Electricity prices

[Thedreamer]

I was with Bulb and have had a couple of increases in price this year (the last won was on Sunday). I have since moved to Octopus.

 

This is what I was going to be paying.

 

We're increasing our electricity unit rate from 18.837p to 18.876p per kWh and electricity standing charge from 22.848p to 26.881p per day.

These prices all include VAT at 5%.

 

What prices do others pay on a peak tariff?

[Carrerahill]

I am with outfox the market. 

 

Electricity is 18.9pence per day standing charge

16.1273pence per unit

 

Gas is 18.9pence per day standing charge

3.018pence per unit

 

All prices inclusive of VAT.

 

You will probably have to pay more being up north as they factor in ease of supplying - cities for example are cheaper to supply than rural areas. 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Carrerahill

[IanR]

I'm with Symbio, prices have just gone up to:

 

Elec is 11.725p excl / unit (12.31p incl.)  and 19.048p excl / day standing charge (20p incl.)

Tarrif - Low Fair and Green Variable SE02 v18

 

Downside of Symbio - I seem to be unable to stop them over estimating usage and pushing up the DD, to then pay the money back later.

[nod]

As we  move away from fossil fuels 

Electricity prices will soar If only to make up the revenue lost from the gas industry 

 

 

 

[markc]

8 minutes ago, nod said:

As we  move away from fossil fuels 

Electricity prices will soar If only to make up the revenue lost from the gas industry 

 

 

 

Had this conversation with someone the other day, they were under the impression once all electricity was from renewables then it would all be free because we don`t pay for the wind.

 

[TonyT]

My renewal came through today

currently paying Scottish Gas

3.061 per unit if gas

14.778 per unit of electricity 

both have a 15.891 daily standing charges

 

if anyone has a supplier that can beat these and provide a referral link when I need to change at the end of July

just incase someone can get something out of it too
 

[nod]

24 minutes ago, markc said:

Had this conversation with someone the other day, they were under the impression once all electricity was from renewables then it would all be free because we don`t pay for the wind.

 

It just reminds me of the push from petrol cars to getting us all to drive diesel 

At the time diesel was cheaper at the pumps Once we swapped over 

The tax on diesel went up to cover the lost revenue 

Tge same will happen with electricity 

[Thedreamer]

Looks like I am paying quite a bit more.

 

On Skye we have a few wind farms and there is a hydro power plant down the road.

 

Stupid question, but if we produce more electricity than required on the island and we are net exporter, why do we have higher ongoing charges?

 

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, nod said:

same will happen with electricity 

Already happened, the road fund licence, which was £0 on EVs, is now £150/year I think.

 

A back of the fag packet calculation:

30million private cars, mean RFL £100

Mean fuel consumption 30 MPG, mean annual mileage 8000, mean fuel cost £5.70/gallon.

Fuel taxes 65%

 

RFL = £3bn

Fuel Taxes = 26bn

Round that up to £30bn, divide by the number of cars and you get £1000/year.

About the same as my council tax, pretty good value really.

Edited May 26, 2021 by SteamyTea

[Gow]

People's Energy, a newish supplier promising to share its profits with its members. Dream on?  I was fed up with Ovo and switched to the Edinburgh based supplier

 

Fix Tariff

Electricity:  standing  charge 23.31 and just under 14.2 per unit

Gas: standing charge 23.31 and 2.681 per unit

Alas I can't do the maths so I don't know if it is a good deal or not...

Edited May 26, 2021 by Gow
bad grammar

[pdf27]

9 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Looks like I am paying quite a bit more.

 

On Skye we have a few wind farms and there is a hydro power plant down the road.

 

Stupid question, but if we produce more electricity than required on the island and we are net exporter, why do we have higher ongoing charges?

Only about 1/3 of the retail cost of electricity is for generating it - most of the rest goes to maintaining the grid, billing, etc. Rural + Remote = non-generation costs being higher than in an urban environment.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, pdf27 said:

Only about 1/3 of the retail cost of electricity is for generating

Here are the last few years wholesale prices for base load. (ofgem)

Pretty stable for until last year, and when EDF sell me off peak power, they cannot be making anything on it.

