Scottish Power Bill Help

Richie7

Good Evening,

I am new here and was hoping I could get some much needed advice that would be greatly appreciated. I will try to be as concise as possible so as to not take up too much of your time.

My parents are elderly and have an old two meter - Economy 7 - set-up for their electricity (with Scottish Power). They have paid approximately £67 per month for a few years now. I realise it isn't the most economic of set-ups, what with the storage heaters and an Immersion Heater.

In December they had the meter's read, and were subsequently advised via their next bill that the DD would be increasing to £165 per month. This immediately seemed extortionate to me. And i'm sure it would to anyone. Scottish Power are saying their previous bills have been based on estimates, but my parents say people have definitely been coming to read the meter's. It's certainly not been estimated for as long as they've been paying £67 per month for. I also refuse to believe that they use an amount of electricity that would be the equivalent of £165 per month. That is quite frankly a ludicrous amount. I wouldn't even expect a busy family of 4 who bathed or showered every day to pay that much.

Anyway, from a statement in May the energy charges were showing as £1137.50, but they were somehow £821.11 in credit. Meaning a debit account balance of £308.51. However the December statement they received showed energy charges had almost doubled to £2,151.29. The account balance though was now £1,258.94 in credit, meaning there was a debit balance owing of £956.91. A jump of over £600. And even if these figures are correct (which I will fully intend to query), I cannot see any justification for a Direct Debit increase like they are quoting. They are on the Standard Tariff (variable price).

To add insult to injury, I was advised that they could move to the cheapest overall Tariff (Help Beat Cancer Fixed Price), but unbelievably they'd be required to then pay £195 per month!!

To be quite honest the whole situation has stumped me. I am amazed at what a mess their account appears to be. Has anyone else had an experience like this? What did you do?

If I can't resolve this i'm looking to switch provider. I believe there is a great tool on this site to use. Is it much hassle to switch? I've never done it before, but I don't want my parents to be paying that ridiculous amount each month - on any Tariff.

Sorry for the length of this message, but I would genuinely appreciate any help/advice/input on this matter.

Thank you in advance,

Rich.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

have you checked the meter readings and compared them to the latest bill?

It could be that the readings have been transposed.

The reason for the high DD will be to cover usage and to collect arrears.

CashStrapped

Just to correct some misconceptions.

An economy 7 set-up with storage heaters is the most cost effective all electric set-up.

As frugal says above, ensure the meter reads are up to date. Submit an actual meter reading and you will get an actual account balance.

Then, you need to shop around for the best E7 tariff.

To do this properly you need to work out the day night usage in percentage terms.

To use e7 properly you need to ensure your parents are using the majority of their electricity at night. With the heating and hot water charging at night, this is not ordinarily a problem.

Ensure they are not using electric heaters or immersions during the day as this will use an expensive day rate.

If you want to do a comparison immediately use typical figures like these:

The average annual use for most e7 users is around 4700kwh. Set the usage at 55% night use as a rough guide and see what tariffs are available.

Once you calculate your parents night use percentage and actual annual use, use those figures.

Good luck!

scones

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,
It could be that the readings have been transposed.

Definitely do check this. Scottish Power have twice swapped 'night' and 'day' rate readings on my parents' account in recent years, resulting in huge but completely incorrect bills. I think this happened to quite a few people back in 2014, when they changed their billing system.

Be prepared to battle it out with their customer services staff - we had proof that they'd transposed the readings but they kept on replying that everything was fine and telling us that we didn't know how to read our meter properly!

Richie7

Thank you all for your replies. I will check the meter readings myself, and check they correspond with the bill correctly. I'm still mortified that they can justify a price hike of £100pm no matter what the circumstances.

CashStrapped wrote: »

Just to correct some misconceptions.

An economy 7 set-up with storage heaters is the most cost effective all electric set-up.

As frugal says above, ensure the meter reads are up to date. Submit an actual meter reading and you will get an actual account balance.

