Cost of living reporting

ed110220

JKenH said:

We forget just how tuned in most of us on MSE are to the cost of living - my wife doesn’t give energy usage a second thought. I don’t think she would have any idea how much electricity a year we use. That’s fine as I take care of it but I wonder how many families never have given it any thought until now. 

When it comes down to it though energy is still pretty cheap. Probably the average electricity bill costs no more a day than a single coffee from Starbucks or a sandwich from Pret.

Edit: some historical data

That chart ends in 2015 which is pretty ancient in energy terms. More recent stats paint a different picture, especially if you look at poorer households. For example according to Age UK the poorest 10% of older households have will have seen their % of household expenditure on energy almost double from 12% in 2001 to 22% at Oct 2022 prices. The fifth decile of older households will have gone from 5% to 9%.


See: www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/reports-and-briefings/safe-at-home/estimating-the-impact-of-the-april-2022-energy-price-cap-rise-on-older-households-in-england.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjq5cW0hfb2AhUSV8AKHUitA9wQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2RB8ANc8DjcEK2ygWWLfxQ

But it's worth considering this is just part of a cost of living crisis which has seen the sharpest drop in standards of living since comparable stats started in the 1950s, with housing costs rising massively especially. On top of ~15 years of slow, stagnant or negative standards of living growth.

shinytop

ed110220 said:

JKenH said:

We forget just how tuned in most of us on MSE are to the cost of living - my wife doesn’t give energy usage a second thought. I don’t think she would have any idea how much electricity a year we use. That’s fine as I take care of it but I wonder how many families never have given it any thought until now. 

When it comes down to it though energy is still pretty cheap. Probably the average electricity bill costs no more a day than a single coffee from Starbucks or a sandwich from Pret.

Edit: some historical data

That chart ends in 2015 which is pretty ancient in energy terms. More recent stats paint a different picture, especially if you look at poorer households. For example according to Age UK the poorest 10% of older households have will have seen their % of household expenditure on energy almost double from 12% in 2001 to 22% at Oct 2022 prices. The fifth decile of older households will have gone from 5% to 9%.


See: www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/reports-and-briefings/safe-at-home/estimating-the-impact-of-the-april-2022-energy-price-cap-rise-on-older-households-in-england.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjq5cW0hfb2AhUSV8AKHUitA9wQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2RB8ANc8DjcEK2ygWWLfxQ

But it's worth considering this is just part of a cost of living crisis which has seen the sharpest drop in standards of living since comparable stats started in the 1950s, with housing costs rising massively especially. On top of ~15 years of slow, stagnant or negative standards of living growth.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  There are a small number of households who need well-targeted help with the increased energy bills.  The other 90% are, unfortunately, going to have to make sacrifices and/or wear more jumpers. 

michaels

shinytop said:

ed110220 said:

JKenH said:

We forget just how tuned in most of us on MSE are to the cost of living - my wife doesn’t give energy usage a second thought. I don’t think she would have any idea how much electricity a year we use. That’s fine as I take care of it but I wonder how many families never have given it any thought until now. 

When it comes down to it though energy is still pretty cheap. Probably the average electricity bill costs no more a day than a single coffee from Starbucks or a sandwich from Pret.

Edit: some historical data

That chart ends in 2015 which is pretty ancient in energy terms. More recent stats paint a different picture, especially if you look at poorer households. For example according to Age UK the poorest 10% of older households have will have seen their % of household expenditure on energy almost double from 12% in 2001 to 22% at Oct 2022 prices. The fifth decile of older households will have gone from 5% to 9%.


See: www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/reports-and-briefings/safe-at-home/estimating-the-impact-of-the-april-2022-energy-price-cap-rise-on-older-households-in-england.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjq5cW0hfb2AhUSV8AKHUitA9wQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2RB8ANc8DjcEK2ygWWLfxQ

But it's worth considering this is just part of a cost of living crisis which has seen the sharpest drop in standards of living since comparable stats started in the 1950s, with housing costs rising massively especially. On top of ~15 years of slow, stagnant or negative standards of living growth.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  There are a small number of households who need well-targeted help with the increased energy bills.  The other 90% are, unfortunately, going to have to make sacrifices and/or wear more jumpers. 

