Meter Reading and KWh

caveman38

Why don't meter readings and units used equate exactly to KWh used. I

find that each unit on different quarterly bill can be 31.75, 31.91 0r 32.08 KWh for each unit - why?

21/01/2022	6427	6271 kWh
27/10/2021	6228	1584 kWh
09/08/2021	6178	2875 kWh
21/04/2021	6087	7582 kWh
20/01/2021	5847	6223 kWh
09/11/2020	5648	3176 kWh
03/08/2020	5549	1915 kWh
22/04/2020	5489	5875 kWh
23/01/2020	5304	166720 kWh

Ultrasonic

For electricity meters the numbers should exactly tally but there will be small differences depending on the time of day each value was taken. It's not totally clear what all of your numbers are, and honestly I suspect that where it looks like there are big differences this is probably down to errors on your part, either in readings, calculations or typos (the last row surely?)

Ultrasonic

Oh, and be careful not to be thrown by any 'Estimated' numbers on a bill.

Gerry1

The 'strength' of the gas varies all the time so a 'Calorific Value' adjustment has to be made to your cubic feet readings to make sure you are billed correctly for the kWh you have used.  Think of it like a Bureau de Change exchange rate.

Look at your last bill and you'll see that 39.2 was the Calorific Value that was used.

caveman38

My readings are for Gas. Date, Meter Reading & KWh charged. There are no errors to the readings and my question was for example if each unit represented 31KWh then why would say 100 units = 3,100KWh and not 3,150 one quarter and 3,175 on another. 
Gerry's answer is the one that explains it although I don't understand why.

Ultrasonic

caveman38 said:

My readings are for Gas. Date, Meter Reading & KWh charged. There are no errors to the readings and my question was for example if each unit represented 31KWh then why would say 100 units = 3,100KWh and not 3,150 one quarter and 3,175 on another. 
Gerry's answer is the one that explains it although I don't understand why.

Gas meters don't show kWh but a volume of gas in cubic meters or cubic feet. I'd thought you must have meant electricity as you made no mention of any sort of conversion  .

Gerry1

caveman38 said:

Gerry's answer is the one that explains it although I don't understand why.

It's the equivalent of a petrol station having just one pump.  One month they get a delivery from a tanker filled with two star fuel.  The next week they get a delivery of five star, so the price shown on the totem has to go up a bit. 

Astria

https://www.nationalgrid.com/gas-transmission/data-and-operations/calorific-value-cv

badmemory

Gerry1 said:

The 'strength' of the gas varies all the time so a 'Calorific Value' adjustment has to be made to your cubic feet readings to make sure you are billed correctly for the kWh you have used.  Think of it like a Bureau de Change exchange rate.

Look at your last bill and you'll see that 39.2 was the Calorific Value that was used.

Is the date you are referring to the Jan one.  My last bill which covered mid Dec to 31st Mar had the highest ever calorific value I have ever seen & that was for the full period.  It was 39.8, I really don';t remember even a one month bill having higher than 39.6.  If it really was only 39.2 in Jan then that would mean that at least one of the later months was over 40.   Can this be real or have I just been ripped off.

caveman38

Thanks everybody. I thought I was educated but it is far from a simple process to assess a bill  with so may elements in the math. The simple bit is the conclusion, that it is darn expensive.

JGB1955

The CV can be anything between 38 and 41.  See Gas meter readings and bill calculation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)