Help please - electricity bill miscalculated by EDF?

lulucrumble

I hope someone can help me with this, please take the time to read this slightly-long story. The summary is that I am being charged £75 a month for electricity (no gas) in a new 1-bed, single occupancy flat in central London and I an wondering if this is too high.

I moved into a flat in August 2009. The flat is a new build, 3 years old, with two storage heaters and an off-peak water tank. It's double glazed, and on the first floor. I understood that I had an off-peak, cheap rate for electricity because my meter is Economy 7, so had my water heat up at night, storage heaters charge up at night, dishwasher and phone charger at night, to make use of this rate.

In December I realised that my electricty bills of £55 a month from EDF were quite high for my situation. I checked my tariff, and I wasn't on an Economy 7 tariff, but a Standard tariff with only one meter reading being taking. I phoned EDF, explained the situation, and they said they would "re-bill" me according to usage on an Economy 7 meter.

I received the new bill yesterday. Apparently, the money I have paid them so far for 15 months usage is not enough. According to the new bill, I owe them £400 extra (I had paid them about £750 for this time period, and they've calcuated I should have paid about £1150). I was shocked. The person on the phone in December agreed that it was likely I had been overpaying, as I hadn't been benefitting from a cheap nightly rate on my old tariff, and a lot of my usage was overnight (from my description as above).

This new bill for 15 months usage equates to £75 a month. Does this sound right? Some more information about my usage:

I work full time during the day. In the evenings I am out about two nights a week. When in, I have the television on for about 4 hours and my laptop plugged in. I rarely use the oven for long and don't often make tea. In the mornings the television is on for about half an hour and I use hair straighteners for about 15 minutes. I use the power shower every other day (I shower at work the others!!). On Saturday and Sunday the television is on for around 15 hours total, my laptop occasionally plugged in to charge up, and I make about 3 cups of tea (with my energy saving kettle). I do about two loads of washing a week. At the begining of winter I switched to have my water tank heat up overnight once every other day or two days, to save electricity. My storage heaters charge up overnight from about November to March. I try not to leave lights on around the flat. I use the immersion heater maybe twice a week for not more than an hour each time, if the hot water has run out.

Please could someone let me know if this should equate to £75 a month on an EDF Economy 7 tariff.

It is hard to know how much electricty I am using because I'm not sure how EDF have managed caclulate this if they've been taking incorrect meter readings for the last 15 months. They've estimated a day/night split, at about 57% day, 43% night. Apparently my average usage per day is 24.2 units - they don't state what the units are though. I think this is an average over the last 15 months, not this quarter, though I could have misinterpreted.

To anyone who has got to the bottom of this: well done. Please help, I'm pretty upset to have been landed with a bill of £400, especially when I was expecting a small refund.

Thank you,
Louise

penrhyn

One Unit = One Kilowatt Hour of electricity.

If you are using on average 24 Kwh per day thats around 8760 Kwh per year which is quite low for an all electric property.

At say 13.4p ( single rate ) that would be around £1173 or £97/month.

I think the day/night split they have used is wrong. With Storage heaters I would have thought you wre using a higher proportion at night.
You can check this your self over a few days by taking your own meter readings.

PS I've used Equipower for electricity price, as thy have a flat rate. It may err on the high side.

spiro

When you moved into the flat in Aug'09 you should have provided them with the meter reading(s) from you meter, the LL would normally take a copy if its rented. Make sure that EDF are using that as the open reading for your account and read the meter today and make sure that is the reading they are using as the current reading. They can work out the exact usage and amount due/refund due.

Premier_2

lulucrumble wrote: »

...It is hard to know how much electricty I am using because I'm not sure how EDF have managed caclulate this if they've been taking incorrect meter readings for the last 15 months. They've estimated a day/night split, at about 57% day, 43% night. Apparently my average usage per day is 24.2 units - they don't state what the units are though. I think this is an average over the last 15 months, not this quarter, though I could have misinterpreted.

To anyone who has got to the bottom of this: well done. Please help, I'm pretty upset to have been landed with a bill of £400, especially when I was expecting a small refund.

Thank you,
Louise

Why are they estimating?

You have a meter don't you?
What was the meter readings you provided when you moved in. What are the meter readings now?
From that you can calculate the total cost, so then divide it by the number of months.

That will give you the avearge monthly cost. The supplier may do it a slightly different way to allow for seasonal adjustments, but it won't be far wrong.

lulucrumble

I didn't give them a meter reading when I moved in. I think I just phoned them and told them to put the bills in my name. From what I can recall, I tried to give a meter reading online, but the website said the reading was incorrect, so I gave up.

I think the problem has been that EDF were not aware that I had an Economy 7 meter. This is why they are estimating my day/night usage split, and my reading for the night rate from the start of my occupancy.

I guess what I'm wondering, is an average of 24 KwH a day a lot for a one bedroom flat? The amount of money they're charging me seems really really high, that's all. Maybe it's because I am using a lot of electricity, but my suspicion is that the meter readings aren't right.