Edited May 27, 2021 by SteamyTea

[SteamyTea]

If people want more information about UK energy then DUKES.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-chapter-5-digest-of-united-kingdom-energy-statistics-dukes

[Thedreamer]

5 hours ago, pdf27 said:

Only about 1/3 of the retail cost of electricity is for generating it - most of the rest goes to maintaining the grid, billing, etc. Rural + Remote = non-generation costs being higher than in an urban environment.

 

Yes I see that, but if renewables will be coming from rural & remote areas then why is the rural/remote 'levy' being charged on a one way basis on the grid infrastructure. Might have been case in the 1950 or 1960's when remote areas were being added to the grid, but why now?

 

Presumably in the future, urban areas will be benefitting more and more from renewables generated in rural locations, will the charge be reversed?

 

Also given the North of Scotland electricity production is usually the cleanest area of the UK in terms of carbon intensity, should higher prices be paid by areas of the country that have a greater impact on the environment?

 

https://carbonintensity.org.uk/

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Yes I see that, but if renewables will be coming from rural & remote areas then why is the rural/remote 'levy' being charged on a one way basis on the grid infrastructure

It is because it is distributed generation, but it still feeds into the main electricity grid.  It does not supply electricity, ready to use out of the box, for locals people.  It is still conditioned, stepped up in voltage, connected via a relatively small sub station, usually via underground cabling, into the main grid (those huge pylons).

A large thermal plant (gas or nuclear) does all that at the facility and then the cables are run in.

The difference is that a nuclear plant may be turning out 3 GW, a large windfarm 50 MW (occasionally) and a solar farm probably less than 5 MW.

So there is a lot of planning for this, and it that which can cost money, and then not succeed.

 

Renewable Energy has relatively high fixed costs, but very low running costs.

 

I have often wondered how much energy the site at Hinkley Point would have generated with 15 year old RE technology by now.  They could have installed a very large solar farm and some 7.5 MW turbines on the site, and all the infrastructure needed was already there.

Edited May 27, 2021 by SteamyTea

[pdf27]

2 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Yes I see that, but if renewables will be coming from rural & remote areas then why is the rural/remote 'levy' being charged on a one way basis on the grid infrastructure. Might have been case in the 1950 or 1960's when remote areas were being added to the grid, but why now?

It's worth remembering that the grid operates at multiple different voltages - power distribution around the country is the high voltage grid, while domestic distribution is low voltage. Because there is so much more of it, most of the running costs are associated with the LV grid, which isn't really affected by where the generation is.

 

2 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Presumably in the future, urban areas will be benefitting more and more from renewables generated in rural locations, will the charge be reversed?

Octopus is starting to do this - https://octopus.energy/octopus-fan-club/ - but I'm skeptical as to exactly how much local use can actually reduce underlying costs. At the moment it's mostly about wind farm PR.

 

2 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Also given the North of Scotland electricity production is usually the cleanest area of the UK in terms of carbon intensity, should higher prices be paid by areas of the country that have a greater impact on the environment?

That's very difficult to answer - for instance, when you put the kettle on the additional electricity doesn't come from the wind blowing harder locally but by burning more gas hundreds of miles away. To me that makes it very questionable as to whether the local carbon intensity graphs mean very much: the UK is a deeply integrated grid.

My own view is that it's best handled as a carbon tax on wholesale electricity - for instance how best to handle someone who lives in a remote/windy area but buys their electricity from a non-renewable supplier, versus someone who lives in London but buys from a 100% renewable supplier? Doing it as a carbon tax at least directly links the cost impact to the pollution one, and gives a stronger incentive to use less-polluting solutions. This would also help out with the gas .vs. electrical heating issue, as gas could then be taxed at an appropriate rate for the pollution emitted rather than all of the pollution levies being put on electricity as at present.

