycat

Unfortunately it is very difficult to predict consumption of electricity as it fluctuates during the year. You tend to use more from October until March when its obviously much colder and dark early. You need a full year to predict itm, you coudl do a comparision based on how much per kw/h.

I stayed with SP as I moved onto a capped rate but I changed tariff via a cashback site and got £60 odd pounds cashback in January which I should get back any day now.

sharewatcher

It depends which area you live, however here is a rough calculation based on a middle standard tariff

225 units@16.226p = £36.5085
1230 units@ 8.409p=£103.4307
Total bill (inc VAT) =£139.9392

With the recent price increases your DD falls short by around £50 for the quarter

I too am mostly gas and don't find a great deal of difference between winter and summer electricity bills I would phone the company and get them to increase the DD to around £45 a month then you won't be faced with huge arrears and maybe get a little in front

Rockingit

A kWh is a way of measuring the amount of electricity used. For example, a standard old 'one bar fire' is typically 1kW (1000 Watts). So, if you turn it on for an hour then you will use 1kWH (kiloWatt Hour). A 100W lightbulb needs to be run for 10 hours to use the same amount, and so on.

If you call that a quarter, then simply multiply 1455 x 4 (lets call it 6000) x your unit price plus any additional annual standing charges, add on the VAT and then divide by 12 months.

For example: 6000kwh x 10p per unit (wishful thinking) = £600
£600 x 5% VAT = £30
£600 + £30 = £ 630
£630 /12 = £52.50 per month

However, this will vary as you will have used more electricity over the winter, and may be on a tiered rate system (a different rate for different bands of use). This will impact on your final total to divide by 12 months. Have a search through the threads as there are loads of links to various energy sites that can help try predict your useage, then just apply your own unit costs to them.