Solar panels on a housing association home.

Krakkkers

Are you in debt or credit as the figures you have given for gas and electricity are not that high?

Krakkkers

Do your bills show an estimated annual usage figure?

Scot_39

You have a 1kWp (nominal power) array - on a brightish day - or rather at the rated bightness - they will produce c1kW of power.

It should more than cover daylight TV - but not larger power draws - like kettles, cooking by electric oven, electric shower ?

That should mean during daylight hours your not paying for standard use - things like TV, etc should be more than covered by solar.

But as soon as you use amthing more powerful - e.g oven or multiple rings to cook, run a washing machine - mainly as it heats the water (spin maybe covered etc) as it heats water, boil a kettle etc - that might use 2-3 kW plus - you are still importing.

You need to look at how much electricity and gas you have been using over winter.

The spot check numbers you gave for recent use ( please fell free to correect these its getting late even for me)

The Apr electric - 50kW per week 1st to 8th - is not excessive for many - but its not exactly low either given you have GCH - and I assume the gas central heating also does the hot water.  Thats around £14 at the old average DD SVT cap for jan-Mar (28.6p per kWh regional ave).

The gas for the 12 weeks from jan 1st

237 - m3 metric metering assumed = 2700 kWh - at c 7.4p average gas - £200 / 10 weeks. 

Just £20 per week.

That might be normal energy use for many - over 1000kWh for gas + 220 say for electric - to me thats very high - compared to my consumption.

So say £35 pw =  £152 per month + standing charges of c£26 (using Ofgem averages) = £178 pm

So £170 seems a little on the low side for your DD - for winter - you might have built up a small debit in recent months - but it really shouldn't be once average out your use over summer without as much or in many cases any space heating - so the rise to £240 might be excessive. 

The Ofgem kWh unit rates have just dropped - but many (not all ) standing charges have risen - but the average duel fuel is about about £2 per month - but at your usage - chances are still seing a cost drop.

If they are upping your DD to cover past or future bills - it's possible you have a large debit - so check your actual bills /statements.

EOn give me monthly statements by email - each of them has an estimated annual consumption figure.

And a start / end - balance of account ( in credit or debit terms).

Every 3 months for cap changes they send me a new annual price change summary - a comparison of new and previous rates - including again an annual consumption estimate - units nit rates and also in total £s per annum.Do British gas issue you with a similar document ?

They have also just sent me an email they are dropping my DD - but didn't send the full calc - but basically they are dropping it by c10% - to cover the new lower costs - and a small credit.

Last year I used an approximation to their calc to check - it was less than a £1 different - from the data for annual usage they provided

new DD = (predicted annual cost at new rates - account balance on day of calc letter) / 12.

Where balance is positive if in credit (so using up credit over coming year reduces DD required) but negative if have a debit amount (so need to increase DD to cover consumpton and to pay off that debt too).

If BG are lifting the DD by 40% from £170 to £240 - it does tend to suggest you may have a large debit to clear - but with BG and other suppliers - for some - it seems they can have a tendency to over egg some of their DD estimates.

Some have reported other suppliers taking annual estimates and dividing by 10 or 11 - to build in a margin for e.g. usage increasing (it could do next year vs past easily - as for instance Feb was a record warm month in England at least at any rate)

Given your annual use and rates - we can do a quick estimate of what might be a more reasonable DD level for them to ask for.  As if you phone - to challange having a decent estimate to challange theirs - they will often accept that customer number over their own. Without one - they might not be willing to budge.

Robin9

mikewoody said:

Between 1st April and 8th April. I used 50kwh
and use gas central heating. 

I have asked they said they don’t know they will get back to me.  

If this is a typical period of use for you then the electric consumption really is quite typical for a gas heated property - perhaps a little high assuming you are at home most of the time.

It does not explain where the £240 DD is coming from -  have you/are you in debt with the supplier ?     Have you got a bill from 12 months or so ago with an actual (not estimated) reading ?  

Edit - or is the DD for gas and electric ? 
You do get some benefit from the solar in that it helps to reduce what you take from the grid -  what you are not getting is the benefit of the export to the grid.  That's not a great amount - I had £2.97 in the last quarter for a larger installation than you.

Re "I have asked ...."    your supplier won't know, they can't, they can guess like I can -  

Robin9

@mikewoody    Just want to check if all went as it should when you moved in and you are not paying for any energy that the previous tenant might have used.

When you moved in did you read the meters yourself - never let anyone else do it for you -  and give those readings to your supplier ?    Did the first bill you got show those readings.