[newhome]

I have an EV single rate tariff from EDF. The standing charge is a bit higher than you pay but as a high user (electric heating, no gas) the kWh rate is more important to me. I pay 12.59p currently (I switched to them last October). I suspect that the rates have risen but I’m not sure by how much as my rate is fixed for a year. 
 

https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/ev_rate_card_go_electric_nov_21.pdf

 

 

 

[RandAbuild]

We were with Bulb but switched before the last price increase, which would have added 13% to the price we were paying.

We moved to AVRO Energy and their Simple and Super12M 12 months fixed tariff:
            
Electricity
Standing Charge - 19.95p per day    
Unit Rate - 14.989p/kWh
        
Gas        
Standing Charge - 19.95p per day    
Unit Rate - 2.546p/kWh

 

We had a smart meter fitted during our build, but its a SMETS1 version and hasn't worked at all.

 

On the whole, Bulb were pretty good. AVRO are turning out to be hopeless. I couldn't record the first meter reading on their App as it wasn't working, so did it by email. Despite numerous calls and emails, they just don't respond. I spend 15 minutes on their Emergency only helpline (anything else has to be by email or looking online). The App still doesn't work, so I've put them on notice I won't be sending any further readings until they sort it out.

 

 

[Thedreamer]

@SteamyTea and @pdf27

 

Thanks for your comments, I've learned a bit from that.

 

And others that have chipped in with rates.

 

It's coming up to a year since we moved into the house and I took reading on the day we moved in so it will be interesting to see what the electricity cost will be for the year.

 

All this talk about moving from gas boilers (and I would presume oil would be the same) sounds as if consumers will be hardest hit in North Scotland. I wouldn't be surprised if people go back to burning peats here.

 

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

I wouldn't be surprised if people go back to burning peats here.

Or Catholics

[billt]

On 27/05/2021 at 17:35, RandAbuild said:

We were with Bulb but switched before the last price increase, which would have added 13% to the price we were paying.

 

On the whole, Bulb were pretty good. AVRO are turning out to be hopeless. I couldn't record the first meter reading on their App as it wasn't working, so did it by email. Despite numerous calls and emails, they just don't respond. I spend 15 minutes on their Emergency only helpline (anything else has to be by email or looking online). The App still doesn't work, so I've put them on notice I won't be sending any further readings until they sort it out.

 

We to moved from Bulb to Avro when Bulb put their prices up. Can't say there have been any issues. Initially there was confusion about meter readings as they referred to day and night rates as 1 and 2 on their website and it wasn't clear which was which but they respnded promptly by email. They've changed the website to use sensible labels now.

 

Have you tried the website? I dislike apps, especially for this sort of thing so don't use them. Lumo are spectacularly bad and they were only contactable via the app.

 

FWIW our unit rate here (W. Midlands) is16.092p and the standing charge is 21p.

In the flat (South coast) with Octopus the unit rate is 17.59p and standing charge is 22.2p.

[RandAbuild]

19 hours ago, billt said:

 

We to moved from Bulb to Avro when Bulb put their prices up. Can't say there have been any issues. Initially there was confusion about meter readings as they referred to day and night rates as 1 and 2 on their website and it wasn't clear which was which but they respnded promptly by email. They've changed the website to use sensible labels now.

 

Have you tried the website? I dislike apps, especially for this sort of thing so don't use them. Lumo are spectacularly bad and they were only contactable via the app.

 

FWIW our unit rate here (W. Midlands) is16.092p and the standing charge is 21p.

In the flat (South coast) with Octopus the unit rate is 17.59p and standing charge is 22.2p.

Interesting the rates you are paying are quite a bit higher than ours. A good reason to stick with them.

 

Sorry, it's not the App I was using, it is their website portal. Logged in OK but when I try to add readings it says ‘An unexpected error has occurred’. Been like that from day 1. Tried a different browser - same. After numerous emails, it was escalated to their Development Team over 2 weeks ago - heard nothing since.