Should we ask for a refund from eon.next?

JamesPeter

Hello,

Possibly a slightly different situation to a lot of people, but I am wanting to reduce our DD as I think it is excessive. We are all electric – no gas in our village. One meter with two supply numbers. Annual ‘review’ due April 2022.

The forecasted annual usage on which our current DD payments are calculated was based on when we had storage heaters on npower’s afternoon boosted ‘Super Tariff’ at 18.41p per kWh (with a SC of 26.47p per day). This was a ‘legacy’ non-standard heating tariff and was very expensive.

Also, we have the ‘normal’ side of electric meter on an E7 'deal' until the end of June 2022 at the following rates:

Day: 22.78p

Night: 8.23p

SC: 15.82p per day.

 

This past summer, the storage heating system was taken out and an air source heat pump system installed. This runs on the E7 tariff above. (The super tariff supply is now unused and we don’t pay anything for it although we do submit the static reading monthly).

Out of habit, we tend to use things like the washing machine overnight on a timer. We are early risers so shower etc before day rate kicks in. Also, the ASHP warms up the house on a timer for 3 hours early morning on the cheaper rate. This warmth currently tends to last until about 4.00pm when the ASHP kicks in again for a couple of hours when the internal ‘stat drops below 21 degrees. The house is fairly well insulated and being retired we are in most of the time.

Our usage for the past month 15 Oct to 14 Nov 2021 (actual self-read monthly meter readings and sent to eon.next) was:

  Day 162kWh

  Night 151kWh.

Monthly bill was: £57.14 incl the SC.

The previous month (Sep to Oct) was slightly less usage – bill £52.01.

During the period 15th Nov to this morning, we are on the same usage trajectory as the Oct/Nov usage according to our meter reading carried out this morning.

Obviously, we may use more energy if the weather gets any colder, but we cannot fully quantify by how much as the ASHP is a new system.

However, we are currently £651.56 in credit, which is increasing monthly.

We are paying £118 per month by DD which, due to the change of heating, I feel maybe a tad excessive now?

Should we ask eon.next for a reduction in our DD? Maybe down to circa £75 per calendar month?

Should we also ask for a refund of say £400 of the credit amount?

We fully expect our costs to increase dramatically when our ‘deal’ expires in June next year due to the current market situation and accept that, albeit the market may have changed by then.

Although we can comfortably afford the current payments we are making, I just dislike the thought that I am, in effect, currently loaning eon.next increasing amounts of my money every month.

Many thanks.

Rodders53

Yes you should ask to reduce the DD and have a refund of the excessive credit.

Why have you needed affirmation of this?

JamesPeter

Rodders53 said:

Yes you should ask to reduce the DD and have a refund of the excessive credit.

Why have you needed affirmation of this?

Many thanks.

Our only doubt is that we have read that ASHP's use more energy when it gets even colder, something which we cannot quantify as it is a new system.

We would rather err on the safe side, but conversely, we do think the payments and credit are getting excessive.

Hence we were wondering if our suggested payment of £75 pcm and a refund of £400 was reasonable?

Many thanks.

wild666

If you have doubts about using more electric you could leave the DD as it is until the end of winter. They will keep a months DD and repay the rest to your bank account.

Is there an option to reduce the DD on your account page? 

wittynamegoeshere

Not an answer to your question but related... have you worked out the average unit price you're paying based on your actual usage with the heat pump?  It might make sense to switch to a standard tariff, without any varying rates for different times of day.  But bear in mind that the current cap is fixed only until April, not June as you have at present.

JamesPeter

wild666 said:

If you have doubts about using more electric you could leave the DD as it is until the end of winter. They will keep a months DD and repay the rest to your bank account.

Is there an option to reduce the DD on your account page? 

Many thanks .

Yes, keeping the DD the same may perhaps a good idea 'for safety'.

There is an 'edit payment amount' page on the website, but it displays the following:

It won't let me reduce the DD, infact it seemingly wants to raise it to £154 per month (the up/down buttons willl only go upwards)!

JamesPeter

wittynamegoeshere said:

Not an answer to your question but related... have you worked out the average unit price you're paying based on your actual usage with the heat pump?  It might make sense to switch to a standard tariff, without any varying rates for different times of day.  But bear in mind that the current cap is fixed only until April, not June as you have at present.

Hi,

We were told by CAB a few years ago that the tipping point for E7 vs a standard tariff was 42% night usage v 58% day usage in favour of E7. 

Oct to Nov actual usage was

Day - 162 kWh

Night - 151 kWh

So we currently use a rough 48% night use / 52 % Day use split.

Plus, if we came out of the current E7 tariff now, we would move onto variable standard rate which, whilst marginally cheaper during the day, is much more expensive than our night useage. 

It is certainly one to look into again in the future though.

Many thanks.

QrizB

JamesPeter said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

Not an answer to your question but related... have you worked out the average unit price you're paying based on your actual usage with the heat pump?  It might make sense to switch to a standard tariff, without any varying rates for different times of day.  But bear in mind that the current cap is fixed only until April, not June as you have at present.

We were told by CAB a few years ago that the tipping point for E7 vs a standard tariff was 42% night usage v 58% day usage in favour of E7. 

The tipping point depends entirely on your tariff, and what the equivalent single-rate is.

You're currently paying Day: 22.78p, Night: 8.23p. I don't know what you'd be paying on a single-rate tariff but it's likely to be around 20p.

The formula for the "day rate" %age is (std-e7)/(day-e7). In your case, that's (20-8.23)/(22.78-8.23) =0.81 (ie. 81%). If you use 81% or more on the day rate you'll be worse off, but if you use less than 81% on the day rate you'll be better off.

To illustrate:

• 1000kWh at 20p/kWh will cost £200.
• 750kWh at 22.78p/kWh plus 250kWh at 8.23p/kWh will cost £191
• 850kWh at 22.78p/kWh plus 150kWh at 8.23p/kWh will cost £206
  

wittynamegoeshere

If you're only paying 22.78p daytime rate and are getting 48% of your usage at a much lower price then definitely stay exactly where you are.  You're basically paying roughly 10% more than everyone else for your daytime energy but around 60% less than everyone else for the energy you use during the off-peak period.

You can just work out your actual usage multiplied by each tariff, compare this with the total usage at any other all-day tariff.  No need for any rule-of-thumb type estimates, actual numbers are better.  But without getting my calculator out I can say that you're definitely getting a very good deal as you are.

You should ask for a refund of the built-up money though and/or a review of the monthly payment.

Rodders53

ASHPs are either air to air or air to water. What is yours?

Wet will use full rate leccy if the 'supplementary'  (immersion) heater in the system is allowed to come on in colder weather to raise the circulating water temperature to higher Celsius numbers (or do it quicker).   See the ASHPs threads where this is covered in detail.  Some advocate disabling that heater, simply running the system longer, and avoid any nasty surprises (but manually operating it if needed - or use some alternative supplementary heating).

Otherwise its mainly down to a falling COP as it gets colder, so you get fewer kW out for the same kW in.  The reduced COP (I believe, but could easily be wrong) also allows for the need to reverse cycle the unit to heat the external coils so they can defrost from time to time in the colder weather.

But if you're monitoring the HP energy use regularly, you'll be in that type of usage in the last few days;  so may have seen a larger spike in use than you may have expected or hoped for?

You will need to call EOn to revise the DD and get a credit refund... If necessary repeat every couple of months if the credit rebuilds.