Smart Time of Use tariffs

Lisa Miles said:

I'm still struggling to work out how people are using so much electricity that their current bills are well over £100 a month!

An all electric dwelling could easily reach that, but not in addition to gas. The capped rates of £3,000-odd in total do seem to be unnecessarily high for an average property.

I should have clarified that my bill is a duel fuel so covers both electric and gas consumption. Last month (being aware that it is summer and therefore no need for heating etc however I have had two electric fans running constantly overnight to circulate cool air in bedroom) my duel fuel bill was just under £70. £52 was electricity and £18 for gas i.e. just my hot water and my gas fired hob at the moment (oven is electric).  

I have smart meters at home for both gas and electric and being the geek that I am  I like to monitor my usage.

I worked out that doing three full loads of washing in a 9kg machine plus tumble drying all three loads costs around £1.50 so 50p per load for a wash and a dry. I didn't think that was too bad to be honest! But again as I said to my OH having a larger capacity washing machine means that it's on less i.e. one load in a 9kg vs 2 loads in a 6kg. You're using the 6kg twice as much and therefore paying twice as much in electric for the same amount of washing.....

I did say I was a geek.... 

Do note  that what is actually capped is the standing charge and the unit rate - the figures quoted in the paper and the TV news are always for 'an average  UK house' and are based on 3100KWhr per year.  Of course half of houses use less than that average, and some of us use quite a lot less.

My suspicion is that next year the 'average UK house' will not use 3100KWhr at all, but more like about half that.

Mike

mapj1 said:

Of course half of houses use less than that average, and some of us use quite a lot less.

If only the cap were a flat rate!

I suspect that the distribution is far from symmetrical - there will be a long tail to the right, which includes mansions and palaces.

mapj1 said:

'an average  UK house' and are based on 3100KWhr per year

That does not seem like much. I suspect that that is just the leccy.

The clever, or not so clever, people at Shell Energy have estimated our gas consumption at 30,000 kWh for last Jan and Feb. Yes, thirty thousand!

My supplier estimates I'm currently using about 2400 kWh (four bed detached) and 9800 kWh of gas for heating (for the year)!

OK so lets look at the actual 'cap' document for April to sept.

Gas £94.62 max standing charge per year, and ~ £920 for 12000 KWH of gas so 13- per kWhr of GAS.Prepayment is more like £1000 for the same amount if energy. Call it 14p /unit

Electric figures based on Single Rate metering g 3100kWhr per year (360 watt average load so same annual total as about an amp and a half running 24/7), and

For dual rate metering (economy 7/ E10 , smart tariffs etc )  4200kWhr per year (480 watts average load, so same as about 2A running 24/7)
Max permitted standing charge varies by region but around £150 more or less irrespective of single or dual rate.

Then maximum unit rates vary by region a bit but that work out at around £1000 for that 3100kWhr -so 33p per unit absolute max. for single rate metering.

or £1200 for £4200kWHr. so 28p per unit absolute max. for economy 7

Personally I'd prefer it if they gave it as per unit cost, rather than as a typical figure that is miles out for most folk.

Mike

the price already goes up during the "off peak" period.

All depends on what you mean by 'off peak' in this brave new world - generally prices look to be lowest when wind and solar are both producing well, or if you prefer when gas generation is lowest (actually -ve price at around 16:00 on the 20th Aug). Wall clock time probably isn't the best yardstick going forward, but if you did want to stick with something like that I could see a few hours either side of solar midday being a new 'valley' and the 17:00 to 20:00 mentioned in the article as being a regular new peak time.

  - Andy.

mapj1 said:

Personally I'd prefer it if they gave it as per unit cost, rather than as a typical figure that is miles out for most folk.

I guess the issue there is that a lot (most?) people have no idea what a unit is, or how many they use - they just look at the bill total.