EDF have upped our monthly DD to £860, equivalent to £10,300 per year for our 3 bedroom semi

mroshaw

Hi!

We've had quite a shock, receiving a letter from EDF to say our monthly direct debit has changed - to £850 per month. That's made up of £370 for electricity, and £487 for gas. Quick maths suggests that we're on the hook for just over £10,300 a year for our energy.

We are a family of 4, three-bedroom semi. The only gas consumption we have is our heating, which is provided by a boiler and heating system replaced about 8 years ago. My wife and I work from home, so have computers on the go most days, but we don't have electric vehicles or anything that we can think would consume that much energy. We have been lax with submitting meter readings, which we think may contribute. The figures involved seem ludicrous though, irrespective of the expected "give" in estimating consumption.

We've spoken to EDF, but they have been unable to clearly communicate how they have derived this, frankly insane, figure. They don't seem to want to do anything to help us with this and have told us that "they'll review again in March". We'll have already paid nearly £5000 by that time. We simply cannot afford to pay that sort of money, and it's causing a lot of stress and anxiety throughout the household. My wife spent over an hour on the phone with them today, following up on the message we sent yesterday, but we're no further forward.

Any advice would be greatly welcomed!

pochase

We will need to know your usage for the last 12 months before we can give any advise.

What was your usage for gas and electricity in KWh?

Are you currently in debt or credit and by how much?

What was your DD before the increase?

[Deleted User]

“We have been lax with submitting meter readings, which we think may contribute” - yes, this is a big contributor in many unusual DD amounts.

Accurate and regular meter readings are the best way to get a more accurate direct debit.

ariarnia

have you actually TOLD them you cannot afford those payments. if you say it will put you into hardship then i think that triggers a different part of the system where someone talks to you about your usage and bills. i think they're so under pressure at the moment that front line customer services might just be on a script and this other hardship service might be more open to you starting to give regular readings over the next few weeks and months to get a better idea of your actual usage. 

there may be some negative reason why going this route might not be good that i don't know about. i'm just basing it on having a similar conversation about disability rather than hardship for a family friend a couple of years ago when the conversation went from computer says no to talking to an actual human about the situation. 

but whatever is agreed you will need to get better at giving regular readings (or have a smart meter installed)

dunstonh

We've spoken to EDF, but they have been unable to clearly communicate how they have derived this, frankly insane, figure. 

The figure should be pretty clear from their letter and knowing what your annual usage is.  We know their tariff.  So, it's just a case of multiplying your ACTUAL annual usage by their tariff.

However, sometimes people don't give the suppliers actual meter readings. So, they may work off estimates which can result in you paying too much or too little.

We have been lax with submitting meter readings, which we think may contribute.

That is probably the root cause.

. The figures involved seem ludicrous though, irrespective of the expected "give" in estimating consumption.

They don't look particularly ludicrous.  But without meter readings to compare, we will never know.   There could also be arrears in that monthly payment (i.e. not paying enough for the past year requiring not only the increase now but to cover the past)

Any advice would be greatly welcomed!

Ok,

1 - From now on, load a diary task/reminder on the same day of each month to do meter readings and submit them to your supplier.
2 - Give us your ACTUAL meter readings (that you have given) and the dates.  We need to cover over a year.  We can then work out what you should be paying.
3 - Get a smart meter (or geo minim) and start to understand how much energy you are using.   Get some smart energy monitoring plugs, like the TAPO 110.    Use these on plugs to measure your use for certain devices.  You will probably find you can make minor changes to things (like turning things off from standby or using eco modes) and reduce your usage.  We reduced our electric use from 20kWh a day to under 10kkWh a day just through minor changes and changing a couple of energy hogs to modern energy efficient items.   For example, computers, monitors, printers and scanners left on standby can continue to use more energy than 10 light bulbs left on constantly.

Knowing your actual use is the first stage to getting accurate payments and finding ways to reduce your use and save money and the environment.

mroshaw

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

We've looked back at two sets of meter readings 12 months apart, and our usage does seem very high:

Gas - 3724 KwH per year
Electricity - 7057 KwH per year

We are now "in credit" having already paid the first DD payment.

The increase is from £274 per month to £863 per month.

We think that EDF has estimated over 22,000 KwH per year just for the gas, which seems pretty significant.

ariarnia

mroshaw said:

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

We've looked back at two sets of meter readings 12 months apart, and our usage does seem very high:

Gas - 3724 KwH per year
Electricity - 7057 KwH per year

We are now "in credit" having already paid the first DD payment.

The increase is from £274 per month to £863 per month.

