Npower Gas Guzzlers

Concerenced

This is my first post so hello everyone

This is a bit long-winded but bear me out it's important!

I've just had my npower bill through for the period between december and march this year and it seemed a tad high, so i did some calculations and it seemed that they have calculated too many kwh at the higher price band (which has just gone up to 6.154p from 4.412 for standard gas).


Basically they say 4572 kwh are charged at the higher rate and the rest at the lower rate. Check here --->
https://www.npower.com/at_home/savings_calculator/UnitPrices.aspx (use NE8 1HH as postcode, Gateshead council's address)
Sounds fairly straight forward right? Wrong!

This works out to be (4572kwh /365.25days) 12.517 kwh per day charged at the higher rate, seems simple yeah? So you can work out the number of days on your bill, then multiply that by this daily figure to find out how many higher rate kwhs should be charged? Wrong again!

Looks like they've implemented a new system called "Gas Sculpting" or "Seasonal Weighting System"
Below are listed the new daily higher rate figures for each month

January - 28.46 kwh
February- 31.51 kwh
March - 8.76 kwh
April - 9.04 kwh
May - 1.47 kwh
June - 1.58 kwh
July - 1.47 kwh
August - 1.47 kwh
September-1.52 kwh
October - 8.75 kwh
November- 29.41 kwh
December -28.41 kwh

(all information collected from the call centre which can be called free on 0800 551 555, also be aware that none of this information is available on their website!)

Now a quick sum up of this means that say you use the same ammount of gas in June as you do November, there will be a significant difference in price:-

Lets say the figure is 2000 kwh used in both months which both have 30 days each-
For November 30 * 29.41 = 882 kwh charged at the higher rate and 1118 kwh charged at the lower rate
For June 30 * 1.58 = 47 kwh charged at the higher rate and 1953 kwh charged at the lower rate

Pricewise based on my tariff of 6.154p for higher rate and 1.990p for lower rate means-

For November (882 * 6.154) = £54.28 Higher Rate
+ (1118 * 1.990) = £22.25 Lower Rate
Total = £76.53

For June (47 * 6.154) = £2.89 Higher Rate
+ (1953 * 1.990) = £38.86 Lower Rate
Total = £41.75

Difference = £34.78 for the same ammount of gas used in different months!

Now not only does this mean that they are charging you more for your winter usage of gas (where generally you tend to use more gas on warming your home), but also this will affect the PRICE COMPARISON TABLE/CHARTS which i'm fairly sure will only base their rates on the 12.517 kwh per day rate across the whole of the year.

Basically if you choose Npower you are going to have astronomical bills in the winter compared to the summer!

What i want to know is whether:-
a) This is allowed and sanctioned?
b) I can appeal against my recent bill?
c) This is in use in other gas company's?

p.s. If this information is wrong in anyway please let me know (Apart from the username :P)

I've just thought about the way this is set out and the only plus i can see from this staggered approach or "seasonal weighting system" is to switch to Npower for the months March through to October and then switch to another company for the 4 overpriced months of winter!! Ovbiously this would be a hastle and getting it wrong could be costly!

1ipstick

Not sure but think you might want to read this thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=786683

Thanks for posting the monthly figures.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

The point you make about this disgraceful practice has been covered several times on this forum by rightly irate customers of NPower.

The first person who raised this subject some months ago used to switch his gas boiler off in the summer months, and of course found his saving for doing this had been greatly reduced.

The only way that the comparison sites can calculate accurately is to assume that you use all your higher rate units(often called Tier 1 or primary units) every month of the year; and of course many people don't.

As far as I am aware no other company uses this scam. Their tier 1/primary units are exactly pro-rata over the year.

DGJsaver

I hate npower

is there any other energy company that it takes 16 minutes to get through to ?

pollie67

We have gas and electricity with npower, paying by monthly direct debit. We were in credit at end of November and by bill at end of February we now owe them £300. :mad: Didn't realise they charged more over the winter months. Will be switching suppliers ASAP.

Cardew

pollie67 wrote: »

Didn't realise they charged more over the winter months.

The purpose of their scam is to ensure that everyone pays NPower for the whole 4,572 units at the higher rate.

Had the allocation of those higher rate units been spread evenly over the year(like every other company) many people in the summer months would not have 'used up' all these units and thus would have not paid for all 4,572 units at the high rate.

catnap53

OK, stupid question, but how do they know how many units I use each month for the scalping, sorry sculpting, procedure when they don't have my meter readings monthly?

Also is it a coincidence that it started in November, the first of the winter higher weighting?

"A typical customer will not see any change in the amount they pay over the year"

Zzzzzz

Cardew

catnap53 wrote: »

OK, stupid question, but how do they know how many units I use each month for the scalping, sorry sculpting, procedure when they don't have my meter readings monthly?

Also is it a coincidence that it started in November, the first of the winter higher weighting?

