Gas & Electricity

I find Octopus exemplary suppliers, but I refuse to have a smart meter so I don’t have the problems that are legion on here.
 
denislawsbackheel said:
I find Octopus exemplary suppliers, but I refuse to have a smart meter so I don’t have the problems that are legion on here.
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I wouldnt call five weeks exemplary, but as far as energy suppliers go they do mean well and their portals easy to navigate. It's not the end of the world because although they are smart meters I can still send in my own readings like everyone else, but does this not negate the point of having one in the first place. Like I said, expect delays with any and all correspondance owing to their Bulb uptake of 1.5 million bods.
 
Ive been through my bills and spotted an error on smart meter readings from start of last year. Long story short we were basically billed for a years electric over a 3 month period. Worth keeping an eye on those readings.

I had a little cross check whilst I was going through to see how our usage compared this year to last. We have reduced gas usage by 50% and electricity by 20% this winter.
 
The Northern Baptist said:
Ive been through my bills and spotted an error on smart meter readings from start of last year. Long story short we were basically billed for a years electric over a 3 month period. Worth keeping an eye on those readings.

I had a little cross check whilst I was going through to see how our usage compared this year to last. We have reduced gas usage by 50% and electricity by 20% this winter.
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I've been tracking my smart meter usage and seem to have reduced electricity by a lot (over 30% but don't really know how) but the gas is about the same after that cold spell. I've got 138 days of overlapping data.

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Not sure if it’s been mentioned already on here but condensing boilers are more efficient when run at a lower temperature. For most houses it wouldn’t make a noticeable difference. The boiler would have to run longer for a room to achieve the same temperature so whilst the heat output overall would be the same, the fuel required to generate that heat would be lower as less heat is wasted out of the flue. Worth turning the boiler output temp down to 60 if not done already. Can always turn it up again if not enough heat is output to get the room to temperature. Could save up to 10% of gas used without even noticing.
 
inbetween said:
Out of interest how are you tracking that? Is it an app or a fancy smart meter? Looks handy!
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It's my own app that I developed as I needed to do some visualisations for my portfolio. I think it works great at simplifying how I am using energy compared to the same date period last year (so irons out differences of gas usage depending on the time of year). Just have to keep that coloured line below the horizontal grey line to know I'm using less energy than last year but I do have to keep downloading the data from Octopus which is a pain.
 
I'm finding these usage percentage savings very interesting.

The reason is I'm pretty sure we're heading towards another disaster.

As everyone is aware the way Ofgem calculates the prices is based on the "average" customer over the last year (You can probably see where I'm going with this already). If everyone saves 50% on gas and 20% on electricity (Which I suspect is the case) it automatically means we'll have to pay double the price next year as the average customer's usage is halved (for gas). This is a completely stupid way for calculating prices as it's just a pure race to the bottom where eventually the price per unit will mean nothing can be switched on as the price spirals out of control. It also means the energy producers get exactly the same money for producing less energy which in turn just results in far bigger profits as less gas is used for the production.

I've contacted Ofgem under an FOI request to see if I'm right to be worried
 
BerkshireBlue said:
I'm finding these usage percentage savings very interesting.

The reason is I'm pretty sure we're heading towards another disaster.

As everyone is aware the way Ofgem calculates the prices is based on the "average" customer over the last year (You can probably see where I'm going with this already). If everyone saves 50% on gas and 20% on electricity (Which I suspect is the case) it automatically means we'll have to pay double the price next year as the average customer's usage is halved (for gas). This is a completely stupid way for calculating prices as it's just a pure race to the bottom where eventually the price per unit will mean nothing can be switched on as the price spirals out of control. It also means the energy producers get exactly the same money for producing less energy which in turn just results in far bigger profits as less gas is used for the production.

I've contacted Ofgem under an FOI request to see if I'm right to be worried
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Sorry mate. I can’t follow this logic at all. if a person reduces their energy by 50% then surely they will pay a great deal less as long as the unit prices remain the same. The unit prices are based on wholesale energy prices. What am I missing?
 
BlueHammer85 said:
Just a random conspiracy thought but I wonder at all if this freakishly warm weather for the year is causing price rises in Gas - even today, It's sunny and warm here and I have my window open


+++

The UK recorded an average annual temperature of more than 10C (50F) for the first time in 2022, the Met Office has said.

The national weather service also said 2022 was the country's hottest on record, confirming provisional figures that the year would set a new record.

The mean temperature across the 12 months was 10.03C, beating the previous all-time high of 9.88C in 2014.

Such a freakishly hot year is now likely to happen every three to four years, the analysis warned. Whereas once it would have struck just once in 500 years, had humans not polluted and warmed the climate.

++
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But for 3 weeks before Christmas it was absolutely fuckin freezing, people were shitting it because it was so cold and the fear of heating houses.
Thats the problem when they publish average temperatures, early December and now temps combined would probably give a near "normal average" temperature for the whole period.
 
