How on earth do they calculate electricity and gas bills...

I know I'm not the only person confused by this!

I got a letter today saying my monthly DD would go up by £165.

I checked previous bill and it was the first one based on a reading for over a year and had but up arrears of ... £175.

Of course all the increase was between the previous estimate and the actual reading so they extrapolate this to needing an extra £2,000 a year.

Easy enough to call them and change to as sensible figure, except they insist of explaining why the system, calculates such a high figure and it's not their fault...

After agreeing a sensible increase in DD, they offer me a better tariff.

Of course changing means I go through the whole process again, which insist on offering another hugely inflated DD amount, but they over-ride it but they can't be deterred from going through all the calculations even though basing this on one month that included two coldest weeks for years with extra heating flat out and multiplying by it by 52/4 is obviously going to go wrong...

Why on earth can't they base usage estimates on a full twelve months? In the UK it is obvious that usage is highly seasonal and that estimation errors should be shared out right back to the previous actual reading.

They then try and get me to commit to a smart meter while cheerfully pointing out they don't work with Economy 7 - I resisted by stating it's pointless having one until you can swap supplier without your smart meter becoming a dumb one.

Doubt it's the heating that has bumped it up, probably been running that 3D printer and big new lathe too much

No, its the Super Adept, they are notorious for high energy consumption

Neil, I have sympathy, earlier this year I was in a similarly frustrating situation with a supplier from whom I was receiving both gas and electric, they were a nightmare to deal with insisted on email communication. I complained so much that they released me from the 12 month contract without charging their stated £30 penalty for each service, I returned to First Utility who I had been with previously ( in retrospect I should never have left them ) they are brilliant and you can speak with them over the phone, and they are very helpful in resolving any perceived issues. First Utility are I believe owned by Siemens, a well respected multinational, not some backstreet call centre who I had obviously made the mistake of using.

Dave W

We switched from "economy" 7 a few years ago. The electric bill was HALVED!

jim

Ah Neil

I’m pleased I’m not the only one pulling out my hair ( not that I’ve got much left to pull out!).

Now it SHOULD be easy. My meter is in a box just outside my front door and my spreadsheet to track bills etc has a line for the electricity meter reading - it takes a moment each day to read the meter and enter the figure into the sheet so I can give a very accurate usage of power at any time.

I recently changed my supplier to British Gas, who offered a “ Smart meter” which would give accurate bills - farewell to the daily meter reading I thought ........ no such luck! - it appears that they don’t work out in the wilds. It seems then that “estimated” bills will be the norm but I will supply a monthly reading and HOPE that works!

N

My supplier (funky Octopus Energy) takes a fixed £230 monthly payment for gas and electricity and has built up a handy (for them) credit over the last year on the allegation that it will even out over the winter. Having said that, we are almost £1k in credit so they are obviously expecting us to crank up the thermostat and open all of the windows now that the cold weather is upon us.

I've resisted these bloody annoying "smart"(??) meters and simply submit my own readings online every month to keep the account readings on track with reality.

Murray

It's all done by the computer program. It works out the monthly payments and sends you a letter with no human intervention!

I used to be with eon but am presently with First Utility. FU are far better than the other lot, who continually demanded a much higher monthly payment.

When I said I would be ringing them every month a using valuable time for their people to refund me when in credit, they eventually stopped pestering, but I shifted to FU and have been content with their direct debit demands so far.

Economy 7 requires more night use these days, than in previous decades. Still good tariff for EV owners, for sure!

How is the info from the smart meter relayed to the supplier? Is it by the home owner's broadband connection, or is it via a mobile phone connection?

Smart meters have their own SIM card which works as a separate mobile phone connection.

Dave W

I think our smart meters use a mobile connection, they certainly aren't on either of my wireless networks, although they must have their own low-power network to provide regular updates to the display. The Hive control box is however on our (wired) network, but communicates with the thermostat and boiler controller using a low-power wireless connection, probably ZigBee.

Brian

Don't be conned into having a Smart Meter. It is only a means of ensuring that in due course you can have a charging regime that could change on a 30 minute basis. My daughter in Ontario has one and last night whilst over here she put the washing machine on.

Why now I asked? Back home the daytime tariff is TWICE the evening tariff and she had forgotten we are not on that YET!

I should remember to use the time delay on washing machine and dishwasher - but they are both A* and use a fraction of what old ones used to take.

Neil

Trying to put them right constitutes the biggest area of consumption.

They will always try to calculate so that you are paying more than they need to. I will guess that they don't pay interest on any over payment, they don't in this country, so they are earning interest on the surplus at your expense. Plus of course it is an unsecured loan from you, so if they go bust while they owe you money you are out of luck.

As far as direct debit payments are concerned, you should not allow anyone to have that sort of access to your accounts. You should only do the sort of payments where you have control over how much has been taken out and where it has gone. This means that when things go wrong, you can still buy groceries even if you have to sit in the dark and cook over a wood fire in the back yard.

John

This changing of monthly payments seemingly at random is nothing new. Long before direct debits came the norm I had a monthly payment scheme set up with what was then Yorkshire Electricity Board. The "year" started in October so I had 6 months of heavy bills which would have been followed by 6 months of light bills, with the monthly amount being set according to the total annual bill. So what happens? In June I get "The Letter" - You should increase your payments. Now I knew what would happen so I wrote back and told them. Then in July I got another letter, this time saying that I had ignored their first letter, and that I WILL increase my payments, and if I don't reply within 7 days etc ... So I wrote again, using phrases such as monopoly groups, it's holiday time, and what has happened to my first letter? I got a half-hearted apology and a a grudging acceptance that I was correct.

Currently I'm with Scottish Power and as the year started in March, I've now built up quite a credit. Last year, this quarter (Dec-Feb) came in at almost £800 so I'm not too bothered. But what are SP doing? They've reduced the payments for two months, and now they've put it up again - because they wish to ensure that payments match power used! We shall see.

Incidently, up until Nov 2016, I was on an obsolete tariff. I was then effectively forced to go onto Economy 7, something I'd always fought against but always knew that it would happen eventually. Since then, I've managed to persuade SWMBO to run the washing machine overnight as much as possible. It remains to be seen how much of a saving it makes, perhaps in a few years time I'll be able to compare before and after averages. Unfortunately, I can't really see us being able to transfer anything else onto cheap rate.

Peter G. Shaw

Since joining this forum I've become a dreadful cynic. I reckon they make tariff calculations impossible to understand to create the illusion we're all getting marvellous deals from a competitive energy market! Sadly, buying gas these days reminds me of doing enforced remedial Algebra at school. Except doing remedial Algebra was more fun...

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 21/12/2017 21:03:01

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