British Gas: Rate 1 or Rate 2?

burybrum

Hope someone can help with this one. When you recieve your electricity bill from British Gas, you get charged at 2 rates. Rate 1 is approx. 6p per kwh and the other is about 16p per kwh.

Am I right in thinking that rate 1 is for off peak use and the other for peak use? If so, how do they divide it up. There is nothing on the meter to say what has been used at certain times of the day is there!?

My reason for asking is that I have just switched to energy saving lightbulbs :A and my electricity bill was less than half of what had been estimated :T . However, my revised bill has been sent back to me charged exclusively at the expensive rate 2. This can't be allowed, can it?

Furthermore, my revised bill has been charged at the new (more expensive) revised tariff. Surely, they can't change the cost of electricity already used before the date of the change?

I am looking for ammo for a Victor Meldrew moment on Monday!

masonic

Rate 2 (as you have descibed it) is for the first X (normally 225?) units per quarter and Rate 1 is for the remaining ones. This is how they hide the standing charges.

If you use less than 225 units per quarter, then you don't get on to the cheaper ones. On a plus note, if you are not using up your Rate 2 units, you are not paying the full standing charge.

Edit: I think what has happened here is that BG have overestimated your bill several times, so that you have paid for most of your electricity used this quarter in your last bill. That means that what is left might have genuinely been used after the price change. Did you take a meter reading on the 2nd Sept when the prices went up?

burybrum

Yes I did read after the increase (but only just). They are charging us for the whole lot on the increased rate.

What you say makes sense, but I don't have the bill in front of me to check. I am pretty certain that we have used more than 225 units as we are totally dependent on electricity. There is still something fishy going on.

burybrum

OK, done some digging! You actually pay the expensive rate for the first 2.466Kwh per day. This is of course flawed as they do not know what you use on a daily basis. They just average out your consumption over the timeframe of the bill. What about when you go on holiday and use zilch? What about sundays (when we do a roast dinner, baking etc)? Of course you will use more on the weekend and bank holiday - none is taken into account.

I am onto them for the good of all at MSE...

espresso

burybrum wrote:

I am onto them for the good of all at MSE...

So why are you spamming the mobile forum them?

:rolleyes:

cdon

burybrum wrote:

OK, done some digging! You actually pay the expensive rate for the first 2.466Kwh per day. This is of course flawed as they do not know what you use on a daily basis. They just average out your consumption over the timeframe of the bill. What about when you go on holiday and use zilch? What about sundays (when we do a roast dinner, baking etc)? Of course you will use more on the weekend and bank holiday - none is taken into account.

I am onto them for the good of all at MSE...

2.466Kwh per day is 225Kwh per quarter.

BritishGasWorker

Hey there...Rate 1 and rate 2 are an industry standard which most energy providers use, they work it all out over a billing period, normal over 90days, they work out like this..

For the first 12.567 kwh per day you will pay Rate 1, which is the higher rate, the rest for the day is charged at the lower rate.

so they look at howmany units you use over a set period of time, they transpose it too KWH and devide it buy the 12.567 kwh to work out the unit 1 and the rest they make the lower rate..... it can be very confusing to explain and even harder to type :OP

This is from our web site

Gas

When we work out your bill, we convert your gas units into kilowatt hours as follows: units used x [2.83] (for metric conversion - omit if your meter measures cubic meters) x vol conversion factor [1.02264] x calorific value [39.2000] divided by [3.6]

Leccy is the same just with diffrent vol conv and there is not calorifc value.

Hope this clears the fogs < Koffs >