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How much per month is your gas bill at the moment?

………. Have just asked Octopus for some of the £550 of my money that is resting in their account to be returned to me. The sneaky feckers have disabled the ability to "refund my credit" on their web site.
We are about £750 in credit to Eon. I suggested we asked for it back but my wife wants to keep it there “for emergencies”. I despair.
 
We are about £750 in credit to Eon. I suggested we asked for it back but my wife wants to keep it there “for emergencies”. I despair.
My missus was happy to leave it there too. I'd prefer keeping it for a rainy day in our savings account.

The way it used to work, was that you paid a fixed amount monthly and by this time of year, or perhaps Feb-April your account would be negative and you would "owe" the energy co. money. Gradually repaid as warmer weather arrived and energy use dropped. I am much more relaxed with me owing them money than vice-versa.

The idea that, in times of crazy high energy prices, we should hand surplus payments to the energy provider feels perverse to me.
 
That’s not my memory.
You paid a fixed amount, ie overpaid in summer, and consequently inevitably built up a surplus to cover the excess consumption in winter. I have never, in 50 years, had a negative account with a utility supplier when paying by direct debit.
 
Wholesale Gas has just crashed to a new low. Just 150p per therm compared to 702p in August. An energy boss who’s company made £20 billion profit last year today says high energy bills are here to stay. We must fight back. This is a rip off.

Just seen the above here on Twitter. Not a source I know, but highly disturbing if true. Anyone able to fact-check it?
 
It will be the same old bollocks as with petrol/diesel when it goes up they put the price up same day, when the cost of oil plummets then we get "ahh we can't lower the price as you're paying for fuel that was bought 6 months ago at higher prices"
 
It will be the same old bollocks as with petrol/diesel when it goes up they put the price up same day, when the cost of oil plummets then we get "ahh we can't lower the price as you're paying for fuel that was bought 6 months ago at higher prices"
Known as 'rocket-and-feather'...

Thanks to @Mike Reed's comment in this thread I locked in a fix in Sept '21 to run for 2 years from December '21. My bills haven't changed since then as my usage is fairly low and consistent, however my DD dropped from £80/mo to £13 (total) when the Government Discount Scheme kicked in. My actual gas bill for the last quarter works out at £26/mo so the Government have been paying that in full plus most of my electricity bill on top which is nuts.

I'm not even sure there'll be a 'hike' to come the end of my fix on 17th Dec '23 as it's entirely possible energy prices could be back to something a little more sensible in another 11 months' time.
 
That’s not my memory.
You paid a fixed amount, ie overpaid in summer, and consequently inevitably built up a surplus to cover the excess consumption in winter. I have never, in 50 years, had a negative account with a utility supplier when paying by direct debit.
That's my memory and my current experience. This morning I have had my Oct-Dec gas bill, so the first half of the winter bills. I have burned £235, I've paid 3 x £45 = £135. I started with £190 credit, I now have £90. Round numbers. So in another 3 winter months I can expect to burn £235, pay £135, so by the end of March I *just might* have a small debt to them of a tenner or so. This is after I refused to allow them to raise my DD last spring. Obviously over the summer my £45 a month will build to most of 6 x £45 = £180 credit because my gas usage in summer is hot water only so minimal.
I'm happy enough with a £45 gas + £30 elec bill, in this day and age and a family sized detached house, albeit that I only heat the rooms I use and spend a lot of my time working away so the place sits at 10 deg C all week. I'll be burning more now because I'm actually in the place for a change.
 
Known as 'rocket-and-feather'...

Thanks to @Mike Reed's comment in this thread I locked in a fix in Sept '21 to run for 2 years from December '21. My bills haven't changed since then as my usage is fairly low and consistent, however my DD dropped from £80/mo to £13 (total) when the Government Discount Scheme kicked in. My actual gas bill for the last quarter works out at £26/mo so the Government have been paying that in full plus most of my electricity bill on top which is nuts.

I'm not even sure there'll be a 'hike' to come the end of my fix on 17th Dec '23 as it's entirely possible energy prices could be back to something a little more sensible in another 11 months' time.
Martin Lewis doesn’t think so.
 
I guess the problem is that all our energy suppliers have 'bought forward' a mass of gas at the previous high prices - in case they went even higher again. It could take ages for that to unwind and contracts at new lower prices appear. They are effectively over-stocked in Gas at high cost.
 
I guess the problem is that all our energy suppliers have 'bought forward' a mass of gas at the previous high prices - in case they went even higher again. It could take ages for that to unwind and contracts at new lower prices appear. They are effectively over-stocked in Gas at high cost.
I suspect that market prices are low because gas has been pre-ordered so no one is buying at the low price. When we pre-order next I bet it’ll be when there’s high demand/pre-ordering so prices will be way up again..
 
