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

[Artaxerxes]

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Rishi Sunak is planning to set aside a large part of a windfall in UK public finances this year, risking a backlash from Tory MPs who want the chancellor to use all funds available to cushion the cost of living crisis hurting British families.
The official forecasts in the Spring Statement will show the deficit is at least £20bn better than expected this year, but Sunak will use only some of the money to help households facing soaring gas, electricity, and fuel bills.
Sunak will instead highlight the importance of “more resilient public finances” as he worries about a surge in the cost of servicing government debt instead of spending the entire windfall.
He is set to say he will “stand by” families, with a cut in fuel tax expected to be part of new measures he will announce on Wednesday.

His speech will focus on the theme of “security” as he offers Britain’s “unwavering” support to Ukraine amid a promise to continue supplying weapons and aid to the war-stricken country.
Many Tory MPs are pushing for bolder fiscal action, including cutting taxes or reducing the impact of the planned 1.25 percentage point rise in national insurance contributions, which takes effect next month and is intended to raise £12bn for the NHS and social care. Some want Sunak to ditch the measure altogether, although a second choice would be to increase the threshold at which people pay NICs from £9,600 to the income tax threshold of £12,500.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, said Sunak had “headroom” and should use the fiscal good news this year to pump money into the economy to avoid “stagflation” — when prices rise amid a recession.
“He should act boldly and decisively,” Duncan Smith said, adding that the chancellor should either scrap the national insurance rise or raise the threshold. “By the autumn it could be too late.”
Official figures on Tuesday showed a £13.2bn downward revision in borrowing, putting the government on course to release more than £20bn for new one-off measures to help households.

Robert Halfon, a longstanding campaigner against increases in fuel duty, said: “Boris and the chancellor should make it their defining domestic mission to use this windfall to cut the cost of living for workers — not just for this emergency situation but for the long term.”
The Treasury is nervous about these demands and worries that higher inflation in 2022-23 and higher interest rates will raise the forecast cost of servicing debt by more than the extra tax revenues it will receive. However, forecasts for the 2024-25 financial year are set to show an improvement in borrowing because additional tax revenues will outweigh the higher cost of servicing debt.

Sir Charlie Bean, a former member of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasting team, nevertheless said he expected the chancellor to have significant “wriggle room” in the public finance forecasts to help households.
Sunak is also expected to announce a shake-up of training in an attempt to raise the country’s skills levels and growth potential, including a review of the operation of the apprenticeship levy.

He will argue that providing incentives to the private sector to carry out more training is part of a plan to create “a new culture of enterprise”, including a new regime of tax breaks to boost investment and innovation.
Last month the chancellor said he feared the apprenticeship levy was not doing enough to “incentivise business to invest in the right kinds of training”. Most new measures will be introduced in his autumn Budget.
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[Artaxerxes]

I also want to say that while I do sympathise with soaring fuel prices this is what Petrol vs Bus vs Rail looks like over the last few decades.

 

[High Voltage]

There must be something that's using all that power. Do you have anything that's hard wired in that you can't use the power meter on?

At the beginning of the month I started looking into where the energy was being used. This highlighted two energy users that I'd not really considered. Both are now switched off, yes there is a reduction in energy usage but only down to the lowest daily figure of 6.2KWh for a 24 hour period.

Pretty much all kitchen white goods are fairly new and are all a perceived quality brands so I've no intention of changing them any time soon. I did a back of a fag packet estimate and the payback on a reduced energy fridge freezer with electricity at 40p / KWh is something like 7 years

I'm just going to have to keep chipping away a bit here and a bit there, but obviously there'll be a point where I reach "that's it" and I'm just going to have to accept that whatever that amount is really is our best.

 

[MrCurry]

At the beginning of the month I started looking into where the energy was being used. This highlighted two energy users that I'd not really considered. Both are now switched off, yes there is a reduction in energy usage but only down to the lowest daily figure of 6.2KWh for a 24 hour period.

Pretty much all kitchen white goods are fairly new and are all a perceived quality brands so I've no intention of changing them any time soon. I did a back of a fag packet estimate and the payback on a reduced energy fridge freezer with electricity at 40p / KWh is something like 7 years

I'm just going to have to keep chipping away a bit here and a bit there, but obviously there'll be a point where I reach "that's it" and I'm just going to have to accept that whatever that amount is really is our best.

Is your electric meter one of the “smart” ones with an LCD showing the instantaneous consumption in W/KW? If so you can switch off your circuits at the dist. Board one by one and see how that background consumption drops. Maybe you‘ll find some of your power suckers.

