Shell Energy Advice

ariarnia

Pedz11 said:

Thank you all for your advice.  With the DD discount, I was not aware I was receiving one and looking at my last bill, I cannot see it showing anywhere.  Is this a universal benefit or does it depend on the supplier?  

the discount is a universal thing but the exact rates can vary between suppliers a little. 

basically the rate you pay for your energy depends on the way you pay. the headline caps you see on the news are based on paying by direct debit (either the same amount monthly or the hole bill monthly). 

then people with pre-pay meters or who pay with there card after having a bill (like you now) will have a differnt rate. 

here's the mse guide (but again these might not be your exact rates. there just an average) 



https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-is-the-energy-price-cap/


and about your dd and usage. 

5,803kwh * 0.34 = £1973
0.46 * 365 = £168

11,123kwh*0.10 = £1112
0.285*365 = £104

so thats an annual cost (at todays price) of about £3,358 or about £280

then remember that the cost is expected to going up by about 20% on 1 april (actual prices to be announced on 27 feb) then you should probably expect to pay about £4050 a year/about £340 a month. 

£400 a month for your level of use AND to pay back £1000 of debt doesn't seem completely unreasonable. 

(then add in if you want to that it was a very mind year this year with only a couple of very cold spells so you might want to pay a bit more if you can just in case its colder next year) 

EssexHebridean

OK - while your gas use is somewhere around the mythical "typical" figure - your electricity is way higher. I have just done a very quick and dirty and it looks like on your current use, and on current unit rates, your DD should be a minimum of roughly £290 a month to cover use. Then of course you need to factor in that likely 20% increase from April - while their £400 looks on the high side, your £200 is definitely too low, and you've only been getting away with that because of the Government help through this winter. 

As an aside - no energy supplier is currently making the huge profits you suggest - they are capped at a maximum of 2% profit. Shell Energy in fact are currently looking likely to be jumping out of the UK energy market due to the losses they have incurred - and no, before you say it, this is nothing to do with why they are increasing your DD amount either!    it should also be pointed out that the unit prices that are currently being charged to consumers are hugely subsidised - if you are in any doubt about what you could have been paying, check what your current unit rates are prior to adjustment for the EPG! 

Time to start working out why your electricity use is so high, I'd suggest. If you could halve that, then this would bring your "reasonable" DD down to closer to your £200 mark. have a think about what you might use in the house that is pushing your use up - are you using electric heaters instead of the gas central heating, for example? Do you have people in the house using electric showers for extended periods of time? Any fish tanks, garden pond pumps, an immersion heater being used to heat water rather than using the gas boiler? Or maybe a very old American style fridge freezer? 

pochase

@EssexHebridean
 Well explained.but you are missingt the £1000 debt @Pedz11 mentioned in their second post.

So it is the £290 you calculated, plus £83 for recovering the debt over the next 12 months, which is generous as many suppliers even try to recover over 6 months.

Add to that just the increase we will get in April. Just lets look only at the electricty for now, lets say 7p for the 20% increase. That is another £34.

So £290 + £83 + £34 = £407. Asking for a £400 direct debit is spot on.

EssexHebridean

pochase said:

@EssexHebridean
 Well explained.but you are missingt the £1000 debt @Pedz11 mentioned in their second post.

So it is the £280 you calculated, plus £83 for recovering the debt over the next 12 months, which is generous as many supplieres even try to recove rover 6 months.

Add to that just the increase we will get in April. Just lets look only at the electricty for now, lets say 7p for the 20% increase. That is another £34.

So £280 + £83 + £34 = £397. Asking for a £400 direct debit is spot on.

Ouchy - yes indeed I did - thank you! 

I saved you the work of the actual energy use side though!  

Pedz11

Again, superb advice.  Bit of an update, I got back in touch with them via web chat and they instantly agreed to a new DD of £220 so I reinstated my old DD mandate.  They also explained the DD discount (£4 per month, per product) sits within the unit rate as kindly explained above.  Fed back to them that they should make this clearer on bills. 

As I now have a clear picture of what I'm actually using, I will work to reduce usage even further and increase my DD down the line when possible.  Apart from the kids leaving lights on (constant battle!), we have a small 25L cold water fish tank and a combi-gas boiler.  We do however have an older style American Fridge Freezer which could be a big leach by the sounds of it so I will look to change that.  Otherwise, we hardly use the oven as we have an air fryer like a lot of other people nowadays. Temp is set 19 degrees constantly heating wise.

Regarding their profits, the parent companies of these energy suppliers are making huge profits, its all over the web which is my point.  Hate to imagine what will happen in April when they increase our bills, hopefully the time of year will offset some of it as usage should be lower.

To close this off, I know there are people in a much worse position then me, the government help is great but what really needs to happen is free energy for all.  I'm sure as a species, we have the technical ability to do this and do it relatively cheaply, but, I fear those making money from each and every one of us currently, would do anything to stop this happening.

ariarnia

Pedz11 said:

As I now have a clear picture of what I'm actually using, I will work to reduce usage even further and increase my DD down the line when possible.  Apart from the kids leaving lights on (constant battle!), we have a small 25L cold water fish tank and a combi-gas boiler.  We do however have an older style American Fridge Freezer which could be a big leach by the sounds of it so I will look to change that.  Otherwise, we hardly use the oven as we have an air fryer like a lot of other people nowadays. Temp is set 19 degrees constantly heating wise.

what you normally see in the news are energy producers (the people who actually drill for the oil and things like that). they are completely separate from the energy suppliers that you pay each month. as essex says, energy suppliers are limited to about a 2% profit by the price set by ofgem and a lot of them have been making a loss for at least part of the year until the gov stepped into help as they were required to sell energy at less than they could buy it (which is why so many collapsed). 

but on a more constructive note. there have been a few threads where people have tried to track down whats using there energy (some quite sucessfully) so they might be interesting for you. theres also plug in energy monitors that you can get to test things like your freezer/computer etc

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6394220/tapo-p110/p1

[Deleted User]

Pedz11 said:

Again, superb advice.  Bit of an update, I got back in touch with them via web chat and they instantly agreed to a new DD of £220 so I reinstated my old DD mandate.  They also explained the DD discount (£4 per month, per product) sits within the unit rate as kindly explained above.  Fed back to them that they should make this clearer on bills. 