I suspect that market prices are low because gas has been pre-ordered so no one is buying at the low price. When we pre-order next I bet it’ll be when there’s high demand/pre-ordering so prices will be way up again..
I think that the practical situation will be a lot more complicated than we think. I know that big gas users, and by implication gas retailer s, will have very sophisticated pricing plans that aim to hedge against market shifts that would otherwise make the business unviable. This is the case with many business es, e.g. bread bakers will agree a price based on flour price not rising above X and if it does the salesman is back in to the supermarket with his notepad and calculator.
 
Anyone else doing the ‘peak save’ thing with National Grid? British Gas asked me to sign up so will give it a go. Seems you need to reduce you average consumption for the few hours they set. Sounds like a good excuse to switch everything off and go to the pub!
 
Latest bill here for the last month was £285.95, I thought it would be higher, washer dryer has been on a fair bit, had Christmas in the bill too.

Got Hive before Christmas which is definitely cutting down on our heating (gas) usage.

Here’s a graph for my WFH day today (off Hive):
BD0-F848-B-D8-F9-47-EA-9-B39-632-EAA3066-DD.png
 
First months charge has arrived - £200, per week / £800 odd for January.
64p per KWH.
Not happy, but considering just how efficient this place is, I fear for many.
I am aware there is a small cap in place for us and a slightly larger one for heavy users, but this is not going to help the inflation figures one bit.
 
How do Equinor (in Radio 4 interview this morning) reckon future energy costs are going to increase when we all expect more of our electricity to come from wind in the future, a known lower cost source than gas/oil/coal generation that Equinor are peddling?

I was reading the DNV 2022 Energy Outlook and they forecast prices dropping to 60% of where they are now in future years as more wind comes on stream. Something doesn't add up - wasn't nuclear power supposed to give electricity at near zero cost????

We've used circa 49.9kWh per day over the last 30 days. Still coming to terms with the new Octopus Go prices. Been doing some more number crunching and it now looks like Octopus E7 would work out cheaper than Go. The 7hrs of 'cheaper' electricity will allow me to fully charge the 18.4kWh of Pylontech's as they need circa 20.45kWh to fully charge which at 5kW per hour (and the ramping down in charge rate as they approach 100%) means the 5kW Sunsynk inverter isn't fully charging them in the 4hr Go period.

The new heat pump tariff, Cosy, still doesn't work for us - given this tariff is aimed at heat pump owners such as ourselves E7 is still the cheapest option. I'm quite 'anal' in working the figures out - I do wonder how many people would just opt for this tariff simply because it is aimed at heat pump owners?

I'm working things on my PW2, at 2.5yrs old has 'lost' 7.5% capacity so now is 12.49kW rather than the 13.5kW when new. As I'm only using 85% of this I have 10.6kW available. The new PylonTech's are 18.4kW so a total of 29kWh. Fully charging this would need 32.2kWh at 0.18p = £5.79. If I used full price E7 electricity this 29kWh would cost me £12.55 - batteries would save £6.76 a day.

Lovely sunny day on Saturday the Solar PV made 13kW...... if only every winter day were like that!!

Regards

Richard
 
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Just read our meters and sent the readings off to Ecotricity. Checked them against last month's figures and they're uncannily similar. Last month's bill came in at £375 for gas & electricity, so just over £300 after the government rebate.

I'm a bit surprised, because while I'm WFH most of the time, there were 3 of us here over the Xmas period rather than 2, plus a lot more cooking, heating in the day, lighting in the evening and so-on, so I'd expected Jan's figure to be lower (not least because Dec also had that cold snap early on but Jan has been pretty mild hereabouts and I'm trying to keep heating to a minimum while I'm working during the day).
 
I moved onto standard tariff at the expiry of my last deal, last September. It's the uplift in standing charges that affects a fairly-low-energy intensity dwelling like mine almost as much as the walloping hike in unit charges.

After the rebates I am paying very little more than I have last several years average, c £62-65 / mo for gas+elec rather than £ low to mid-fifties.
How? Partly refitting weatherstripping in late October (simple compliant, cheap self-adhesive foam type, to the closing edges of all the sashes - allowing some calibrated leakage for background vent for 1-2people); dropping the stat 1.5degC to 19.5 - entirely comfortable when combined with moving the (RF-based) stat to where I am most of the time; - and not working from home (- v glad to be back in the studio fulltime!)

NB I live in a 1-floor slice in an C18th Georgian terrace - so neighbours either side, above and below. Very large, very thin windows, yes - but surprisingly-little actual fully-exposed external envelope as a % of all six boundaries. The functional internal wooden shutters have always helped immensely with perceived thermal comfort, even given full-length curtains inside. Anyway it easily holds 15degC over night to 7am in the living room +kitchen dining spaces with no heating after 9.30pm - even down to recent -8degC record outside seen in the week -long cold snap. The bedroom & ensuite run cooler, sash window a > couple of inches open - since I prefer to sleep at lowish temps

The monthly refund has been dropped into a savings account just in case. And yes, I am very fortunate to be able to do that.
 
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