Uncle Wally One Ball said:
Right Im with you. Yes, I agree
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It's not right, it's because the UK flogged off it's gas storage capacity and became reliant on imports.
Shut down our coal production and Power Stations but are happy for the rest of the world to continue burning coal.
Imported energy is currently fucked thanks to Putin and is why the Government are massively subsidising the cost of fuel at present because no one could afford the actual cost of the stuff.
We have been shafted over a 40 year period and it's now coming home to roost.
 
Saddleworth2 said:
Sorry mate. I can’t follow this logic at all. if a person reduces their energy by 50% then surely they will pay a great deal less as long as the unit prices remain the same. The unit prices are based on wholesale energy prices. What am I missing?
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So currently they are allowed to charge £2,500 for an "average" household for a year. This is the definition from ofgem and what everything is based on. The unit price per kwh comes directly from balancing this first sentence. Now that average household over the last year has suddenly become a very different average household. the above was based on 13000 kwh on gas and 2900kwh for electricty. A huge lowing of these to say 7000kwh on gas and 2500 kwh on electrity and suddenly we see that £2,500 for the "average" household implies a huge increase in per kwh to balance it out even though nothing has changed (just people using less). In reality everyone has used less this year but it's a constant chase. to save the same amount of money the next year will be harder as the baseline has shifted down considerably.
 
My personal conspiracy theory is that electric prices are going to be driven up to a high level over the next 10 years as the Government move to get everyone into Electric vehicles, there is no way that they are going to give up the revenue that that currently get from Petrol and Diesel.

All part of a bigger plan.
 
abu13 said:
My personal conspiracy theory is that electric prices are going to be driven up to a high level over the next 10 years as the Government move to get everyone into Electric vehicles, there is no way that they are going to give up the revenue that that currently get from Petrol and Diesel.

All part of a bigger plan.
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Yep.

It will be £80 to charge the car in the same way it’s £80 to fill it and taxation policy will change to protect government revenue.

Fuck all to do with green climate policy.
 
BerkshireBlue said:
So currently they are allowed to charge £2,500 for an "average" household for a year. This is the definition from ofgem and what everything is based on. The unit price per kwh comes directly from balancing this first sentence. Now that average household over the last year has suddenly become a very different average household. the above was based on 13000 kwh on gas and 2900kwh for electricty. A huge lowing of these to say 7000kwh on gas and 2500 kwh on electrity and suddenly we see that £2,500 for the "average" household implies a huge increase in per kwh to balance it out even though nothing has changed (just people using less). In reality everyone has used less this year but it's a constant chase. to save the same amount of money the next year will be harder as the baseline has shifted down considerably.
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No mate. I don't think that is how it works. They have calculated average usage of an average size house and then simply set an arbitrary cap of the maximum that house with its average usage can be billed. Energy unit prices are based on wholesale prices which in turn are influenced by supply vs demand. The unit prices are reviewed every three months by OFGEN and are ammended based on wholesale gas price projections

If you live in the average house and cut your fuel usage then the amount you are charged goes down and if you increase it it goes up.
 
ysmsa said:
But for 3 weeks before Christmas it was absolutely fuckin freezing, people were shitting it because it was so cold and the fear of heating houses.
Thats the problem when they publish average temperatures, early December and now temps combined would probably give a near "normal average" temperature for the whole period.
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Agree those 3 weeks - but before that I didn’t have the heating on since first week of March !

If we have warm years like that then Gas is hardly going to be used bar a couple months in total
 
Just had my bill through for December, im guessing that this will be as bad as it will get given how fecking cold it was and the missus was off work ill with the heating on all day.

Total of £242.00 so not as bad as i first feared, the first 5 days of Jan are coming in close to £4 a day so if it stays like this im going to be looking at maybe £120 for January.
 
Saddleworth2 said:
No mate. I don't think that is how it works. They have calculated average usage of an average size house and then simply set an arbitrary cap of the maximum that house with its average usage can be billed. Energy unit prices are based on wholesale prices which in turn are influenced by supply vs demand. The unit prices are reviewed every three months by OFGEN and are ammended based on wholesale gas price projections

If you live in the average house and cut your fuel usage then the amount you are charged goes down and if you increase it it goes up.
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but the issue is the average is constantly being squeezed so they'll be no room for savings. this year I could save 6000kwh on the average house next year It might be just 1000kwh that I can save. The year after 0 kwh of savings and so forth
 
ysmsa said:
It's not right, it's because the UK flogged off it's gas storage capacity and became reliant on imports.
Shut down our coal production and Power Stations but are happy for the rest of the world to continue burning coal.
Imported energy is currently fucked thanks to Putin and is why the Government are massively subsidising the cost of fuel at present because no one could afford the actual cost of the stuff.
We have been shafted over a 40 year period and it's now coming home to roost.
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I understand the policy failings you describe but every single person I hear from on this issue is many hundreds of pounds in credit. We are still being over with this, unquestionably. And this is without the hundreds of millions of profits the companies are making
 
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