What's Cheaper Gas Or Electricity !

Ken68

Hi Success Story.....how are the prices in Canada, guess woodburners in most homes.

BexTech

Cardew wrote:

The gas (2.6/1.88p) and electricity(10.52/6.97) prices you quote are presumably not now available for new customers and you are on a capped/fixed price tariff taken out some while ago.
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Granted the rate I am on is not available to new customers, however it's not a fixed or capped price, just got with the right company at the right time. We worked out that taking out a capped / fixed rate service would on balance more likely cost us more over time, in fact it would have cost us several hundred pounds more just over a couple of years.

alan99_2

Can anyone help?

What is more efficient, gas or electric. So to get the same amount of warmth in a room what is the cheaper cost . Is it something to do with cost of each "therm" ? Anyone ,also, got any figures?

Alan

BexTech

Depends on the efficiency of the gas boiler.

If you have a fairly efficienct gas boiler then using that will be cheaper than electric.

If you use a gas fire, then that will be a lot cheaper than an electric fire.

If you look a few posts up, you can see the cost for my gas per KwH is much cheap than the cost of electricity per KwH.

Cardew

alan99 wrote:

Can anyone help?

What is more efficient, gas or electric. So to get the same amount of warmth in a room what is the cheaper cost . Is it something to do with cost of each "therm" ? Anyone ,also, got any figures?

Alan

If you are comparing normal(e.g not Economy 7) electricity tariffs with gas then it is a 'no contest'; daytime electricity will cost 3 to 4 times more than gas for the same amount of heat.

However, as stated above, if you have Economy 7 electricity to power storage heaters, then it is a much closer contest(but bear in mind you pay more for your daytime electricity)

However given the advantages in using 'instant' gas heating over storage heating, and the fact that in most cases gas is cheaper anyway, gas will be most people's choice.

Graham1

As a matter of interest:

This formula is the one to use to calculate what percentage of your electricity consumption needs to be during the night hours in order for an Economy 7 tariff to be worthwhile:

100 x (D - S) / (D - N)

Where D is the day rate on Economy 7,
N is the night rate on Economy 7
S is the standard rate for users not on Economy 7.

If your night-time electricity usage is greater than this then it is worth using Economy 7
If your night-time electricity is less than this then it is not worth using Economy 7.

This formula excludes any differences in standing charges - so it is not 100% accurate.

As Cardew says it is difficult to reach this night-time percentage use unless one has storage heaters - but some other people (e.g. with a large hot water tank and many fridges and freezers, or using a tumble drier at night) might reach it.

masonic

Graham1 wrote:

This formula excludes any differences in standing charges - so it is not 100% accurate.

Interesting. Your formula suggests I need to use 15% at night to make it worth using E7, yet I've calculated I need to use 20% at night. I guess differences in standing charges can have quite an impact.

Graham1

Yes, the effect of the higher standing charge is more than I had expected, for me also the true break-even point is about 5% greater than this formula predicts.

masonic

Graham1 wrote:

Yes, the effect of the higher standing charge is more than I had expected, for me also the true break-even point is about 5% greater than this formula predicts.

Oh well, at least it will work for ebico.