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My electricity bill has just tripled: how about yours? Alternative suppliers?

WWWeed said:
I've just read a really good article on why costs are not coming down that much despite using more wind power. Apparently The UK is wasting a lot of wind power







It's another example of another massive government failure and that's before you even get into the supplier company mess.

As with many of the challenges this country faces I can't see this going away anytime soon.
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We have the same problem here. There's loads of windpower in use in north-western Nebraska and South Dakota, but there's no transmission lines to take the power where its needed. There's plans to build a transmission line, but (as usual), the Republicans, who get donations from coal, oil, and gas interests, as keeping it from going through.
 
cupid_stunt said:
It has been confirmed in the budget that pre-payment customers will no longer pay more, about bloody time.
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This confuses me because I've taken one on in my current residence and had three failed appointments trying to change the fucking thing and this resulted in a complaint to ofgem.

Part of that complaint was that I have been paying more for my electricity under circumstances that EDF had failed to resolve. I was assured that I wasn't paying more and ofgem allowed the complaint to be closed after I was sent £50 in compensation but now it seems I have over paying for over 3 years :confused:

I've got another complaint with ofgem now so I am going to bring this up again.
 
Someone elsewhere told me they were paying 38p per unit on a card meter instead of 34p - that would actually cost me less because I would save on standing charge.
 
In spite of being comfortably in credit, Octopus have simply added £67 to my £19.26 DD - just as my usage has dropped right off :p.

My rolling average is down to 2.3kwh per day ...the past 3 days I used 2kwh - thanks to spending a lot of time in the park ...

I will almost certainly do some gardening this year, so I will use some light to start seedlings - but I will minimise that by putting my shelves up against the window and putting the 30 or 60 watts of lighting on a timer...
 
gentlegreen said:
In spite of being comfortably in credit, Octopus have simply added £67 to my £19.26 DD - just as my usage has dropped right off :p.

My rolling average is down to 2.3kwh per day ...the past 3 days I used 2kwh - thanks to spending a lot of time in the park ...

I will almost certainly do some gardening this year, so I will use some light to start seedlings - but I will minimise that by putting my shelves up against the window and putting the 30 or 60 watts of lighting on a timer...
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That's because the £400 government grant (@£67 per month) has ended.
Nothing to do with your useage.
 
CH1 said:
That's because the £400 government grant (@£67 per month) has ended.
Nothing to do with your useage.
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I know - but also it's the end of winter and I can be expected to use a lot less ...
Hopefully I will be able to wind my payments down.
I would sooner it was in my bank account earning a few pence in interest ...
 
gentlegreen said:
In spite of being comfortably in credit, Octopus have simply added £67 to my £19.26 DD - just as my usage has dropped right off :p.
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They did also send an email out saying that was their intention and telling you how to set your own DD figure if you wanted
 
Since my regular meter readings don't seem to be making an impression on them, I won't be bothering from now on...
It's academic anyway as I'm hoping to be gone from here some time next year ...
 
kabbes said:
I changed mine easily enough. Both website and app seemed to be working fine.
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Just done mine now, thanks for the reminder :)

Their forecast usage model seems to be a bit broken - I’m only on electricity, which provides all heating and hot water (via a heat pump) as well as the usual stuff lighting and electronics and so on - the heating being the bulk of it in winter obviously (about 80% of the total), and hardly used at all in summer. Their forecast of my usage upon which they base the direct debit only has a 15% reduction in monthly usage between January and July, which I suppose might be about right if it assumes that heating is generally provided by gas or oil or something else it doesn’t know about.

Anyway, perfectly easy to adjust online to what I think it probably should be given my usage will drop precipitously over the next few months just now, so all good. Mildly interesting insight into how basic their modelling is though, so go in and adjust the payments if you know they’re wrong :)
 
Despite the government's price guarantee staying at £2,500 for Apr - Jun, I've had an e-mail from OVO showing I'll be paying £8.74 more per year, not enough to get worked up about, but I am a bit miffed.

