Average Electricity Costs Poll

espresso

4_Pete's_Sake wrote: »

We (2 adults & 2 children) live in a 4 bed deteched house.
Our annual energy usage is as follows:
Gas 41490 kwh
Electricity 678 kwh

Our monthly costs having just switched to Scottish Power Online energy saver 4 are:
Gas £44.50 a month.
Electricity £27.50 a month.

With gas central heating on in the winter, our usage at that time is far higher than in the summer, but it balances out over the year.

We have cavity wall insulation and good thick loft insulation, which may explain why most people are surprised by our low usage.

Well I'm not surprised by your quoted low usage! Your gas seems astronomic to me and your electric rather low. Perhaps you should check your kWh figures, as they don't stack up with what you are paying.

:rolleyes:

4_Pete's_Sake

espresso wrote: »

Well I'm not surprised by your quoted low usage! Your gas seems astronomic to me and your electric rather low. Perhaps you should check your kWh figures, as they don't stack up with what you are paying.

:rolleyes:

Thanks for bringing my attention to the figures.:T It should have read 21490, for Gas and 4707 for Electricity. I have now corrected these in my earlier entry.

The figures should now hopefully add up.

boatman

It might also be helpful to quote the unit prices your paying, probably easier to quote before VAT. mine is about 12.9/7.9p for electric and 2.6p gas.

4_Pete's_Sake

Scottish Power's (No Standing Charge) On-line Energy Saver 4 Tariffs in the East Midlands (Powergen) Area are as follows:

Electricity
First 225 Units per quarter (Primary Units) 12.928p
Remaining (Secondary Units) 5.467p

Gas
First 1143 Units per quarter (Primary Units) 3.251p
Remaining (Secondary Units) 2.202p

You can view the tariffs for you area at:

http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/pricing_pdfs/ole/olesaver4.pdf

In my search for a the most competitive tariff to switch to I used the following 2 comparison sites:

http://www.energyhelpline.com/
http://www.ukpower.co.uk/domestic-input.asp

The cheapest was actually Npower's Sign on line 8 costing me about £70 a month, however if fuel prices soared again and I made a quick exit into a capped rate elsewhere I would lose out as the npower tariff includes a large discount paid at the end of each year - anything from £21 to £84 a year. Therefore over the year you will save the money quoted, however, if you leave during the year you will lose the discount and some of your savings.:eek:

The better option seemed to be Scottish Power's Online Energy Saver 4 at £72 a month. With this tariff there is the benefit of reduced prices if the price of energy falls. However if prices look as if they are going to soar, you can ask them to switch you into their Online Price Fall Tariff which will cap the price until November 2008.:D

I avoided going straight into SP's Online Price Fall Tariff as if energy prices fall, the prices on this tariff will only do likewise if their "Standard Tariff" prices drop below the "Price Fall Tariff".:eek: (Their Standard tariffs are very uncompetitive compared to their on-line tariffs and would have to fall a long way to go below their Price Fall Tariff).

You have to be very canny and switched on when making choices about energy companies especially when it is not clear which direction energy prices might go next.:cool:

kennedy09091919

Hi guys, could anybody here help me to check whether my Gas and Electricity bills for a month are reasonable enough? Thanks guys.

First, I am an international student here and I am sharing a house with 3 other international students.

Last month (October 2007), we were charged £98 for gas and electricity. So each of us needs to pay approx. £25. We don't have access to the units used as bills are first paid by our landlord who then charged us.

Each room has got its own gas heater which is centrally turned on each day between 7.30AM to 9.00AM and 8.30PM to 12.30PM (thus in total, heating system is turned on for 5 1/2 hours every day). Cooker use gas. And basically each of us has a laptop, a rice cooking machine, a water boiler (those are the devices I can think of that take significant amount of power to operate).

Are the bills reasonable enough? Thanks guys.

athina_2

Sounds quite good. I live with 2 others. We all have computers switched on most of the day & the heating is gas. Our electric bill is £35/month and gas is £80/month in the winter.

Cardew

kennedy09091919 wrote: »

Are the bills reasonable enough? Thanks guys.

Sounds very reasonable - especially for gas fires.

kennedy09091919

Thanks for the quick replies athina and Cardew. Really appreciate the explanations.

Terrylw1

kennedy09091919 wrote: »

Hi guys, could anybody here help me to check whether my Gas and Electricity bills for a month are reasonable enough? Thanks guys.

First, I am an international student here and I am sharing a house with 3 other international students.

Last month (October 2007), we were charged £98 for gas and electricity. So each of us needs to pay approx. £25. We don't have access to the units used as bills are first paid by our landlord who then charged us.

Each room has got its own gas heater which is centrally turned on each day between 7.30AM to 9.00AM and 8.30PM to 12.30PM (thus in total, heating system is turned on for 5 1/2 hours every day). Cooker use gas. And basically each of us has a laptop, a rice cooking machine, a water boiler (those are the devices I can think of that take significant amount of power to operate).

Are the bills reasonable enough? Thanks guys.

Would be worth having a look at the bills to understand what you are being charged for. If the landlord is unwilling, makes you wonder whether what he/she is charging you reflects what has been billed to him/her.

Do you have a tenancy agreement that covers Gas & elec then or has the LL just opted to do this? Worth checking if his/her bill actually covers more tha your accomodation e.g. part og LL's house or lighting etc outside. Sometimes students get stung but LL's like this.

It doesn't seem an unreasonable amount, but I'm always one for checking when it comes to LL's.

boatman

For information i have worked out that i use on average:
Gas: Summer 12kwh a day, winter 48kwh
Electric: Summer 4.5kwh, winter 10.5kwh