Rip of Britain

John.R_2

As with most people paying massive energy bills these days, I too have been paying much more attention as to what I am paying and have uncovered something which I thought might be of interest to you and others, and something which you may want to look into further, perhaps even campaign for?

I recently switched providers from Npower to SSE. Previously I had no idea about how charges are made or how meters worked, but upon asking some questions and investigating further I have, I believe, uncovered a little scam by providers, including Npower (Rip of Britain).

I don't know what you know or understand, so I'll explain this here - how I would need it explaining to me.

Firstly 'energy' (gas and electricity) are charged for by the kilowatt-hour (kWh), customers pay an amount for every kWh they use plus VAT. Electricity is easy to measure as every whole number 'clicked' over on the electric meter is 1 whole kWh however, gas meters work differently, they measure in cubic feet. Newer models measure in cubic meters. At some point some brainbox decided to make things 'easy' for the customer gas should be charged for by the kWh too and devised a calculation to convert the cubic reading into a kWh.

Old gas meters have 4 digits and measures in 'cubic feet' and newer meters have 5 digits and measures in 'cubic metres'. You would first need to know this before you attempted to convert your readings.

The first part of the conversion calculation is to convert a cubic
foot into a cubic metre so you would multiply your reading (the
reading now minus your previous reading) by 2.83 - from here on it's the same calculation for both types of meters, old and new.

Metric units (cubic metres) used are then multiplied by the calorific value, then by a correction factor (volume correction) and finally divided by 3.6 - this is now the kWh.

We all know that energy providers each charge different tariffs; a cost per kWh for both gas and electric. And to try to save money a customer would base their use of kWh's and the cost a provider charges. But what if energy providers used different calorific values too?

The national grid (Transco) apparently measures the calorific value (CV) for natural gas on a daily bases and provides this information to suppliers. So your bill, I presume, is based on an average of those CV's over each individual customers billing period, and there are 13 different regional CV's. Notably for Scotland the billing CV is based on a declared CV, which is set in advance. Why is it always England with such complexities?

Npower CV on my bill is 39.900 whilst on SSE it's 39.800. If you apply the conversions and charge the same tariff of 5p per kWh;
> 500 cubic feet multiplied by 2.83 multiplied by 39.900 multiplied by 1.022640 divided by 3.6 multiplied by 5p equals £801.90
> 500 cubic feet multiplied by 2.83 multiplied by 39.800 multiplied by 1.022640 divided by 3.6 multiplied by 5p equals £799.89

£2.01 difference may not sound much but when multiplied over 20 million customers, it looks a lot more now. I believe this is something people need to know and which should be looked into and for a one fixed, across Britain, CV to be set in advance, as with Scotland.

Also I moved to a fixed value tariff for both my gas and electric, I pay a flat rate for every kWh I use. Many people are on a tariff which they pay a higher amount for the first number of kWh's used and a lower amount for the remaining number used. Sounds easy, and it is for electric consumption. Most people pay the higher rate for the first two kWh per day throughout the year, broken into a monthly bill, for instance, this would mean for a 31 day month you would pay 62 kWh at the higher tariff and the remaining at the lower.

Gas however is so complex, as the number of kWh's per month you pay at the higher rate goes up as the weather gets colder and, depending on supplier, jumps from 45 kWh's in June to 890 kWh's in November. So if your tariff is, for instance, higher rate 7.227p per kWh and 3.634p for the lower; a bill for 800kWh's in June would cost you £30.69 and in November would cost you £57.82 on the same tariff.

All makes for a good news item I think.
Best regards
John

Nada666

Your facts are correct. Your spin, however, is dot dot dot

John.R_2

So you don't think England should have a declared CV, which is set in advance, as with Scotland?

IT would be interesting to see if one neighbours CV for the same period differs from supplier to supplier.

yangptangkipperbang

"Rip of (sic) Britain" eh ?
Suggest that you look at gas/electricity prices in most of Europe then see who is getting "ripped off".

Start here:

http://www.energy.eu/

dude89

John.R wrote: »

So you don't think England should have a declared CV, which is set in advance, as with Scotland?

IT would be interesting to see if one neighbours CV for the same period differs from supplier to supplier.

So what if everyone had a declared CV set in advance that turned out to be higher than it actually turned out to be?

John.R_2

OK then

I'm currently paying;
£0.04610 (04.61p) per kWh Natural Gas
£0.15780 (15.78p) per kWh Electric

You're link (something us newbies can't provide) shows € per kWh, retail (end-user) energy prices for households, historical price data, November 2012.

I also note the site says; Price data for non-eurozone countries are in euro. The average exchange rate valid for the referenced month is applied.

In November 2012 The exchange rate history for converting Euros (EUR) to Pounds (GBP) was;
Minimum: 0.7976
Maximum: 0.8111
Average: 0.8039

But I don't really want to go to all that trouble... but just to show other EU countries do pay less;

€ per kWh Natural Gas
United Kingdom 0.04033
Romania 0.02802

€ per kWh Electricity
United Kingdom 0.15470
Bulgaria 0.08406

My point is not what other EU countries pay, as we do not know how their countries individual pricing or billing actually works. We do not know every tariff or if they calculate everything in the same way, their individual VAT rates, service charges, how or even if they have varying calorific values or if their tariffs higher and lower rates change monthly.

My point is that in Britain higher and lower allowance rates do change monthly, and this is something people should know and take into account and that in Scotland the billing CV is based on a declared CV, which is set in advance and not here in Britain.

John.R_2

dude89 wrote: »

So what if everyone had a declared CV set in advance that turned out to be higher than it actually turned out to be?

Apparently; National Grid ensures that the average CV of gas supplied to consumers in Scotland is never less than the declared value.

My point is that variations and complexities give for manipulation and opportunity to bewilder us, the customer.

John.R_2

The Gross calorific value of natural gas by source of production (most recent) by country; United Kingdom 39.710 and in the Netherlands 33.320

using the math;
> 500 cubic feet multiplied by 2.83 multiplied by 33.320 multiplied by 1.022640 divided by 3.6 multiplied by 5p equals £669.66

Saving of £132.24

There are too many complexities and variations to account for and no wonder the Netherlands pay a little more € per kWh for there Natural Gas when the calorific value is much less.

JSR

The CV is not set by suppliers, it's an independently measured and audited quantity. It protects consumers from essentially being charged for fresh air.

John.R_2

Are you saying the people of the Netherlands are paying for fresh air?

Who, other than Transco, can validate the information to be correct?

So as a customer you can search to your hearts content, find the best tariff and sign up.

But then, even though your meter measures correctly out 100 cubic feet, its conversion to kWh’s is measured differently and varyingly from supplier to supplier on a daily bases and the number of kWh you pay for on the higher rate is increased as the weather gets colder and you need the heating more?

If this was a measure used for potatoes and you paid more for the number of calories per potato depending on a measure someone somewhere made across 13 regions and the chip shop charged you more for chips on a cold day would you eat sausages more?

Ken68

Sounds like a fiddle, John, aka LIBOR.