Fixing Energy Tarriff will cost a fortune!

oxters

I am currently with EDF for dual fuel.
My current use is Electric: £ 62 per month [per year: £ 744.00; 9,031 kWhs
Gas £ 85 per month [per year: £ 1,020.00; 35,954 kWhs]

I have quotes from EDFfor Online v7 at a combined cost of £1856 ( a bit dearer than present) but if I want to fix until March '12 it will cost an additional £266 per year (I make that an extra12.5% ) and if I want to fix until 2015 it's a whopping £473 per year over the current v7 price - which of course is variable. (I think that's an extra 22% ?)
Do EDF know something about the future price of gas/electricity and have factored this into the quote or is this a rip off of customers who want the security of a fixed price?
They have pledged to hold prices until March '11 but what will happen after that?
I feel that the 2015 fix is a big risk and costs £100 per fuel to drop (for the first year then scales down) but I'd be very grateful for a second or third opinion.

Edit: By way of explanation this post has been edited as the gas/electric figures were originally transposed - sorry

penrhyn

Your consumption figures look a bit odd, your gas is very low compared to your electricity usage.
I assume you use electricity for heating.

oxters

No - we have gas c/heating and a gas hob. The oven is electric and is used a lot I suppose but other than that I think our use of appliances is normal. I have often thought it strange too. We have a fairly large 4 bedroom house, and I don't have an electric heater left on in the loft! - in fact we only use electric very occasionally to heat the conservatory. We don't leave appliances (other than the sky box) on standby

oxters

I got the consumption figures from EDF - they are based on 10months as a customer with them so I guess they have a formula to calculate an annual figure. Another quote based on my monthly d/d was worse - but I am overpaying a bit at the moment.
The figures generally agree with readings I have taken myself over 08/09/10
Do you think I might have a dodgy electric meter?

oxters

I've just checked v7 against the others on moneysupermarket and it seems that it can't be beaten in my area

penrhyn

To me the figures are reversed, a large gas central heated property would use around 35,000 Kwh of gas, with say 10,000 Kwh of electricity.

Hopefully they did weight the gas calculation as for the last 10 months you would not have been using much for heating, unlike what you will be doing over the next 5 months or so.

35,000 Kwh of electricity is 95 Kwh per day, unless you are growing something in the loft makes no sense at all, also that amount of electricity would cost about £5000.

macman

Your electricity figure is absurdly high, about 10 times the annual average for a house with gas heating. Call EDF and get it recalculated (or calculate via your last 4 bills). If you are paying £1,020pa at around 1Pp per kWh then that would give an approx consumption of 10,200kWh pa-your is nearly 4 times that, so must be wrong.
Even at 10,200kWh pa that is more than twice the national average of around 4,000kwh, so something is badly awry.
And your gas is about half what would be expected for a 3 b/r house with gas heating and cooking.
Fixing to 5 years ahead seems total overkill to me, but if you want that considerable security then of course you will have to pay a considerable premium for it. You may then be kicking yourself for the last 4 years...or you may not.
Edit: agree with penrhyn-but your gas usage still looks very high.

oxters

penrhyn wrote: »

To me the figures are reversed,
unless you are growing something in the loft .

OK it's a fair cop. It's for my own consumption though.

Sorry - I reversed the figures in my OP but I have now edited it to make it right

oxters

penrhyn wrote: »

To me the figures are reversed, a large gas central heated property would use around 35,000 Kwh of gas, with say 10,000 Kwh of electricity.

QUOTE]

It looks like I am Mr Average then - despite cavity wall insulation, d/g and glass wool all over the place

macman

Not average-your gas consumption would be around 22,500kWh in that case.
Possibly a very large property heated all day?

oxters

macman wrote: »

Fixing to 5 years ahead seems total overkill to me, but if you want that considerable security then of course you will have to pay a considerable premium for it. You may then be kicking yourself for the last 4 years...or you may not.
Edit: agree with penrhyn-but your gas usage still looks very high.

Yes these were my thoughts too per the original post, and I think the fix till March 12 is pretty steep as well unless a March 11 hike is followed by another within 6/9 months?

It looks like it will be v7 then as it's the best in my area.

Re your comment on high gas usage - I had a new boiler installed a few years ago allegedly to be more economical/efficient and I do think we are economical with the CH. Although we have 14 radiators we seldom have more than half a dozen on and we don't live like hot house plants (nor does my weed in the loft!). Also it is on a timer and off when we are out but as we are retired it is on a lot during the winter days.