Electricity usage up about 120kWh per month

MrDad

Until about May of this year, our average monthly electricity usage was about 400kWh. From June, it has spiked to about 520-540kWh.

Our usage habits have not changed nor have we purchased any new appliances; in fact we've been gone for a few weeks and so I would expect our usage to be less. We tracked daily usage and installed usage meters on each appliance in turn, but could not find any obvious culprits.

Today, I performed a no-load test by switching off the mains switch on the fuse box. The red LED on the electricity meter still blinked every 22 seconds during this time. This equates to about 4kWh used per day, or about 120kWh extra per month (which is what we're seeing).

I called EDF for their advice, and they said the LED would indeed still flash even if I had turned of the mains switch, which seems odd to me.

Maybe I'm just missing something obvious. Can anyone here please advise?

JJ_Egan

Key is did the meter readings change when all off .
Take it your meter is before the mains switch and therefore live at all times .

MrDad

Good questions.

The meter we have is a Landis + Gyr 5258k and doesn't show anything after the units (i.e. 0 decimal places), so the readings didn't physically change. I'd probably have to leave it off for 6+ hours, which I can't feasibly do. The meter is about 4 years old.

Yes, the meter is before the mains switch and live at all times. There are also no other meters in the house and/or nothing splitting off after the meter before the fuse box.

[Deleted User]

the meter should nt blink at all when the mains turned off but I ve seen a solid unblinking light still on when only a very few watts is used, such as one 6 watt energy bulb.

MrDad

Thank you. That's what I would expect too, that it wouldn't blink at all, but EDF was trying to convince me this was normal.