How much is considered expensive electricity to people

mumf

I will ask this question not as judgement,but simply curiosity. I am asking about electric,not gas. We don’t have gas here. 

   We are in a cottage,with doors! 🤣 and it’s not a five bedroom Italian tiled pretend one! 

 Until my terminal illness took over,the majority of our heating was solid fuel. Totally free logs for thirty years,and coal was purchased from our local merchant. 

    Now I am ill,the stoves have been removed and replaced with rather excellent electric remote control varieties .This means no sweeping anymore,no log and coal deliveries and stacking and so forth👍 It is quickly warm when needed.
   We’ve always had wall electrified radiators in each room when needed,so heating is excellent. 

On top we have regular and timed water heating,heated shower,cooking, two fridge and freezers,and everything else one plugs in. In particular we use regularly a washing drier after clothes are washed. And without stressing about it too. 

So basically,no coal saves us between £20 to £23 per week at peak Winter these days. 

This Winter since late we have used electricity only. Along with all other things electric on top of heating,our bill averages ( with VAT) £40 per week. We are low income,but still think this isn’t bad. 

How do other folks go on? 

MultiFuelBurner

£1200 for the year actually a lot less this year for other reasons 5.8p kWh for electricity.6000-6500kwh a year depending on weather.

But if it had been a normal year with no referrals or enticements then roughly a budget of £100 a month for a 5 bedroom modern house with ASHP occupied 24/7 so heating on 24/7 to 21-22oC

Everyone can achieve this if they are able to take advantage of the ASHP grant, have a smart meter and apply themselves to the best smart meter tariff for them probably with Octopus.

Explaining it sometimes makes people think it's too good to be true but in the words of Micky Flanagan "Believe it sister !!"

Edit - I would agree though it's meaningless comparing your use against someone else's and what they feel is too much as there are so many variables.

TheElectricCow

It’s a very difficult one to make comparisons on as naturally everyone’s needs/property/lifestyle/tariffs are going to be very different from one another.

Personally, my usage costs this year for a modestly sized quite new 1 bed flat have averaged £61.90 per month for November-February, and that’s quite high for me due to having chosen a fixed tariff previously rather than going for potentially riskier but cheaper variable tariffs. Although technically the savings made from taking part in this winter’s Demand Flexibility Service program will offset that average to around £49 per month. Now on a more favourable tariff, my estimated cost for March is around £40.

I am of course a very poor example of a typical consumer though - I generally economise as much as possible, and in my household space heating simply isn’t a necessity. Biggest energy consumption in winter is hot water heating as I do enjoy longer showers than most, but I am very fortunate to live quite comfortably in my current situation.

To me £40 per week on energy alone is an insane amount of money to spend and I don’t think I could use that much even if I tried. But for someone else in a different place with a different household that may well be a very reasonable expense - in fact, Ofgem agrees as that figure puts you quite close to the current UK energy cost for a “typical user” who spends £1,928 per year or £37.08 per week.

EssexHebridean

These comparisons are meaningless - as already stated there are simply too many variables. While there is a chance of a “feel good factor” from those responding having bills higher than the OP, I’m afraid on these boards there is also a very good chance of the majority having LOWER use, which may make the comparisons rather less favourable! 

born_again

As above.
But to pull one line from OP

  We’ve always had wall electrified radiators in each room when needed,so heating is excellent. 

Now are these storage heater running on E7 or panel heater running at std rate?

Which is going to make a massive difference on running costs.

dunstonh

We pay about £3264 a year for electricity (heating is oil - so apart from the pump, the heating is not electric).

In proper terms, that is about 14,800 kWH per year.   A typical low day is about  7kWh and a typical high day is 60kWh.

EssexHebridean

born_again said:

As above.
But to pull one line from OP

  We’ve always had wall electrified radiators in each room when needed,so heating is excellent. 

Now are these storage heater running on E7 or panel heater running at std rate?

Which is going to make a massive difference on running costs.

Most likely panel heaters as NSH’s don’t work on a “heat when needed” basis unless they are the type with expensive “boost” options - as these were by the sound of it installed when the fire was the main source of the OP’s heating then they maybe that type, but it would seem to be an expensive way of acquiring what is essentially being used as a panel heater anyway. 

t0rt0ise

I think of anything over about 15p per kWh as expensive.

Spoonie_Turtle

t0rt0ise said:

I think of anything over about 15p per kWh as expensive.

I initially thought this was going to be a unit rate question too   I've been gritting my teeth with Tracker flirting with the 20p mark!  (Have reasons for not switching to Agile.)

For the OP, we're fairly heavy users (can't even really blame the heating as the heat pump is the most efficient form of electric heating) and the past couple of weeks have been around £40/week.  Some weeks recently were more like £30.  But that's on Octopus Tracker so on the standard variable tariff would have been a fair bit more expensive; the actual kWh usage has varied between 175kWh and nearly 300 (not sure why, that week - perhaps more showers), although most often in the low 200s.

Alnat1

I haven't had to pay for any energy (gas and electricity) since the solar/battery was installed in Mar 2022 and account is around £200 in credit as we start to hit the sunnier months.

For me, paying anything would feel expensive!

Xbigman

I'm surprised no one has pointed out that annual usage is best looked as kwh and not money. How many kwh per year is the op talking about. Electric heating working out cheaper than a wood burner doesn't sound quite right, even if it was being topped up with coal.




Darren