Then, you need to shop around for the best E7 tariff.

To do this properly you need to work out the day night usage in percentage terms.

To use e7 properly you need to ensure your parents are using the majority of their electricity at night. With the heating and hot water charging at night, this is not ordinarily a problem.

Ensure they are not using electric heaters or immersions during the day as this will use an expensive day rate.

If you want to do a comparison immediately use typical figures like these:

The average annual use for most e7 users is around 4700kwh. Set the usage at 55% night use as a rough guide and see what tariffs are available.

Once you calculate your parents night use percentage and actual annual use, use those figures.

Good luck!

Forgive my ignorance here. As far as I am aware the E7 kicks in from 11pm - 6am. When you say they should use the majority of their electricity at night, do you mean at 11pm the On-Peak meter clicks off(for want of a better phrase), and all electricity goes onto the Off-Peak meter for this time period? Or just the storage heaters and immersion do?

molerat

With E7 all use switches to low rate.

Robin9

Forgive my ignorance here. As far as I am aware the E7 kicks in from 11pm - 6am. When you say they should use the majority of their electricity at night, do you mean at 11pm the On-Peak meter clicks off(for want of a better phrase), and all electricity goes onto the Off-Peak meter for this time period? Or just the storage heaters and immersion do?


Absolutely everything - lights, fridge - goes onto the low rate

Cardew

Robin9 wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance here. As far as I am aware the E7 kicks in from 11pm - 6am. When you say they should use the majority of their electricity at night, do you mean at 11pm the On-Peak meter clicks off(for want of a better phrase), and all electricity goes onto the Off-Peak meter for this time period? Or just the storage heaters and immersion do?


Absolutely everything - lights, fridge - goes onto the low rate

I believe that is not the case for all properties, as it depends on how the house is wired.


Certainly on many older properties only the storage heaters and (usually) the immersion heater switched to off-peak for the 7 hours. The remainder of the electricity consumed from lights/sockets etc stayed on peak rate 24/7. This was the old 'White meter' arrangement


Economy 7 was introduced in 1978 and the supply was as you state i.e. all electricity consumed in the 7 hours was at off peak rate. However some older properties still have their wiring such that only immersion/storage heating consume off-peak.


We have had some posts on MSE stating with absolute certainty that their 'new build' apartments had reverted to the old system of only Storage heating and immersion heating during the 7 hours and the rest of the electricity was at peak rate 24/7.

Richie7

That's interesting Cardew, thanks. I have a feeling my parent's house may be one of these cases. I'm sure it's just the immersion/storage heaters that are wired to the off peak.


I'm guessing this can be changed with a re-wire?


Also I admit to being a little confused about the 55% rule for Economy 7. How does the norm work out to 55%? I guess what I'm saying is, how do I calculate this figure accurately with my setup?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

you would need to get the total consumption over a year.

Say you used 4000 low/night units, 1000 normal/day units, total consumption 5000 units.

So your low/night would be 80% and normal/day 20%.

Cardew

Richie7 wrote: »

That's interesting Cardew, thanks. I have a feeling my parent's house may be one of these cases. I'm sure it's just the immersion/storage heaters that are wired to the off peak.


I'm guessing this can be changed with a re-wire?


Also I admit to being a little confused about the 55% rule for Economy 7. How does the norm work out to 55%? I guess what I'm saying is, how do I calculate this figure accurately with my setup?

It will be very easy to check which arrangement is on your parent's property. Just wait up until the E7 period starts(or get up early before E7 ends) then put on a heavy electrical load - like a kettle - and see on what meter that load registers.


A word of warning. Firstly the timing of the 7 hours varies across UK - nothing to do with the supplier. Also it usually changes by an hour when GMT finishes and BST starts.


Also some of the old mechanical clocks can be a long way out(fast or slow). Mine for example is supposed to switch from E7 at 07:30 but actually switches at 07:50. There are reports of these mechanical switches being hours out, so the 7 hours is during the day.