News: Energy bills to rise by £700/yr for many | Chancellor unveils up to £350 households support

Si1969

QrizB said:

Si1969 said:

My readings don’t make much sense, well not to me anyway. Don’t see how I can have empty months. Only thing that’s changed in the last year is I had a smart meter fitted about 4 months ago.

You don't have any empty months. When you had your smart meters fitted on the 20th of September they started counting from zero.

Your gas meter was imperial and your new one is metric.

Your electricity meter was dual-rate (E7) and your new one isn't.

And I guess you moved into your property (or at least, started paying the bills) on the 9th of December 2020?

• Your electricity consumption for 14 months is 4022kWh.
• Your gas consumption for 14 months is 20401kWh.

If those were your annual values (they're obviously a bit high):

• On the current cap: £1850/yr, £154/month
• On the new April cap: £2910/yr, £242/month

Allowing for those numbers being a bit high (they include two extra winter months) it seems as though your supplier's new monthly DD of £135 is about right and this might rise to £210/month in April.

Smartmeter fitting is right, but I’ve lived in this property over 20 years.

Still have no idea why my bills are so high, only myself living here with my daughter 3 days a week. I do work from home, but I turn off the heating in all the rooms except my office, I only shower, fill up the kettle for just the water I need, etc etc etc…

MattMattMattUK

Si1969 said:

QrizB said:

Si1969 said:

My readings don’t make much sense, well not to me anyway. Don’t see how I can have empty months. Only thing that’s changed in the last year is I had a smart meter fitted about 4 months ago.

You don't have any empty months. When you had your smart meters fitted on the 20th of September they started counting from zero.

Your gas meter was imperial and your new one is metric.

Your electricity meter was dual-rate (E7) and your new one isn't.

And I guess you moved into your property (or at least, started paying the bills) on the 9th of December 2020?

• Your electricity consumption for 14 months is 4022kWh.
• Your gas consumption for 14 months is 20401kWh.

If those were your annual values (they're obviously a bit high):

• On the current cap: £1850/yr, £154/month
• On the new April cap: £2910/yr, £242/month

Allowing for those numbers being a bit high (they include two extra winter months) it seems as though your supplier's new monthly DD of £135 is about right and this might rise to £210/month in April.

Smartmeter fitting is right, but I’ve lived in this property over 20 years.

Still have no idea why my bills are so high, only myself living here with my daughter 3 days a week. I do work from home, but I turn off the heating in all the rooms except my office, I only shower, fill up the kettle for just the water I need, etc etc etc…

You need to stop thinking in monetary terms, energy costs have increased massively, the rise in the amount you pay is nothing to do with an increased usage and entirely down to the cost of energy rising. 

Your gas usage does seem high unless you have an old inefficient boiler, a poorly insulated home, or a combination of both. Your electricity usage is high for a household of 1.5 people, is your shower heated electric? Do you have an old fridge or freezer? 

EssexHebridean

Morbeous said:

I bet all those that listened to Martin saying to stay out and not take a fixed tariff feel pretty stupid now. Energy wholesale prices have rocketed since the invasion of Ukraine and now Martin is backtracking and saying a fixed deal is a good idea. So glad I fixed and paid attention to the rising costs 

Nope - there has been NO fixed deals in nearly a year that would have worked out cheaper/better for us on electricity than sticking with the SVR. Your bet seems to assume that everyone else only listens to Martin, and you're the only one smart enough to do your own research on costs behind the scenes, too? 

Si1969

MattMattMattUK said:

Si1969 said:

QrizB said:

Si1969 said:

My readings don’t make much sense, well not to me anyway. Don’t see how I can have empty months. Only thing that’s changed in the last year is I had a smart meter fitted about 4 months ago.

You don't have any empty months. When you had your smart meters fitted on the 20th of September they started counting from zero.

Your gas meter was imperial and your new one is metric.

Your electricity meter was dual-rate (E7) and your new one isn't.

And I guess you moved into your property (or at least, started paying the bills) on the 9th of December 2020?

• Your electricity consumption for 14 months is 4022kWh.
• Your gas consumption for 14 months is 20401kWh.

If those were your annual values (they're obviously a bit high):

• On the current cap: £1850/yr, £154/month
• On the new April cap: £2910/yr, £242/month

Allowing for those numbers being a bit high (they include two extra winter months) it seems as though your supplier's new monthly DD of £135 is about right and this might rise to £210/month in April.

Smartmeter fitting is right, but I’ve lived in this property over 20 years.

Still have no idea why my bills are so high, only myself living here with my daughter 3 days a week. I do work from home, but I turn off the heating in all the rooms except my office, I only shower, fill up the kettle for just the water I need, etc etc etc…

You need to stop thinking in monetary terms, energy costs have increased massively, the rise in the amount you pay is nothing to do with an increased usage and entirely down to the cost of energy rising. 

Your gas usage does seem high unless you have an old inefficient boiler, a poorly insulated home, or a combination of both. Your electricity usage is high for a household of 1.5 people, is your shower heated electric? Do you have an old fridge or freezer? 

Boiler was installed September 2019 (Worcestor Greenstar CDi Compact).
House is a 1930's build, draughty as hell and an ongoing work in progress to try and locate the sources and fix.
Running an older integrated fridge and a fridge freezer, so I'll take a look at what their consumption is.

MattMattMattUK

Si1969 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Si1969 said:

QrizB said:

Si1969 said:

My readings don’t make much sense, well not to me anyway. Don’t see how I can have empty months. Only thing that’s changed in the last year is I had a smart meter fitted about 4 months ago.

You don't have any empty months. When you had your smart meters fitted on the 20th of September they started counting from zero.

