Energy Bills

[Tayls]

On 12/01/2023 at 22:04, foreveryoung said:

Fuel, Diesel £1.57 in Whitchurch today, £1.38 for Petrol, cheapest I've seen it by about 5p. Still, RAC said it should be around £1.50 now and Fuel stations just taking advantage of the consumer yet again. They are now asking for justification why these fuel suppliers are not dropping fuel costs. Still around £1.77ish (diesel) at EG suppliers.

Diesel still around £1.90 at an Esso near me. I would rather run out of fuel and get further down the road closer to another station than pay their price... 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Tayls

[foreveryoung]

44 minutes ago, Tayls said:

Diesel still around £1.90 at an Esso near me. I would rather run out of fuel and get further down the road closer to another station than pay their price... 

Yeah feel the same, some fuel stations are just ripping us off now. Should be around £1.60 now. Filled up in Manchester today £1.64 Deisel, £1.38 petrol. Surprising how much you save now its around 30p cheaper a litre, although still not cheap.

[sidcow]

I would love to know how much less Gas I've used this year. 

My old Npower app used to show you a graph of this year v last year and was generally FAR superior to to crappy Eon app I have now who took them over. 

Obviously that super warm November helped a lot but even in this really cold week I've been using a lot less than I would have normally.  Heating is often off for stretches in the evening whereas previously I would have just whacked it on all evening and all day weekends. 

Basically I've burned a hell of a lot of gas in years gone by totally unnecessarily which is pretty shit when you consider it.  It didn't cost much cash but helped **** up the planet. If one good thing that's come out is our more judicious use of gas. 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by sidcow

[Genie]

Diesel now sub £1.70 here, still feels too high, and the gap to petrol seems to get wider by the day.

[stuart_75]

8 hours ago, sidcow said:

I would love to know how much less Gas I've used this year. 

My old Npower app used to show you a graph of this year v last year and was generally FAR superior to to crappy Eon app I have now who took them over. 

Obviously that super warm November helped a lot but even in this really cold week I've been using a lot less than I would have normally.  Heating is often off for stretches in the evening whereas previously I would have just whacked it on all evening and all day weekends. 

Basically I've burned a hell of a lot of gas in years gone by totally unnecessarily which is pretty shit when you consider it.  It didn't cost much cash but helped **** up the planet. If one good thing that's come out is our more judicious use of gas. 

 

The Octopus app is great for this. You can check day, week or month usage in graphs seeing how much kWh you are using in Gas and Electric.

[AlwaysAVFC]

On 13/01/2023 at 10:49, AlwaysAVFC said:

My 6 month smart meter bill should here very soon. Will be interesting whether it's going to match what I've paid with DD. The last bill they changed my direct debit to £340, I felt that was too high and lowered it to £270. A couple of months ago they thought it should now be £190 odd. Which I thought was a bit low so only lowered it to £210. Which until now is saying on track. So hoping its about right with no surprises, well a big surplus would be nice but that's not going to happen.

We got our 6 month bill today and have about £280 credit which was nice to see, considering we owed them some after the last bill. I know there was the mild October but just shows how off their £340 direct debit adjustment was after the last bill.

We've been putting the £400 energy help aside too so that's not in the figures.

[stuart_75]

I have moved to Octopus's Gas Tracker tariff which follows wholesale prices and changes daily. So far so good. Today gas is 6.64p/kWh, compared to just over 10p/kWh on the regular tariff.

 

For the rates during January, http://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/West-Midlands#TrackerGas

 

You can flip back to the old tariff if prices go crazy again.

[Tegis]

£700 this month for electricity (heatpump). About the same as last year but that was a freezing month and we didn't cheap out on the heating. Looks like prices are coming down though.

Boring money to spend

[ender4]

7 hours ago, stuart_75 said:

I have moved to Octopus's Gas Tracker tariff which follows wholesale prices and changes daily. So far so good. Today gas is 6.64p/kWh, compared to just over 10p/kWh on the regular tariff.

 

For the rates during January, http://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/West-Midlands#TrackerGas

 

You can flip back to the old tariff if prices go crazy again.

That’s a really good idea.

So Octopus are saying their main rate should be 20p but the govt price guarantee is 10p.  You must be one of very few people who are actually paying under the cap.

Edited January 28, 2023 by ender4

[ender4]

3 hours ago, Tegis said:

£700 this month for electricity (heatpump). 

What the hell? I thought heat pumps were meant to be cheaper?  Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

[sidcow]

7 minutes ago, ender4 said:

What the hell? I thought heat pumps were meant to be cheaper?  Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

They would be if we paid the "true" cost of electricity but electricity is artificially expensive at the moment. 

