Vast bill from Eon Next

Bernie_G_in_the_East

I wanted to get some advice if possible.  I have an issue with my former electricity supplier Eon Next and I'm not sure how to handle it. 

I'm a high electricity user - we  heat our home and hot water with a ground source heat pump.  From 2019 to March 2022, we averaged around 25KWH per day. The meter was read at the end of March 2022.  The rest of 2022 and early 2023 were estimated bills (please don't kick me for not checking, I have done this to myself already).  It wasn't until April 2023 the meter was read and the average usage from March 22 to April 23 climbed to 91kwh per day. This is a massive increase and obviously also a massive cost. 

To cut a long and involved story short, following discussions about the impossibilty of my usage rising so drastically I agreed with Eon to install a smart meter in Nov 2023.  From Nov 23 to Jan 24 the new meter showed around 50kwh on average - this was during cold winter months, so is not inconsistant with the previous 25kwh for average daily consumption over the full year.  

What do I do now?  I contacted Eon with the analysis above and they came back today. They are writing off the difference between estimated and actual usage older that 12 months ago (back-billing protection).  That's nice but my point is that there is no way that we could have used 91kwh a day.  Eon hasn't addressed this and as the offending meter has been swapped I can't prove it was faulty.  I would contend that my usage remained the same, and hence they should write off usage over 25KWH per day.

Any advice (other than check all estimated bills immediately) would be gratefully received.

MultiFuelBurner

I would suggest you get a full years data with the new smart meter then assess your usage per month rather than a blanket yearly average per day figure. As energy use is seasonally variable.

See if Eon will accept that.if I was contesting a potential faulty meter than not longer exists then Eon should be amenable to that and if they are not ask for the deadlock letter on the complaint and take it to the ombudsman service.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

If you'd come here in mid 2023, we'd have advised you to keep the old meter but have a check meter installed. This would have proved whether or not the old meter was faulty and would have given you evidence to challenge it's readings. Sadly by allowing EON to replatit with a smart meter, the old one has gone for recycling and that avenue is lost.

I think MultiFuelBurner has suggested your most likely avenue to take, given where you are now.

matelodave

As MFB has suggested your average of 25kwh/day bears not a lot of relationship to your actual use over specific periods - especially in the winter.

You need to monitor your consumption much more closely, with meter readings at least monthly to determine your energy consumption profile. Regular readings also help you determine if something is going awry which you can sort out easily before it gets difficult or, as in your case, nigh on impossible  (in fact it's how we discovered a leak in the underground water pipe by noticing a dramatic increase in our monthly water meter readings)

We are similar with an average of 20 kwh/day over the year (but in months like December through to February it can be closer to 40kwh/day with some days peaking at around 60kwh if its everso cold. We have an Air Source Heat Pump which is more susceptible to weather variations than a GSHP so yours might not be quite as dramatic but in principle you use more in the winter than the summer.

We use roughly 7300kwh/year of which 70% or around 5000kw in the five months between November to March = 5000kwh/150days  or an average of 33kwh/day.

Even now you've got a smart meter, its still worth while checking your monthly statements and making sure that your readings are being used by your supplier (I also download PDFs of mine and save them - just in case summat goes wrong in the future)

Bernie_G_in_the_East

Thanks all.  I will (in fact from November I have been) keep detailed records of usage from now on.  This would have been useful, but matelodave's experience shows that my assumtion that 50kwh on average in Dec and Jan is consistent with 25 kwh full year - or at least closer to 25 than to 90kwh. 

I will definately follow MultiFuelBurne's advice - if something interesting comes out of it I'll return to this thread for an update.

If it were only a few hundred pounds I'd eat the cost as penance for my slovenly approach to estimated bills, but they originally wanted over 7k, on top of the 260pm I have paid them by DDM in the period..