Both the SC & unit rate for gas have gone up slightly, a drop in the unit rate for electric, but a sizeable increase in the SC, and being a very low user of electric this is not to my advantage.
1a.png
On the plus side, they are still basing it on my use over the last 12 months, which includes 6 months before I made major changes to my usage, eg they have me down for 88kwh pm on electric rather than under 70kwh, and 410kwh pm on gas rather than under 360kwh.

So, they estimate the annual cost going forward will be £1150 or £96pm, my estimate is an absolute maximum of £1020 or £85pm, whereas I am currently paying £99pm, if I dropped that to the £85 figure, it will only be £22pm more compared to what I was paying two years ago, which is amazing.

ETA - Needless to say they think they know better than me and will not let me drop below £99pm, I'll wait until after the next bill, and if I can't change it then, I'll go back to my old trick of cancelling and setting-up a new one for £85pm.
 
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gentlegreen said:
In spite of being comfortably in credit, Octopus have simply added £67 to my £19.26 DD - just as my usage has dropped right off :p.

My rolling average is down to 2.3kwh per day ...the past 3 days I used 2kwh - thanks to spending a lot of time in the park ...

I will almost certainly do some gardening this year, so I will use some light to start seedlings - but I will minimise that by putting my shelves up against the window and putting the 30 or 60 watts of lighting on a timer...
Click to expand...
Same here. If they'd bothered to measure our usage, subtract credit and divide by 12 then they'd get £25pm less. 🙄
 
gentlegreen said:
Since my regular meter readings don't seem to be making an impression on them, I won't be bothering from now on...
It's academic anyway as I'm hoping to be gone from here some time next year ...
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Wen I "left" Ovo the demanded photos of the meters before they would allow the transfer!
 
I'm demonstrating my optimism by putting all my heating devices out on the landing.
I may start measuring my consumption weekly at most ...

----------------

This is more like it :- :D
I'm £333 in credit and I estimate my monthly bills at under £50 up till November (plus any plant lighting I use)
So I should be down to about £120 by November ...
On what planet is a minimum balance of £200 needed when my spring to autumn bills are approx £46 and winter bills £82 ?

1679826195601.png
 
I am now having a game with EDF, I tired to lower the DD on my mother's account, because the bungalow is empty, and very little energy is being used, heating is on very low to stop it getting damp and hasn't come on since early this month - it'll get used for hot water when it comes to cleaning the place, and the only electric that will be used is for the loft light when I am clearing that, and a radio whenever I am over there.

I explained this in the comment box on their website, they ignored that and I just got a auto-reply saying they can't do it. So, I e-mailed a complaint with the above information and asked that a human being actually looks at the lack of usage in recent months, and got the same auto-reply. :facepalm:

I am now going to escalate it and threaten to take it to the ombudsman, because this sort of thing just pisses me off, plus they have to pay the ombudsman's costs and I'll probably pick-up another goodwill payment too, happy days. :)
 
cupid_stunt said:
I am now having a game with EDF, I tired to lower the DD on my mother's account, because the bungalow is empty, and very little energy is being used, heating is on very low to stop it getting damp and hasn't come on since early this month - it'll get used for hot water when it comes to cleaning the place, and the only electric that will be used is for the loft light when I am clearing that, and a radio whenever I am over there.

I explained this in the comment box on their website, they ignored that and I just got a auto-reply saying they can't do it. So, I e-mailed a complaint with the above information and asked that a human being actually looks at the lack of usage in recent months, and got the same auto-reply. :facepalm:

I am now going to escalate it and threaten to take it to the ombudsman, because this sort of thing just pisses me off, plus they have to pay the ombudsman's costs and I'll probably pick-up another goodwill payment too, happy days. :)
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I wish we'd more actively managed this with my mum's home when she went into care. I trusted British Gas to do what they said when we told them that the home was unoccupied (which they acknowledged in writing) but they didn't. Instead they kept estimating meter readings based on full occupation and it's taken me 9 months to unravel so far. They've now reimbursed the estate for approx £1300. They sent me a cheque and in the same post delivery sent me a letter threatening debt collection AGAIN. Two envelopes, with two mixed messages.