I discovered an old doorbell transformer which was wired in and warm to the touch, which must’ve been using 5W or so continuously for years. It was right next to the doorbell chime unit so I’d previously assumed it was needed, but on closer investigation it seems the doorbell chime runs on a 9V battery and the transformer must’ve been used years ago with a previous doorbell.

Another find was the big outdoor light on the front of my garage, which the year I moved here I left switched on 24/7 because it was on a manual switch on the front of the garage (no daylight sensor back then) and I didn’t want to go out there twice a day to switch it on and off. When I finally got up on a ladder to have a look I found it was a 125W Mercury vapor lamp Swapped that for a 10W LED floodlamp then went back the next year and put a 5W one in, which is bright enough anyway.

 

[High Voltage]

Is your electric meter one of the “smart” ones with an LCD showing the instantaneous consumption in W/KW? If so you can switch off your circuits at the dist. Board one by one and see how that background consumption drops. Maybe you‘ll find some of your power suckers.

I discovered an old doorbell transformer which was wired in and warm to the touch, which must’ve been using 5W or so continuously for years. It was right next to the doorbell chime unit so I’d previously assumed it was needed, but on closer investigation it seems the doorbell chime runs on a 9V battery and the transformer must’ve been used years ago with a previous doorbell.

Another find was the big outdoor light on the front of my garage, which the year I moved here I left switched on 24/7 because it was on a manual switch on the front of the garage (no daylight sensor back then) and I didn’t want to go out there twice a day to switch it on and off. When I finally got up on a ladder to have a look I found it was a 125W Mercury vapor lamp Swapped that for a 10W LED floodlamp then went back the next year and put a 5W one in, which is bright enough anyway.

We don't have a smart meter as such but I've got an owl meter which gives the same functionality. I've already gone down the switch everything off route incase we were paying for another houses usage (they're old houses so I wouldn't put anything as not being possible) but no

I am rapidly running out of things to measure, or change to lower power options, or switch off, yet still maintain an acceptable quality of living. We really are not profligate in our energy usage yet when there are people citing energy usage HALF of what we're using I just don't see how that's possible

 

[MrCurry]

We don't have a smart meter as such but I've got an owl meter which gives the same functionality. I've already gone down the switch everything off route incase we were paying for another houses usage (they're old houses so I wouldn't put anything as not being possible) but no

I am rapidly running out of things to measure, or change to lower power options, or switch off, yet still maintain an acceptable quality of living. We really are not profligate in our energy usage yet when there are people citing energy usage HALF of what we're using I just don't see how that's possible

Ok, but then with the meter and a progressive switch off test, you must be able to see how much each room is contributing to the overall consumption? And within a given room how much it goes down each time you switch off a socket, for example?

If you can see that level of granularity then there are no remaining hidden power suckers, it’s just to decide what you can switch off, and if that’s nothing then yes you’re stuck with your current usage level.

 

[cupid_stunt]

We think we have problems...

Mum-of-three sent gas and electricity bill for almost £2billion for two weeks

“I usually turn off the lights when we leave a room and make sure we are as eco-friendly as possible so I knew it couldn’t be right.”

www.devonlive.com

A mum-of-three said was sent a gas and electricity bill for almost £2billion - for two weeks' power use. Brenda McCossick got the bill from Shell Energy, which told her she owed £1.9billion.

Brenda, 50, is a police call handler and lives with her daughter, who is 15, The Sun reports. Her usual energy bills for her three-bedroom detached house are around £50 a month.

She said: "I knew the amount is going up given the rise of energy bills but I couldn’t believe it. It must be a record for the biggest energy bill ever.

 

[High Voltage]

Looks like I might have finally tracked down a bigger energy user that I'd've thought possible

I switched off the central heating and water heating and energy use has dropped from previous lowest reading 6.2KWh for the previous 24 hrs down to 4.9KWh for the same period of time . . . which would make sense if we had electric central heating but it's LPG, so explain THAT??

And that's with a manual 1hr "boost" for the hot water this morning, but, yunno, some quality of life

I'm going to leave everything switched off and see if this is on-going or this was a one off glitch

 

[WouldBe]

Looks like I might have finally tracked down a bigger energy user that I'd've thought possible

I switched off the central heating and water heating and energy use has dropped from previous lowest reading 6.2KWh for the previous 24 hrs down to 4.9KWh for the same period of time . . . which would make sense if we had electric central heating but it's LPG, so explain THAT??