Thanks for all your replies. Just wish I'd made sure they had the correct meter readings from the start, and I'm really annoyed for alerting them to the fact I was on a non-Economy 7 tariff, because it's now costing me £400! It just doesn't make sense that a non-Economy 7 tariff is cheaper than an Economy 7, when I have an Economy 7 meter, and I'm using more electricity overnight because of storage heaters and off-peak water tank.

penrhyn

Date rate units cost more when you are on an economy 7 tarrif, when I worked out your energy spitl it came out more expensive.

Read you meter, get a better feel for the day night ratio.

You are a low user on 24 units /day with an all electric property.

lulucrumble

penrhyn wrote: »

Date rate units cost more when you are on an economy 7 tarrif, when I worked out your energy spitl it came out more expensive.

Read you meter, get a better feel for the day night ratio.

You are a low user on 24 units /day with an all electric property.

Really? For a small 1-bed flat? My friend is in a one bedroom house, and her bills are about £15 a month!

penrhyn

I lve in a mid terrace with gas central heating, I use 10,000 Kwh of gas and 2000 Kwh of electricity per annum.
Thats a total of 12000 Kwh. You have stated you are using 24.2 kwh/day or 8760 Kwh per annum.

You friend may well be paying £15 /month, maybe they are in arrears. Ask them what their annual consumption is in Kwh.

You say you have storage heaters and an immersion, these are the high users. An immersion will use 3Kw per hour whilst its getting the water up to temperature, say for 3 hours out of the 7 at low rate so thats 9Kwh.
A similarly powered storage heater would use the same amount so weve got to 18Kwh already.

Premier_2

lulucrumble wrote: »

I didn't give them a meter reading when I moved in. I think I just phoned them and told them to put the bills in my name. From what I can recall, I tried to give a meter reading online, but the website said the reading was incorrect, so I gave up.

I think the problem has been that EDF were not aware that I had an Economy 7 meter. This is why they are estimating my day/night usage split, and my reading for the night rate from the start of my occupancy.

I guess what I'm wondering, is an average of 24 KwH a day a lot for a one bedroom flat? The amount of money they're charging me seems really really high, that's all. Maybe it's because I am using a lot of electricity, but my suspicion is that the meter readings aren't right.

Thanks for all your replies. Just wish I'd made sure they had the correct meter readings from the start, and I'm really annoyed for alerting them to the fact I was on a non-Economy 7 tariff, because it's now costing me £400! It just doesn't make sense that a non-Economy 7 tariff is cheaper than an Economy 7, when I have an Economy 7 meter, and I'm using more electricity overnight because of storage heaters and off-peak water tank.

You say you moved in in August 2009.
It is now January 2011.

Why have you left matters for so long? :huh:

If EDF are charging you on a single rate tariff, it is because they assume you have a single rate meter (which probably explains why any meter reading you attempted to give was rejected).

That being the case, they probably even have the wrong MPAN for you if you are sure you have a dual rate meter suitable for E7.

You need to contact them and sort this mess out. If you had provided or otherwise know the correct meter readings when you moved in, they would probably re-bill you. As you don't, the best they can do is estimate your past consumption ...

sarahsisson

Hi can anyone help. Been on phone to company today to find out for quite some time they have been billing me my day time usage at night time economy 7 rate. And my night time usage at the day rate. The lady on the phone said will get a big bill coming. She then said over the phone that there system has been putting them on the wrong way round.
The actual meter to my house is correct saying R1 is the day rate and R4 is the night rate. The mistakes have been made by them and there system.
How to i stand regarding i may get a bill in that will be in the thousands. Can anyone please help on what grounds i have on this matter as there is no way can we pay a bill to them for the large amount. We have never defaulted and always paid the same amount of money to them for the last 4 years of living in our property

Cardew

sarahsisson wrote: »

Hi can anyone help. Been on phone to company today to find out for quite some time they have been billing me my day time usage at night time economy 7 rate. And my night time usage at the day rate. The lady on the phone said will get a big bill coming. She then said over the phone that there system has been putting them on the wrong way round.
The actual meter to my house is correct saying R1 is the day rate and R4 is the night rate. The mistakes have been made by them and there system.
How to i stand regarding i may get a bill in that will be in the thousands. Can anyone please help on what grounds i have on this matter as there is no way can we pay a bill to them for the large amount. We have never defaulted and always paid the same amount of money to them for the last 4 years of living in our property

Welcome to the forum.

Their 'get out' clause is that you have a responsibility to check your bills and notify them if wrong.

There is also a mistaken impression that if a company makes a mistake, they can't correct that mistake and have to write off any money owing. - You would expect a refund had it been the other way around.

This situation has come up quite a bit and the full details of your case will affect the outcome.

There is a provision in the Billing Code that companies can only back-bill 12 months - some people have argued that Economy 7 switched readings comes under that back-billing provision regardless of fault.