Oct price cap increase likely to push energy bill to over £10k... for a family of 4...

TheGardener

Searching for hidden electricity usage -  we found an old vent-Axia fan behind a cupboard that was still connected to the mains and switched on! The fan bit had been removed and its filled in with expanding foam/blanking plates so I don't suppose it was drawing any electricity other than the red light on the isolator switch. Also, our motion sensor mains powered security lights were on half the night thanks to a local cat and  - to our surprise - an owl who is in the habit of sitting on our garden fence!! We've since swapped those out for solar ones and have been pretty impressed by how long they light up even in winter. 

PosterBoy77

QrizB said:

mikael said:

One the ways people with EVs will be able to save money is to buy an LPG generator and some bottles of gas to charge them up. Generating your own electricity is going to be cheaper now than buying it from the grid!

I'd like to see your costed analysis for this claim, considering that even in 47kg cylinders LPG costs about 15p/kWh and you'll need to burn 3-4kWh of LPG to generate one kWh of electricity.

Don't forget the cost of servicing of the generator every 100 hours, and amortisation of the generator purchase price over maybe 1-2000 hours of operation.

1Kg of LPG contains 14kWh of chemical energy. Assuming a generator is around 30% efficient, 1kg will burn to provide around 4.5 kWh of electricity. Refilling a bottle costs around £1.64 per kg or if you use Gaslow bottles you can fill them at any garage selling LPG for around 70p per litre (£1.40 per kg) round here. £1.40 / 4.5 = 31p / kWh. With the new price cap costing over 50p/kWh it is now making sense. If it goes higher still next year it will make a lot of sense, especially for businesses.

QrizB

mikael said:

Refilling a bottle costs around £1.64 per kg

Exchanging a bottle costs £50 for 13kg from Calor. That's £3.85 a kg.

mikael said:

... or if you use Gaslow bottles you can fill them at any garage selling LPG for around 70p per litre (£1.40 per kg) round here.

A Gaslow bottle costs at least £160.

£1.40 / 4.5 = 31p / kWh.

Where's your calculation  for the capital cost of an LPG generator (about £1000 for a 3kW one from what I can quickly spot on eBay), servicing etc?

markin

Have you tested the other 3 computers and checked the power settings? 3kwh/day, 63kwh/week.

I'm not sure energy poverty includes working from home, or running a business, So you should deduct travel costs/savings for at least 2 people, Now if you were all unemployed and gaming all day that would be a different matter.

Sea_Shell

MariaAH said:

@Sea_Shell we just checked the loft…definitely no sign of an immersion heater. 

Ok, good.   Just to cover all bases...do you have a large cupboard somewhere in the house that could have held a hot water cylinder?   Has it been converted to wardrobes or formed part of a re-modelled bathroom?   

If you've got a tank sized "hole" somewhere, at least you know its gone!!! 

I know that my sisters old house had been converted to a combi, and so they were left with a large cupboard off the landing, which was being used as a built in wardrobe (rail and shelves)

MariaAH

markin said:

Have you tested the other 3 computers and checked the power settings? 3kwh/day, 63kwh/week.

I'm not sure energy poverty includes working from home, or running a business, So you should deduct travel costs/savings for at least 2 people, Now if you were all unemployed and gaming all day that would be a different matter.

Here is some further clarity on calculation of ‘fuel poverty’;
Son’s business use (gaming PC) and EVs were deducted from the calculation.
My employment is hybrid working since pandemic so expected to only go in twice a week hot desking (I expect many others in same position with companies reducing their office floor spaces). 

You can claim some tax relief fior heat and light if working from home, but it is not a huge amount in comparison to current energy prices and it has not kept up at all with the increasing prices.

A side note… Not mentioned before, but due to redundancy my husband has not been in work since end of June, but starts new job in Oct, albeit on a much lower salary, and again with the expectation of hybrid working. 

EDIT: fuel poverty calculated using husband’s expected salary from Oct, although at the moment we are ‘managing’ on one income (subsidised by dipping into dwindling savings). 

Since the pandemic, working from home is not a luxury since hybrid working is now expected by more and more employers as they reduce the size of their estates to reduce  their own costs. But with increasing  energy prices this is pushing the burden onto employees. 

Also worth noting that a lot of self employed people (the back bone of our country) technically work from home, and again the tax relief available to them for heat and light has not kept up with energy increases. More expenses for a self employed person equates to less profit hence lower income.

Neither working from home (hybrid expected by employer) nor being self employed should preclude you from the calculation of fuel poverty as per the definition of more than 10% of net income.

The other PC (aside from my sons PC is my iMac which is next on list for TP monitor. Husband and daughter have laptops.

MariaAH

Sea_Shell said:

MariaAH said:

@Sea_Shell we just checked the loft…definitely no sign of an immersion heater. 

Ok, good.   Just to cover all bases...do you have a large cupboard somewhere in the house that could have held a hot water cylinder?   Has it been converted to wardrobes or formed part of a re-modelled bathroom?   

If you've got a tank sized "hole" somewhere, at least you know its gone!!! 