We think that EDF has estimated over 22,000 KwH per year just for the gas, which seems pretty significant.

just checking if that gas reading is units from the meter or from your bill?

if they are from the meter are you sure they're in kw (most gas meters are in m3 or ft3 and then you have to do a formula to convert them to kilowatts) 

I know a silly question but someone else was caught out by exactly that just recently on a different thread. 

dunstonh

Gas - 3724 KwH per year
Electricity - 7057 KwH per year

Pending clarification on your gas readings, I will ignore gas for now.
Your electricity use puts you at around £2,600 a year, depending on your region.  (£218pm)

You are using 19kWh per day, which is high.  It was similar to what I was using before my changes.  For context, we are an ex-farm with barns/stable blocks requiring 24-hour lighting (not all of which has been converted to LED. Still some strip lighting in place with a run rate of 1kW when turned on.  A very large farmhouse with on-site office with 3 computers, 6 monitors, printer and scanner. An American Fridge Freezer and the washing machine & tumble on most days (farms/horses are mucky places).   There is also an electric horse walker.   Yet we are using half what you do.

It doesn't take long to find out what your energy hogs are and in many cases you can make subtle changes that are easy to do and soon become memory muscle.

1 - get as much lighting on LED bulbs as possible.  You can get modern LED bulbs as low as 2w giving out more light (greater luminance) than older  LED bulbs using 15w.   Beware of chinese cheapy ones on Amazon.  Philips 2w bulbs last longer and give greater luminance but cost a bit more.  Chinese ones will last about 3-4 years before giving up.   If you have halogen bulbs/spotlights, these can be very high users.    Older spotlights can use 64w each.  Often people have rows of these.  We had eight of them.  8x64 was 512w when turned on.  They have all been replaced. Halogen bulbs can usually be replaced with LED bulbs, although some may need a transformer change - not expensive to do in most cases.
2 - Sky Q boxes - the main one needs to stay on 24 hours but the mini boxes dont.  They are hogs on standby and only take 2 minutes to fire back up.
3 - TVs on standby can be hogs.  Especially modern ones which can be turned on by mobile phones/tablets or have google/alexa etc.  Enabling those options, means they are running in the background and could be using 37w when on standby.  Many people dont use those things but the options are still running and drawing power.  These can usually be turned off in the settings.
4 - Old fridge freezers.  Our old American F/F was using over 3kWh per day.  We replaced it with the most energy efficient Amercian F/F available at the moment and it uses around 0.6kWh per day.
5 - Dishwasher.  We never used eco and my wife was prone to running it twice a day.    We used a tapo energy monitoring plug and realised that was responsible for several kWh per day.   Now we use the eco programme and only once a day.  We needed an extra set of plates etc but that isnt expensive.  Eco programmes take longer but now the diswasher uses 0.5kWh per day.
6 - Tumble driers - these can be really heavy. Even if you have an energy-efficient heat pump tumble.    If you havent got a heat pump one and/or use long high temperature programmes then this can account for a quarter to half of your electric use.

Amazon has the Tapo P110 plugs but the price seems to change every few days.    £9.99 per plug is your target.  Argos currently have them at 9.99 but Amazon has put theirs up.    Get a handful of these and change your behaviour. Once you have used them to learn your energy, you can then use them as smart plugs to turn devices/on and off where the plug may not be easily accessible.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1488315

pochase

mroshaw said:

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

We've looked back at two sets of meter readings 12 months apart, and our usage does seem very high:

Gas - 3724 KwH per year
Electricity - 7057 KwH per year

We are now "in credit" having already paid the first DD payment.

The increase is from £274 per month to £863 per month.

We think that EDF has estimated over 22,000 KwH per year just for the gas, which seems pretty significant.

As already mentioned by @ariarnia 3724KWh seems to be extremely low if it is really KWh, that would be less than a third of the "average" of 12000KWh used for the cap and would mean you hardly use heating at all.

Unfortunately your above statements points that gas is units and not KWh if you had a direct debit of £274 and you are only after the first high payment in credit.

The old DD would be a payment £3288 for a 12 months period, but the cost for the energy used would be only £2500, and that is already at the high April cap rate. 

wild666

What was the last 12 months usage costs? Add around 27% to the figure and that should, in theory, give you your next 12 months usage figures if there is no increase in the unit price and SC's.

 mroshaw said:

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

We've looked back at two sets of meter readings 12 months apart, and our usage does seem very high:

Gas - 3724 KwH per year
Electricity - 7057 KwH per year

We are now "in credit" having already paid the first DD payment.

The increase is from £274 per month to £863 per month.

We think that EDF has estimated over 22,000 KwH per year just for the gas, which seems pretty significant.

Using the figures you provided I reckon your next 12 months bills will be around the £3100 mark, using 10.3p and 34p respectively and adding £280 for SC's but that assumes there is no increase in SC's and unit prices for the next 12 months.


The £850 monthly DD is just short of my yearly usage!

[Deleted User]

3724 kWh is possible but wouldn’t seem to match the prices being talked about.

3724 m3 would be over 40000kWh - massive, but possible.

 You seem like a huge consumer of energy!