And that's with a manual 1hr "boost" for the hot water this morning, but, yunno, some quality of life

I'm going to leave everything switched off and see if this is on-going or this was a one off glitch

Is the water heating from the boiler or an immersion heater?
Immersion heaters can use a lot of energy so could be that.
Even though your boiler is LPG there is still quite a few electric components like circuit board (although that doesn't use a lot), pumps can use around 120Wh and can be more than one in a system, 2/3 way valves shouldn't use too much but it can all add up.

 

[High Voltage]

Is the water heating from the boiler or an immersion heater?
Immersion heaters can use a lot of energy so could be that.
Even though your boiler is LPG there is still quite a few electric components like circuit board (although that doesn't use a lot), pumps can use around 120Wh and can be more than one in a system, 2/3 way valves shouldn't use too much but it can all add up.

The water is now being heated by the boiler, but up til a few weeks ago the 3 way valve wasn't functioning so whilst the boiler was set to heat water is was actually heating the central heating, so the 3KW immersion heater was doing all of the heavy lifting. The immersion heater is now switched off and the valve has been replaced, so the only power usage I can see is, as you've mentioned, is the pump, the three way valve and any circuit boards in the boiler and the control panel

I'm sure that there's only one pump and I'll try and track that down to check what it is and try and get a power consumption figure for it

 

[StoneRoad]

Yeah, I agree - it would be mainly the pump's consumption - all the control circuitry should have minimal draw.

 

[gentlegreen]

It's straight forward chez moi - electric hot water once a fortnight or less, small fan heater for heating - which makes it all the more peculiar ...

Time to deploy some technology ...

 

[High Voltage]

OK - dumb question time, can you get "lower energy" central heating pumps and would the energy saving be worth while

Looking at my tentative figures from yesterday the energy usage drop is "around" 1.5KW, from memory I think the central heating and hot water were on for, say, 8 hours spread throughout the day, so that would mean all elements of the central heating were using "about" 200w / hour - give or take

A quick Google would suggest that central heating pumps typically use "around" 60w / hour, yet WouldBe (post above) suggests maybe as high as 120w / hour wouldn't be unusual

Don't get me wrong, if my new "daily usage" of 4.9KWh is duplicable, certainly in the spring / summer / autumn months I'll be delighted and that'll give me a really big buffer for the winters bills where energy usage will be higher, but I wasn't seeing any significant drop in electric usage in the warmer seasons, which was almost certainly down to the 3 way valve not functioning and the emersion being on all year round, and other things just being left on 'cause "they don't use that much do they" - well, yes, actually, turns out they fucking well did

 

[High Voltage]

It's straight forward chez moi - electric hot water once a fortnight or less, small fan heater for heating - which makes it all the more peculiar ...

Time to deploy some technology ...

View attachment 315513

Hey gentlegreen - the multi-meter you've got there, does that cable clamp enable you to check current flow through a wire?

Reason I'm asking is, I've got a couple of these plug in readers and they're great for stuff which plugs in, but for say, an electric oven which doesn't plug in but I have access to the power cable would this let me know an accumulative usage? or just what's being used immediately?

 

[existentialist]

Hey gentlegreen - the multi-meter you've got there, does that cable clamp enable you to check current flow through a wire?

Reason I'm asking is, I've got a couple of these plug in readers and they're great for stuff which plugs in, but for say, an electric oven which doesn't plug in but I have access to the power cable would this let me know an accumulative usage? or just what's being used immediately?

It's not as easy as that - you need to get the CT round a single conductor, not the whole cable...

 

[High Voltage]

It's not as easy as that - you need to get the CT round a single conductor, not the whole cable...

I do not understand, there's a single power cable going to the oven and nothing else, won't that work?

 

[prunus]

Looks like I might have finally tracked down a bigger energy user that I'd've thought possible

I switched off the central heating and water heating and energy use has dropped from previous lowest reading 6.2KWh for the previous 24 hrs down to 4.9KWh for the same period of time . . . which would make sense if we had electric central heating but it's LPG, so explain THAT??

And that's with a manual 1hr "boost" for the hot water this morning, but, yunno, some quality of life

I'm going to leave everything switched off and see if this is on-going or this was a one off glitch

Sounds like it would be the pump - typically run at about 100W so 1.3kWh is about 13 hours of runtime - less if your pump is more powerful - can you get a model number off it, we can look it up?

Though if the manual boost was from cold via an immersion heater that could be up to about 3 kWh in itself... was the water already somewhat warm?