As I now have a clear picture of what I'm actually using, I will work to reduce usage even further and increase my DD down the line when possible.  Apart from the kids leaving lights on (constant battle!), we have a small 25L cold water fish tank and a combi-gas boiler.  We do however have an older style American Fridge Freezer which could be a big leach by the sounds of it so I will look to change that.  Otherwise, we hardly use the oven as we have an air fryer like a lot of other people nowadays. Temp is set 19 degrees constantly heating wise.

Regarding their profits, the parent companies of these energy suppliers are making huge profits, its all over the web which is my point.  Hate to imagine what will happen in April when they increase our bills, hopefully the time of year will offset some of it as usage should be lower.

To close this off, I know there are people in a much worse position than me, the government help is great but what really needs to happen is free energy for all.  I'm sure as a species, we have the technical ability to do this and do it relatively cheaply, but, I fear those making money from each and every one of us currently, would do anything to stop this happening.

The parent companies of BP and Shell, for example, are not British companies. They are international companies making profits across the World. Only 5% of Shell’s income comes from its UK operations.  I believe that the Government already taxes them at 40% for the profits made in the UK. Bear in mind that many of the dividends that these companies pay goes into insurance funds that pay future pensions. I appreciate that this is little comfort when retail energy prices are so high.

EssexHebridean

Pedz11 said:

Again, superb advice.  Bit of an update, I got back in touch with them via web chat and they instantly agreed to a new DD of £220 so I reinstated my old DD mandate.  They also explained the DD discount (£4 per month, per product) sits within the unit rate as kindly explained above.  Fed back to them that they should make this clearer on bills. 

As I now have a clear picture of what I'm actually using, I will work to reduce usage even further and increase my DD down the line when possible.  Apart from the kids leaving lights on (constant battle!), we have a small 25L cold water fish tank and a combi-gas boiler.  We do however have an older style American Fridge Freezer which could be a big leach by the sounds of it so I will look to change that.  Otherwise, we hardly use the oven as we have an air fryer like a lot of other people nowadays. Temp is set 19 degrees constantly heating wise.

Regarding their profits, the parent companies of these energy suppliers are making huge profits, its all over the web which is my point.  Hate to imagine what will happen in April when they increase our bills, hopefully the time of year will offset some of it as usage should be lower.

To close this off, I know there are people in a much worse position then me, the government help is great but what really needs to happen is free energy for all.  I'm sure as a species, we have the technical ability to do this and do it relatively cheaply, but, I fear those making money from each and every one of us currently, would do anything to stop this happening.

Allowing for the debt, you do need to realise that your £220 DD not only isn't going to see you make any inroads into the debt any time soon, it's currently not even covering your use - so you do need to find extra to throw at it as well as working to reduce use.  It's good that you are back on DD rates though.

At the moment, for context, your electricity use is somewhere around double the "typical" use for a household - although that in itself is a rather arbitrary figure.  As long as the lights are all low energy LED by the way, those being left on won't be contributing much to the overall costs!  One culprit someone did find on a thread a while ago though was the little recessed spotlights so many folk have these days - the GU10 type have always traditionally been 50w, so if you have a few of those in a room where the lights are on a lot that can be a big issue. Well worth switching out for LED versions. 

The DD rate isn't a "discount" and it's not a set amount per fuel either. It's simply that the unit rates and standing charges are lower for those who pay on DD. 

pochase

Make sure that you put money aside to cover the bills, they are not covered by your DD. 

Quick and dirty calculation
SC Electricity - £12
SC Gas - £8
Electrcity use 5812/12=484KWh x 34p = £165
Gas use in winter 2000KWhpm x 10.3p = £206
----------------------------------------------------------------
Total use for February/March = £391

That means you are increasing your debt by £171 per month. Once youstop using the heating your gas usage will come down, but at this point elvtricity will go up by 20% in April. So you will pay £218 for your electrcity use plus the two standing charges. There is not even enough to cover the small gas use for how water in summer with the remainung £2, you will still be increasing your debt.

Grandad2b

EssexHebridean said:

As an aside - no energy supplier is currently making the huge profits you suggest - they are capped at a maximum of 2% profit. Shell Energy in fact are currently looking likely to be jumping out of the UK energy market due to the losses they have incurred 

You've swallowed the BS hook line and sinker. Shell ARE making huge profits out of the gas they extract and sell to Shell Energy. Can you buy shares in Shell Energy? No, of course you can't; they're part of Shell. It's exactly like the relationship between BT, Openreach, Plusnet and EE. You can buy shares in BT, none of the others.

[Deleted User] said

The parent companies of BP and Shell, for example, are not British companies. They are international companies making profits across the World. Only 5% of Shell’s income comes from its UK operations.  I believe that the Government already taxes them at 40% for the profits made in the UK. Bear in mind that many of the dividends that these companies pay goes into insurance funds that pay future pensions. I appreciate that this is little comfort when retail energy prices are so high.

So when Shell and BP report massive profits are those their worldwide profits or just the profits from their UK operations?
(I think I know the answer but it would be nice to have it confirmed).

If it's worldwide profit then the likes of Sir Kier Starmer are effectively saying to multinationals "Don't be based in Britain". That may not be what they want to hear.