They still haven't got it right because despite me providing physical evidence that they have the final meter reading wrong, they haven't corrected it. Which amounts to another £grand that they owe the estate.

So yeah, manage it closely (as I'm sure you will).
 
cesare said:
I wish we'd more actively managed this with my mum's home when she went into care. I trusted British Gas to do what they said when we told them that the home was unoccupied (which they acknowledged in writing) but they didn't. Instead they kept estimating meter readings based on full occupation and it's taken me 9 months to unravel so far. They've now reimbursed the estate for approx £1300. They sent me a cheque and in the same post delivery sent me a letter threatening debt collection AGAIN. Two envelopes, with two mixed messages.

They still haven't got it right because despite me providing physical evidence that they have the final meter reading wrong, they haven't corrected it. Which amounts to another £grand that they owe the estate.

So yeah, manage it closely (as I'm sure you will).
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Blimey!

Have you not taken it to the ombudsman? They were brilliant with my OVO complaint, so easy to deal with, and I got a £150 goodwill payment.
 
cesare said:
I will do now, I think. It's just so stressful!
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Well your situation is a lot more stressful than my was, it did take a couple months as they are dealing with so many cases, but as soon as I made the complaint, the stress evaporated as I knew they would resolve it.

www.ombudsman-services.org

How we can help with Energy issues | Energy Ombudsman

The Energy Ombudsman may be able to resolve disputes you have with energy suppliers, brokers, network operators, green deal or a heat network. Find out how we can assist you today!
www.ombudsman-services.org www.ombudsman-services.org
 
cupid_stunt said:
Well your situation is a lot more stressful than my was, it did take a couple months as they are dealing with so many cases, but as soon as I made the complaint, the stress evaporated as I knew they would resolve it.

www.ombudsman-services.org

How we can help with Energy issues | Energy Ombudsman

The Energy Ombudsman may be able to resolve disputes you have with energy suppliers, brokers, network operators, green deal or a heat network. Find out how we can assist you today!
www.ombudsman-services.org www.ombudsman-services.org
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Thanks for the link! OK, will do rather than going through this rigmarole yet another time.

Beware all, BG are no respecters of bereavement.
 
So my supplier (EON.Next) has just informed me that due (amongst other things) to the government's Energy Bill Support Scheme, my monthly direct debit is going up in May from £90 to £300!!!

I will just about manage as the increase is partially offset by having finally paid off a car loan, but WTF!

This is going to fuck over so many people if replicated nationally :facepalm:
 
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Wolveryeti said:
So my supplier (EON.Next) has just informed me that due (amongst other things) to the government's Energy Bill Support Scheme, my monthly direct debit is going up from £90 to £300!!!
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Have you checked if they've got that right?

The government's Energy Bill Support Scheme was only paying £66/67pm for the 6 months Oct-Mar., and the government's Energy Price Guarantee, which was due to increase to £3k in April is now frozen at £2.5k for the next 3 months, followed by forecasts of OFGEM's Price Cap dropping to around £2k for the second half of the year.

So, I can't see how this increase is down to anything the government has done. :hmm:
 
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cupid_stunt said:
Have you checked if they've got that right?

The government's Energy Bill Support Scheme was only paying £66/67pm for the 6 months Oct-Mar., and the government's Energy Price Guarantee, which was due to increase to £3k in April is now frozen at £2.5k for the next 3 months, followed by forecasts of OFGEM's Price Cap dropping to around £2k for the second half of the year.

So, I can't see how this increase is down to anything the government has done. :hmm:
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There's a debit of c. £300 on the account, so I think higher DD is to pay that off too, plus I would imagine the higher DD involves rebasing the annual estimate. Doing the maths, 12 x £330 is about the annual estimate + the debit. Still something of a shock...

Not sure how I would check if they had got it right? Do usage calculations from meters myself rather than running it through the algorithms they have on their website?

My annual estimate for dual fuel is £3,300 - i.e. more than the annual 'average' of £2,500, but I would expect it to be as we are a 1930s semi with 2 adults and 2 small kids (we do a lot of washing and tumble drying and have dehumidifiers on).
 
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