"A typical customer will not see any change in the amount they pay over the year"

Zzzzzz

It is not easy to understand the concept here; and NPower are correct in that many customers will not notice the difference over a year - although what is their definition of a typical customer.

However why have they done this?

The explanation:

Let us take the quarter of June, July & August when most people do not have any heating and only use their gas for hot water and many are away on holiday.

When the 4572 primary units were split up equally between each month, you would be charged for 1160 units at the higher primary rate IF you used them all, and using them all is the key

However some people did not use them all - in fact some people switched off their gas boilers for the whole summer.

So, say, someone only used 560 units in that quarter - which is possible. They would have 'saved' 600 units. The end result is that they would have only paid NPower at the higher primary rate for 3,972 units instead of 4,572 units.(4,572-600)

By reducing the allocation of primary units for the summer months and increasing the allocation for the winter months, in the example above the customer would not 'save' any primary units and now still have to pay NPower for all of the 4,572 primary units.

It is difficult to say how many people this will affect - clearly not that many.
However as an example, I am not with Npower but it would affect me if I were with them.

I have a little used Annex with a separate gas supply. If friends stay in this annex in the summer, they only use the gas Combi a little for a shower and I would never come close to using the 1160 units in the example above.

However in the winter I will use the heating - even with nobody staying and thus pay a lot more over the year with this sculpting scam.

catnap53

Thanks Cardew, I fully understand the concept. What I don't know is how they can apply it monthly when I am billed quarterly. It won't make sense to split the bill by three, as the whole point is that we are expected to be using less in the months that have a lower weighting.

I wonder how many people still pay on receipt of bill. The point of paying by monthly DD is to spread the cost so avoiding big bills in the winter months. The new system makes the bills even higher in the winter as the increased usage also comes with higher prices. A ploy to make even more pay by DD perhaps?

Cardew

catnap53 wrote: »

Thanks Cardew, I fully understand the concept. What I don't know is how they can apply it monthly when I am billed quarterly. It won't make sense to split the bill by three, as the whole point is that we are expected to be using less in the months that have a lower weighting.

I wonder how many people still pay on receipt of bill. The point of paying by monthly DD is to spread the cost so avoiding big bills in the winter months. The new system makes the bills even higher in the winter as the increased usage also comes with higher prices. A ploy to make even more pay by DD perhaps?

Depends what you mean by "apply it monthly".

They calculate it pro-rata for each day in that particular month.(as do every company)

Let us take an example with NPower(using notional figures to make the arithmetic easy)

In April they allocate 270kWh at the primary rate (9kWh a day)

In May they allocate 124kWh at the primary rate (4kWh a day)

In June they allocate 90kWh at the primary rate (3kWh a day)

In July they allocate 62kWh at the primary rate (2kWh a day)

You have a quarterly bill covering from, say, 15 April to 15 July.

Your allocation will be 15 x 9kWh + (31 x 4) + (30 x 3) + (15 x 2) = 379kWh

Concerenced

I have phoned them up asking after a definitive answer as to why they charge in this particular way and after a 30 minute phone call (alot of it holding the line) the best answer i got was

"Alot of customers have been complaining of having high bills in summer when they are not using alot of gas, this method ensures that the summer usage is charged more so at the secondary unit rate rather than the primary rate."

I replied by asking won't this surely make the winter bills even more expensive than say if you were to use the normal rate of 12.51kwh across the whole year, and cause inconvinience to people during the winter months, especially around christmas when money for alot of lower income family's is tight.

"I understand your point, but the main reason for this implementation is to avoid the large bills that occur in summer."

Of course this is rediculous because the winter bills will allways be more expensive, and having such a vast difference in summer to winter bills must affect the DD in someway surely.

Surely as Cardew states

When the 4572 primary units were split up equally between each month, you would be charged for 1160 units at the higher primary rate IF you used them all, and using them all is the key

However some people did not use them all - in fact some people switched off their gas boilers for the whole summer.

So, say, someone only used 560 units in that quarter - which is possible. They would have 'saved' 600 units. The end result is that they would have only paid NPower at the higher primary rate for 3,972 units instead of 4,572 units.(4,572-600)

By reducing the allocation of primary units for the summer months and increasing the allocation for the winter months, in the example above the customer would not 'save' any primary units and now still have to pay NPower for all of the 4,572 primary units.

This then must mean that the primary units are allocated per annum but calculated per quarter hence how you could have 'saved primary units'

How can this Gas Sculpting be legal then? This benefits the customer in no way whatsoever and is only out to make Npower more money!

However on the other hand they can probably just say that it states on their website/contract that the first 4572 kwh per annum will be charged at the higher rate and the only way they can ensure this is by implementing the "Gas Sculpting". So with that, what case would we have against them?

Is it just that customers were benefiting from a loophole in their calculations and they've now closed this loophole?

If this is the case I can undoubtedly expect other company's to be jumping on the bandwagon in due course!! So be aware!!