What's causing my electric cost of 2p an hour for 24 hrs daily??

Conrad3000

Hi all.

The main devices I have plugged in 24/7 are a Virgin router, 2 WiFi boosters, fridge freezer (A+ rated), and an old SM300 Switchmaster timer that seems to be clicking all the time. I have no use for it at all. I don't use central heating and it was there when I moved in. It's apparently connected to the combi boiler.

So out of all the above, what would you say that's causing this 2p charge every hour of the day (and night)? I mean, it's like £180 a year 😲

Thanks.

la531983

2p an hour is probably not even 0.1kwh per hour, a fridge alone could be using that, not too sure why you are worried it seems perfectly normal background use to me.

Mine was 0.15kwh an hour between 1am and 3am this morning until the heating kicked in.

Robin9

You've just listed the main culprits -  lots of little bits add up

matt_drummer

All of it?

QrizB

I agree with everyone else that 2p/he is perfectly reasonable as a background load.

Also:

Conrad3000 said:

So out of all the above, what would you say that's causing this 2p charge every hour of the day (and night)?

Are you getting this "2p per hour" malarkey from the in-home display associated with your smart meter?

It would be more helpful for us, and you, if you changed your IHD to displaying power, in watts, rather than cost. You'll then be able to see that your background load is eg. 90 watts and that it falls to eg. 70 watts when you switch off your router and boosters.

Conrad3000

I'm with British Gas and once I've logged in to my account, I get the info from the 'Usage' option.

And I agree it could possibly be from all the devices I mentioned as a whole

But there was no usage from last year when there was no charge for a few hours; usually from 1am to about 5am. Can't figure out why since nothing was removed or changed from then to today.

la531983

Conrad3000 said:

I'm with British Gas and once I've logged in to my account, I get the info from the 'Usage' option.

And I agree it could possibly be from all the devices I mentioned as a whole

But there was no usage from last year when there was no charge for a few hours; usually from 1am to about 5am. Can't figure out why since nothing was removed or changed from then to today.

In which case I would suggest this is an error, unless you have a fridge/freezer that switched itself off for 4 hours each night (spoiler - you didn't)

QrizB

Conrad3000 said:

I'm with British Gas and once I've logged in to my account, I get the info from the 'Usage' option.

Do you have an in-home display, or is the app your only way of seeing your half-hourly usage?

Conrad3000

I don't unfortunately.

dunstonh

What is your base kWh?  i.e. when nothing else is on except the things you leave on 24/7?

matt_drummer

dunstonh said:

What is your base kWh?  i.e. when nothing else is on except the things you leave on 24/7?

About 90W by the looks of it.

2p per hour is 48p per day, or 2kWh @ 24p per kWh.