Once they decouple the price from gas and switch the "green" levy from electricity to gas they'll be much cheaper to run than boilers. 

[ender4]

13 minutes ago, sidcow said:

They would be if we paid the "true" cost of electricity but electricity is artificially expensive at the moment. 

Once they decouple the price from gas and switch the "green" levy from electricity to gas they'll be much cheaper to run than boilers. 

Oh right, I get it.   

Will the govt actually uncouple the price or is that just waffle they talk about but don’t plan to do?

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by ender4

[sidcow]

Just now, ender4 said:

Oh right, I get it.   

Will the govt actually uncouple the price or is that just waffle they talk about but don’t plant to do?

There is supposed to be something happening now. No doubt they'll drag it out though. 

It still sounds expensive though. A lot of early adopters have suffered from poor installations, the installer has to really know what they're doing but many don't and end up installing a massively oversized pump that costs a bomb to run or an undersized pump that runs constantly as it can't catch up and heat properly.

Theyre supposed to do lots of calculations working out insulation properties, heat loss, area to be heated, size of radiators etc.  It's more complex than central heating with gas boiler. 

[StefanAVFC]

5 hours ago, Tegis said:

£700 this month for electricity (heatpump). About the same as last year but that was a freezing month and we didn't cheap out on the heating. Looks like prices are coming down though.

Boring money to spend

This is mad.

we spend on absolute max, 50-60 quid a month on electric with ours. 

[one_ian_taylor]

5 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

This is mad.

we spend on absolute max, 50-60 quid a month on electric with ours. 

I was thinking it was ridiculously high, but it's actually  not totally  crazy. £700 quid, assuming 40p/kWh is 1750 kWh for one of the coldest months of the year (with appliances etc it's more like 1500 kWh for heat and hot water). Let's  assume Jan, Feb and Nov are similar in terms of heat demand, and March and October are around half that, so 5 months of 1500 kWh for hwat and hot water. 

Assuming  the heat pump has a COP of 2.6 (I.e. one kWh of electricity generates 2.6 of heat), then total heat demand for the home is 19,500 ish for the winter and then probably an extra 2000 kWh for hot water the rest of the year, so let's  call it 21,500 kWh. Assuming  100m2  floor area, that's  200 kWh/m2/or heat demand,  probably more like 180 space heating  alone  which is fairly high. 

Suggests one of or a combination of factors:

- House is bigger than 100m2, but insulation is OK and heat pump is working OK

- Insulation is poor, so heat loss is very high (but heat pump is working OK)

- heat pump is working at a much lower COP than it should be due to poor system design/installation/unsuitable control  settings), so consumption is maybe twice as high as it should be

Well, either those things or my assumptions are total  shite. 

But for comparison, around 1/6 of my total energy consumption last year was in December. (Edit: we have electric heating and decent insulation rather than a heat pump,  but Christmas and cold snap meant we were using around 4 times the kWh per day than we would on a typical summer's  day)

Edited January 28, 2023 by one_ian_taylor

[Tegis]

8 hours ago, ender4 said:

What the hell? I thought heat pumps were meant to be cheaper?  Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

Nope, with a direct electricity heating of some sort it would have been 3 times that. Some people are having a mare right now in regards to heating their houses.

  

1 hour ago, one_ian_taylor said:

- House is bigger than 100m2, but insulation is OK and heat pump is working OK

That's my situation. 230m2 house, 12 year old pump and stupid prices. We have 4 made up areas is Sweden regarding prices and I live in the most expensive one. It's a strange technical capacity problem since we shut down the most southern of our nuclear plants and the grid cannot supply us from the hydros and nukes up north, all the while we have to export electricity via norway. So we are being **** more by European markets than for example Stockholm, about,40% more per kwh.

I love summers with a heating/electricity-bill of about 80 quid

Edited January 28, 2023 by Tegis

[Tayls]

500L of oil delivered for £380. Price is dropping significantly, but no where near what it should be - or what I want it to be! 

[stuart_75]

11 hours ago, ender4 said:

That’s a really good idea.

So Octopus are saying their main rate should be 20p but the govt price guarantee is 10p.  You must be one of very few people who are actually paying under the cap.

I only found out about the tariff after reading on an EV forum. Sent an email to Octopus requesting to switch and it was done within an hour. 

[delboy54]

On 28/01/2023 at 08:24, Tayls said:

500L of oil delivered for £380. Price is dropping significantly, but no where near what it should be - or what I want it to be! 

That's a bargin. The quote I had last week for 500 litres was 450 quid at 85.9 p/litre exc vat

[The Fun Factory]

I keep getting a how do you feel feedback email from British Gas after giving them a up to date reading. Yes I feel delighted that your prices keep going up even though the wholesale price is actually dropping.