Your gas meter was imperial and your new one is metric.

Your electricity meter was dual-rate (E7) and your new one isn't.

And I guess you moved into your property (or at least, started paying the bills) on the 9th of December 2020?

• Your electricity consumption for 14 months is 4022kWh.
• Your gas consumption for 14 months is 20401kWh.

If those were your annual values (they're obviously a bit high):

• On the current cap: £1850/yr, £154/month
• On the new April cap: £2910/yr, £242/month

Allowing for those numbers being a bit high (they include two extra winter months) it seems as though your supplier's new monthly DD of £135 is about right and this might rise to £210/month in April.

Smartmeter fitting is right, but I’ve lived in this property over 20 years.

Still have no idea why my bills are so high, only myself living here with my daughter 3 days a week. I do work from home, but I turn off the heating in all the rooms except my office, I only shower, fill up the kettle for just the water I need, etc etc etc…

You need to stop thinking in monetary terms, energy costs have increased massively, the rise in the amount you pay is nothing to do with an increased usage and entirely down to the cost of energy rising. 

Your gas usage does seem high unless you have an old inefficient boiler, a poorly insulated home, or a combination of both. Your electricity usage is high for a household of 1.5 people, is your shower heated electric? Do you have an old fridge or freezer? 

Boiler was installed September 2019 (Worcestor Greenstar CDi Compact).
House is a 1930's build, draughty as hell and an ongoing work in progress to try and locate the sources and fix.
Running an older integrated fridge and a fridge freezer, so I'll take a look at what their consumption is.

Draughty as hell would probably explain the high energy costs then as you will be haemorrhaging energy/heat. It depends if it is "older" or "old", lots of people seem to keep an old freezer in the garage, or run one well past it's service life and not only were they a lot less efficient 10-20 years ago, but they generally lose efficiency over time as well, some on here have found that their old freezer in the garage was costing them £3+ a day to run. 

I would say that you should make sealing the draughts and insulating an priority, the easiest wins are usually doors and windows with draught tape (slightly foamy, to seal gaps), as well as loft insulation, other wins may be harder to do, but may be badly sealed chimneys, air flow under floorboards etc. 

Gori

Hi there,

I'm London based dual fuel Shell Energy customer paying by Direct Debit.

I just received an email from Shell Energy saying that I'll be moved to their Flexible 7 tariff from 1st April as my current fix is coming to an end on 31st March.

I was expecting substantial increase, however, the prices Shell is quoting to me are even higher than the cap MSE's Energy and Utilities Analyst Chris Knight is mentioning in his recent 'What are the price cap unit rates?' post updated on 8th March.

Ofgem Direct Debit cap for electricity is 28.34 p p/kWh    ----> Flexible 7 tariff for electricity is 29.632 p p/kWh
Ofgem Direct Debit cap for gas is 7.37 p p/kWh ---> Flexible 7 tariff for gas is 7.517 p p/kWh

I was wondering how can that be? Or am I not getting this right?

G

MWT

Gori said:

I was expecting substantial increase, however, the prices Shell is quoting to me are even higher than the cap MSE's Energy and Utilities Analyst Chris Knight is mentioning in his recent 'What are the price cap unit rates?' post updated on 8th March.

Ofgem Direct Debit cap for electricity is 28.34 p p/kWh    ----> Flexible 7 tariff for electricity is 29.632 p p/kWh
Ofgem Direct Debit cap for gas is 7.37 p p/kWh ---> Flexible 7 tariff for gas is 7.517 p p/kWh

I was wondering how can that be? Or am I not getting this right?

The news reports and other generalised statements all simplify the cap down to a single number by taking an average of the regional caps for the typical user on a single rate electricity/gas tariff paying by DD, whereas your quote is showing you the right numbers for your region etc.

So those numbers are within the cap for your region, just that your region is a little more expensive than the national average...

Proview111

MWT said:

Gori said:

I was expecting substantial increase, however, the prices Shell is quoting to me are even higher than the cap MSE's Energy and Utilities Analyst Chris Knight is mentioning in his recent 'What are the price cap unit rates?' post updated on 8th March.

Ofgem Direct Debit cap for electricity is 28.34 p p/kWh    ----> Flexible 7 tariff for electricity is 29.632 p p/kWh
Ofgem Direct Debit cap for gas is 7.37 p p/kWh ---> Flexible 7 tariff for gas is 7.517 p p/kWh

I was wondering how can that be? Or am I not getting this right?

The news reports and other generalised statements all simplify the cap down to a single number by taking an average of the regional caps for the typical user on a single rate electricity/gas tariff paying by DD, whereas your quote is showing you the right numbers for your region etc.

So those numbers are within the cap for your region, just that your region is a little more expensive than the national average...

I should be so lucky I am sitting at home looking out onto the Irish Sea where hundreds of windmills are producing electricity which is being landed close to where I live. Our standing charge has doubled to nearly 48p per day.
my tariff with Shell is now risen to 34.457p and my Economy 7 to 18.387.

In both cases, a rise of over 64%.

QrizB

Proview111 said:

I should be so lucky I am sitting at home looking out onto the Irish Sea where hundreds of windmills are producing electricity which is being landed close to where I live. Our standing charge has doubled to nearly 48p per day.
my tariff with Shell is now risen to 34.457p and my Economy 7 to 18.387.
In both cases, a rise of over 64%.

Shell Flexible 6 was around 27p/kWh for the day rate.

Your increase is about 25%, not 64%.

Proview111

Sorry you are wrong my Shell day figure was 20.95  and night 11.37.
I do not understand why it is 7p above the the quoted  figure of 27p quoted by Ifgem