I know that my sisters old house had been converted to a combi, and so they were left with a large cupboard off the landing, which was being used as a built in wardrobe (rail and shelves)

I can’t remember exactly as we had heating done 9 years ago literally as we moved into current home. But I believe it may be the cupboard on the landing that we use to store towels and bed linen in the upper part, and suitcases in the lower part. Suspect that ‘may’ have been the cupboard that housed the immersion heater?

Sea_Shell

MariaAH said:

Sea_Shell said:

MariaAH said:

@Sea_Shell we just checked the loft…definitely no sign of an immersion heater. 

Ok, good.   Just to cover all bases...do you have a large cupboard somewhere in the house that could have held a hot water cylinder?   Has it been converted to wardrobes or formed part of a re-modelled bathroom?   

If you've got a tank sized "hole" somewhere, at least you know its gone!!! 

I know that my sisters old house had been converted to a combi, and so they were left with a large cupboard off the landing, which was being used as a built in wardrobe (rail and shelves)

I can’t remember exactly as we had heating done 9 years ago literally as we moved into current home. But I believe it may be the cupboard on the landing that we use to store towels and bed linen in the upper part, and suitcases in the lower part. Suspect that ‘may’ have been the cupboard that housed the immersion heater?

Sounds exactly like an ex-hot water tank size "hole"!! 👍

PosterBoy77

QrizB said:

mikael said:

Refilling a bottle costs around £1.64 per kg

Exchanging a bottle costs £50 for 13kg from Calor. That's £3.85 a kg.

mikael said:

... or if you use Gaslow bottles you can fill them at any garage selling LPG for around 70p per litre (£1.40 per kg) round here.

A Gaslow bottle costs at least £160.

£1.40 / 4.5 = 31p / kWh.

Where's your calculation  for the capital cost of an LPG generator (about £1000 for a 3kW one from what I can quickly spot on eBay), servicing etc?

You don't need to exchange bottles with Calor, you can get them refilled with other suppliers.

You can buy a used Gaslow bottle for less.

Ebay is not the best place to find new generators. A quick search on Google will locate you new ones for £650. You can also buy used ones and conversion kits for petrol ones which are commonly available used. There is undoubtedly a capital cost, but unlike buying electricity, if you buy a generator you can sell it on when not required without suffering a big loss, unlike electricity.

This idea is obviously not for you, as you can only see the most expensive way of achieving this setup. However for some people it could work very well., for instance a taxi driver. If the price cap goes up to 70p then there could be a 40p /kWh saving in terms of fuel costs, and around 20p at present. Assuming an electric car will cover 2 miles per kWh, a generous capital outlay of £1000 will be covered by 8000 miles of driving now, and 4000 miles of driving when the cap rises again. However the reality is of course much better, as the capital cost will be recoverable by a large amount if you chose to go back to using grid supplied electricity.

username

MariaAH said:

markin said:

Have you tested the other 3 computers and checked the power settings? 3kwh/day, 63kwh/week.

I'm not sure energy poverty includes working from home, or running a business, So you should deduct travel costs/savings for at least 2 people, Now if you were all unemployed and gaming all day that would be a different matter.

Here is some further clarity on calculation of ‘fuel poverty’;
Son’s business use (gaming PC) and EVs were deducted from the calculation.
My employment is hybrid working since pandemic so expected to only go in twice a week hot desking (I expect many others in same position with companies reducing their office floor spaces). 

You can claim some tax relief fior heat and light if working from home, but it is not a huge amount in comparison to current energy prices and it has not kept up at all with the increasing prices.

A side note… Not mentioned before, but due to redundancy my husband has not been in work since end of June, but starts new job in Oct, albeit on a much lower salary, and again with the expectation of hybrid working. 

EDIT: fuel poverty calculated using husband’s expected salary from Oct, although at the moment we are ‘managing’ on one income (subsidised by dipping into dwindling savings). 

Since the pandemic, working from home is not a luxury since hybrid working is now expected by more and more employers as they reduce the size of their estates to reduce  their own costs. But with increasing  energy prices this is pushing the burden onto employees. 

Also worth noting that a lot of self employed people (the back bone of our country) technically work from home, and again the tax relief available to them for heat and light has not kept up with energy increases. More expenses for a self employed person equates to less profit hence lower income.

Neither working from home (hybrid expected by employer) nor being self employed should preclude you from the calculation of fuel poverty as per the definition of more than 10% of net income.

The other PC (aside from my sons PC is my iMac which is next on list for TP monitor. Husband and daughter have laptops.

I seem to recall back in the thread that you used your Mac for work Zoom/Teams video calls etc.

These kind of activities are more intensive on the the processor, and so consume marginally more energy; if the machine is older the processor will have to be driven harder.

If you are able to just use old-fashioned phone calls (or audio only) if you do not need to be on the camera it could shave a small amount off (especially if these types of things drag on for hours, which sometimes they do, and unnecessarily so). Obviously if you are in an organiastion which mandates you must be in shot during the meeting then feel free to ignore.