 

[existentialist]

I do not understand, there's a single power cable going to the oven and nothing else, won't that work?

That cable has 3 conductors in it - if the CT goes around both the live and neutral, they cancel each other out, so you need to be able to separate the live cable and just get the CT round that. You only need a few inches of it, but it would probably mean stripping the outer insulation, which isn't exactly "code". You're better off measuring overall consumption, and then just calculating the difference when the oven is on...

 

[High Voltage]

Sounds like it would be the pump - typically run at about 100W so 1.3kWh is about 13 hours of runtime - less if your pump is more powerful - can you get a model number off it, we can look it up?

Though if the manual boost was from cold via an immersion heater that could be up to about 3 kWh in itself... was the water already somewhat warm?

No, the immersion heater element is switched off, so the LPG boiler is now doing what it's being told to do, ie heating water in this case, so we got a 1hr boost to the hot water tank by LPG

 

[High Voltage]

That cable has 3 conductors in it - if the CT goes around both the live and neutral, they cancel each other out, so you need to be able to separate the live cable and just get the CT round that. You only need a few inches of it, but it would probably mean stripping the outer insulation, which isn't exactly "code". You're better off measuring overall consumption, and then just calculating the difference when the oven is on...

So how does the OWL meter work then?

That's got a clamp that goes round the mains cable as it comes into the house and reads the amount of "electric" that is flowing through the cable. Is this £60 doodah doing something that a £150 meter (yeah, I know that aren't that price, but I know me) can't do?

Again, genuine question, this is why I don't like electricity as a "thing"

 

[prunus]

No, the immersion heater element is switched off, so the LPG boiler is now doing what it's being told to do, ie heating water in this case, so we got a 1hr boost to the hot water tank by LPG

Ah sorry misunderstood. In that case a 1.3kWh daily use for a central heating pump sounds about right, ballpark.

 

[gentlegreen]

So how does the OWL meter work then?

That's got a clamp that goes round the mains cable as it comes into the house and reads the amount of "electric" that is flowing through the cable. Is this £60 doodah doing something that a £150 meter (yeah, I know that aren't that price, but I know me) can't do?

Again, genuine question, this is why I don't like electricity as a "thing"

I wonder how that works then ..
Are you sure it isn't just around one of the phases ?
I have a couple of cheap contactless live wire detectors that don't work if the live wire is being screened by the earth / neutral.

That clamp meter happens to have one built in that's so sensitive it's almost unusable ...

I'll wire that ammeter into an extension cable - though it's no good for anything over 1kw ...

 

[High Voltage]

Ah sorry misunderstood. In that case a 1.3kWh daily use for a central heating pump sounds about right, ballpark.

Really, well I'll go to the foot of our stairs

 

[cupid_stunt]

Really, well I'll go to the foot of our stairs

I would too, but I live in a bungalow.

 

[High Voltage]

I wonder how that works then ..
Are you sure it isn't just around one of the phases ?
I have a couple of cheap contactless live wire detectors that don't work if the live wire is being screened by the earth / neutral.

That clamp meter happens to have one built in that's so sensitive it's almost unusable ...

That cable has 3 conductors in it - if the CT goes around both the live and neutral, they cancel each other out, so you need to be able to separate the live cable and just get the CT round that. You only need a few inches of it, but it would probably mean stripping the outer insulation, which isn't exactly "code". You're better off measuring overall consumption, and then just calculating the difference when the oven is on...

Ahhhh!! just checked, totally my fault, I fitted this YEARS ago and forgot that the OWL clamp just goes around the +ve cable coming in

It's all clear now

Where's my Stanley knife??

I'll soon have a foot or two of that insulation off the cooker lead

 

[High Voltage]

What could possibly go wrong

 

[prunus]

I wonder how that works then ..
Are you sure it isn't just around one of the phases ?
I have a couple of cheap contactless live wire detectors that don't work if the live wire is being screened by the earth / neutral.

That clamp meter happens to have one built in that's so sensitive it's almost unusable ...

I'll wire that ammeter into an extension cable - though it's no good for anything over 1kw ...

I'm pretty sure it clamps onto the incoming live only (the big fat red wire coming out of the meter).

 

[cupid_stunt]

What could possibly go wrong

Ask dessiato!

 

[gentlegreen]

I definitely need to find where all my energy is going, but 8 units a day is only an average of 333 watts...

 

[High Voltage]

Am I now right in thinking that there's no actual way of measuring how much a "thing" uses if it isn't a simply "plug in" thing

Say for example, cooker or any other "hard wired" kitchen device