I finally go around to arranging to change from Economy 7 to a standard tariff prior to changing suppliers. Now I don't leave computers on 24/7 nor run the dishwasher or washing machine at night it wasn't economic.
I'm a bit surprised the electricity company are going to change the meter instead of just read the sum, it looks like an unnecessary expense.
AJH
They probably want to make it more difficult for you (or future owners/residents) to return to E7 in future.
Presumably they'll take away the times switch and disconnect the tails from the controlled CU at the same time.
I don't quite follow this. Are you on a tariff that is cheaper during the day than Economy 7 or were you just not making enough use of Economy 7 to cover presumably a higher fixed charge?
Day rate E7 is more than standard rate *and* you pay a higher standing charge.
I built a spreadsheet to crunch the figures a while back it told me that I needed to use at least 1.46 units in the cheap rate period to offset the higher standing charge and 0.21 off-peak units for every peak unit used.
10 units total would require 7 @ day rate and 3 at night rate. 20 units total would require 15 @ day rate and 5 at night rate. 5 at night rate requires and average load of over 700W.
From what I can see I'm paying a premium on my day units in order to have the cheaper night units. As the proportion of night units has dropped to well under 25% of the day units there is no longer any benefit in the economy 7 tariff, given the lead time on building carbon dioxide emission free generation capacity I've decided to economise.
AJH
Thanks for that, I just did a mental sum and concluded similarly but with none of your accuracy.
AJH
It's using very old figures, Nov '04 is the spreadsheet file date, but I doubt that the balance points have change significantly.
Do the values still vary considerably with suppliers/location. At one time East midlands EB (IIRC) charged the same for day units as on its 24 hour tarrif, so the balance point was more favourable to E7 with just the additional standing charge to assimilate. I haven't seen similar of late but ICBW.
Yes, it's even more complicated now as the same supplier with the same tarrif will charge different amounts depending on where you are.
I've not noticed any E7 tarrifs were the E7 Peak is the same as that companies normal rate, but I haven't really looked either.
I had an exchange of emails with Scottish Power about the misleading way they present their bills.
Their bill explanation leaflet states "If you are a Direct Debit customer, this will show your total charges for energy use." However, this is incorrect, as it adjusts "Total Charges" for the previous account balance, and is therefore misleading. What it shows is the account balance, a different matter entirely.
Furthermore, nowhere on the bill is there a figure for the total cost of energy used, including VAT and discounts. This figure can be arrived at, but why is it not printed? Similarly, it is not at all straightforward to separate out the final cost of gas and electricity consumed.
After an initial response which was simply a knee jerk explanation of how to get a bill, they simply responded
all charges applied so you can see the current balance of your account in full.
I have a spreadsheet tracking my usage, and also showing if E7 is saving me money. At present, for my load pattern, it is becoming marginal.
Chris
Are the energy companies obliged to publish a definitive price list?
The few I've looked at all seem to want to produce an individual quote, based on full address, existing supplier, existing usage, etc. Fair enough they'll argue this steers the customer through the complication of discount schemes, but seems it provides them with the scope to provide a quote which is "only just" cheaper that their competitors.
Ibico, which was mentioned here were recently, were the only ones whose price structure appeared un-complicated, a single price per unit varying by region for electricity, without primary and secondary units, standing charges etc, this rate was (marginally) cheaper than my existing supplier's "best rate", and there would be another small saving by not paying a higher "standing charge cover-up" rate for the first few units.
You can normally find proper tariff/price lists if you dig about on thei= r websites. Troubles is with the 16+ regions and a similar number of tarri= fs even if you have the raw data it's still not simple. IMHO a decent web site would allow you select your region by town/postcode/REC and then present only the tariffs/rates available to you, it's not rocket science= to do that FFS.
They do have the simplest structure and the only one without a standing =
charge hidden or otherwise AFAIK. However you ought to be able to beat Ibico's rate, I pay 10.67p/unit on Ibico on a low use meter but
8.415p/unit (9.281p/unit since 1st Sept if I've read Scottish Power's 18= page price list .pdf correctly) but with a standing charge of 12.39p/day= however we use >20units day so still save about 15p/day (~=A350/year) on= SP compared to Ibico.
Odd on my bill from SP the front has a summary of rather irrelevant account balances etc but the back has a detailed break down giving all t= he relevant information. Starts with previous statement ballnce then adds a= ny payments in the period and gives a total. After that there is a detailed= section with meter no, readings, periods, cost/unit, standing charge/day= and no of days with a total. Below that is a discounts section with a total, then total charges section with the VAT calculation, finally the =
account balance to be carried forward.
Can't comment on that as there is no gas here but I can clearly see how =
much power I have used and when the rate changes how they have apportion= ed the two rates.
I have recently had a run in with Southern Electricity and Scottish & Southern who do the billing for Ibico. The billing system can't cope wit= h a DD discount of =A30.00 (Ibico don't do DD discount) so they hoik the u= nit rates up by a bit then apply the standard SE DD discount to get the bott= om line right.
Well, scotpower seem to have eight separate PDFs for their different=20 schemes, but at least you *can* pick your way through them, I was unable =
to find a similar document on eon's website.
So, as I said, the total charge, including VAT, is not printed.
I am not suggesting that there is anything amiss with the calculations. However, it doesn't seem unreasonable that I should expect to be able to read straight off the bill, without having to work it out, allowing all discounts and including VAT:
Cost to me of gas used Cost to me of electricity used Total amount charged against my account.
Chris
Several of the links actually point to the same "general.pdf" file.
Pick being the operative word, there is no mention of the "online" tarri= fs in the file you get if you follow the links so you sort of have to guess= what applies to you from the payment method and frequency.
Scottish Power are offering "Discounted Energy Oct 2009" which guarantee= s to be 3% below their standard rates until Oct 2009. Could save us =A330/= year over their Online Monthly DD tarrif. If you have gas it might be worth looking at the Online Energy Saver 4 that is better, at least for electricity, but is duel fuel only. B-(
The fixed price to Dec '09 offerings come out just over a =A310/year mor= e expensive, you are gambling on the prices going up again. Personally I don't think they will, crude has dropped below $100/barrel in the last f= ew days and Brent crude is just sub $90 today.
E.on don't offer competative rates on the switching sites so I haven't bothered looking...
As I said VAT has to be the last thing calculated on the total amount of charges less any discounts or rebates. To have the cost of gas/electricity shown inclusive of VAT is not possible to do accurately.
I don't have gas but I do have a line saying "Total electricity" ex VAT, see above.
I also have that (exc VAT, see above). The amount of VAT is on the line below.
Many thanks. It had never occurred to me. I'll start going through the bills.
I read somewhere yesterday that the price can depend on whether you have switched and whether the switch is a first switch (big discount) or frequent switcher (small discount).
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