I think the OP is bang on the money - I have been on many boards where there is discussion about unplugging phone chargers - unless you have a really ancient one then their effective draw is nil when not charging - oh yes and my personal favourite, people who charge their phone in the car or at work to save money or wanted to make sure their electric toothbrushes were charged before the latest energy price increase on 1st April....

JKenH

Anticipating that my electricity rate was going up I went round the house with an Energenie plug meter and found just over 100 watts of savings from switching things off at the plug. (Obscure things like a redundant TV amplifier in the loft, radio and set top box in the garage. If something is using just 1 watt it’s 8.76 kWh pa.) That’s around 75kwh/month or 900 kWh/year. Solar probably covers half of my daily baseload for around 8 months of the year so for those 8 months that’s 300 kWh consumption but the other half of the year I have very high solar utilisation so solar would save me very little so there is another, say, 250 kWh used those months which gives me 550kwh in total or around 10% of my annual consumption from the grid. I am already seeing the benefit of it when I look at my IHD first thing in a morning.

On a 5.5/13.3p/kWh rate that’s only around £50 saving but when I go onto the new Octopus rates it will be around £100 pa saving. 

Edit: correction from amp to watt. Thanks to the board member who pointed that out.

EricMears

On the BBC East Midlands news bulletin they interviewed a disabled chap who had decided not to use his electric mobility scooter because charging it had become too expensive.  I found it very difficult to get an accurate idea of battery capacities, running costs etc but find it very hard to believe that running one would be as much as one penny per mile and probably even less.

QrizB

EricMears said:

On the BBC East Midlands news bulletin they interviewed a disabled chap who had decided not to use his electric mobility scooter because charging it had become too expensive.  I found it very difficult to get an accurate idea of battery capacities, running costs etc but find it very hard to believe that running one would be as much as one penny per mile and probably even less.

Most of them seem to have a pair of 12v lead-acid batteries in the 7-20 Ah range.

Two 20 Ah batteries will in total hold around half a kilowatt-hour, worth 14p. Even with charging losses it's likely to cost less than 20p to charge.

2nd_time_buyer

It is pretty morally bankrupt...

Send a BBC reporting team at a cost of several thousands pounds to record someone saying they don't have enough money for a mobility aid. Where in fact the running cost is probably less then £40 a year.

ed110220

QrizB said:

EricMears said:

On the BBC East Midlands news bulletin they interviewed a disabled chap who had decided not to use his electric mobility scooter because charging it had become too expensive.  I found it very difficult to get an accurate idea of battery capacities, running costs etc but find it very hard to believe that running one would be as much as one penny per mile and probably even less.

Most of them seem to have a pair of 12v lead-acid batteries in the 7-20 Ah range.

Two 20 Ah batteries will in total hold around half a kilowatt-hour, worth 14p. Even with charging losses it's likely to cost less than 20p to charge.

Unfortunately a lot of the media is hopeless on reporting on anything vaguely to do with science or technology. Even something as simple as the cost of running different appliances, which would be of public benefit.

I stand by what I said about the energy crisis coming on top of a cost of housing and general cost of living crisis that has been building since the financial crisis, and some people are really struggling, but it doesn't help when the media fail to inform people about the difference between say charging a wheelchair which is very cheap and say an electric heater which could be expensive if used much.

No wonder a lot of the public is poorly informed about these things.

paul991

i am a  electrician ,it can be  very hard to find out what energy a appliance is actually using with out  measuring it yourself the information plate can be on the back of a large appliance in a not easily accessible place also it will only tell you the maximum draw not what is likely to be used in normal use,small appliances chargers etc  the writing is so small.

JKenH

You can use an energenie meter plug which you plug into your socket and then plug the device into it. Other brands are available (I suspect).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Energenie-429-856UK-Power-Meter/dp/B003ELLGDC/ref=asc_df_B003ELLGDC/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=232000808334&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14814420776612780159&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046232&hvtargid=pla-421167192880&psc=1