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Energy Bills

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    Right now I'm trying to get to the bottom of why - just when we switched providers - our annual electricity consumption apparently rose in 2021 by 29%. There is no obvious reason for it, (e.g the central heating is gas fired). I have cranked up my British made Owl consumption reader (don't know if anyone has one, y'all got smart meters instead, I suppose). It does still seem to work fine but so far an obvious juice guzzler has not been identified.

    However funny enough a couple of years ago in the office we had a similar problem with our bills and we eventually traced the culprit to the small standalone fridge. My question then is, how to see the impact of the fridge (and freezers) on the Owl reading? It looks like the fridge only sucks juice for a relatively small period at a time, rather than continuously. Does anyone have an idea how many kilowatts a medium sized fridge would register on an Owl if it is working normally? With this one, it looks like an extra 0.09Kw is added on the meter when I can hear the fridge motor running. It does not seem like a lot, but I have no clue, and on the web I have not found anything like a table which shows how much juice various appliances use. All I have learnt is general stuff, such as the 'wet' machines are the most energy consuming (washing machine, dishwasher in our case, and we just bought a new AEG washing machine during 2021 which ought to be consuming a lot less juice than the 24 year old Bosch washer/dryer it replaced).

    Any advice or suggested clues would be much appreciated!
    General rule is anything that generates or reduces heat will cause you problems.

    Can recommend one of these:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Tapo-Monitoring-Required-P110/dp/B097YBXHTW/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=19HO7JENGU2PN&keywords=tp+link+energy+monitoring+smart+plug&qid=1644424483&sprefix=tp+link+enrgy,aps,138&sr=8-3

    They monitor energy usage and will let you know how much devices use over time. They do multipacks if you like the idea, and you can use them also as a WiFi plug socket to turn things off/on whilst you aren't there. I use mine to monitor energy usage, but also to turn a lamp on when away from home so it looks like someone is in.
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    A modern medium sized fridge should use between 100 and 400 watts a day according to google. So how often does the motor run? 
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    We are just shy of 2k in credit with Scottish Power..with these price increases, I'm wondering how much of that we'll get back. 
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    Jints said:
    A modern medium sized fridge should use between 100 and 400 watts a day according to google. So how often does the motor run? 
    I can see the relevance of the question, but working out the answer might be tricky. I'll see if I can get a handle on what happens over one hour.
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    Don't worry, we can all sort this out by not asking for pay rises it seems
    Can we all have pay rises then? Maybe the Scottish teachers are affected mpre than the rest of us?
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    edited February 2022
    Some of the figures being bandied about on here are eye watering. We’re one of the richest nations on earth and people are actually having to decide to eat or stay warm. Something has gone horribly wrong somewhere. 
    Genuine question - is there any help (charity?) for those who really are only spending their income just on essential priorities e.g roof over their head, basic clothing & toiletries, essential transport and medication etc that then really can't afford to heat and eat after those? 

    There must be a lot of people/families that have lost income, even jobs because of covid including those with mortgage (and a rental contract) commitments that they quite reasonably could afford before and when there was a low to no risk they'd lose their job/income
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    IdleHans said:
    Saga Lout said:
    Some of the figures being bandied about on here are eye watering. We’re one of the richest nations on earth and people are actually having to decide to eat or stay warm. Something has gone horribly wrong somewhere. 
    We elected the wrong politicians. France 4% cap, Germany 5%. France are forcing EDF to subsidise energy out of their enormous profits, whereas in the UK I believe Shell have announced a 14 fold increase in profits... 

    We must stop electing public school boys - how can they possibly understand having to choose between eating and heating. Sunak's wife is richer than the Queen for gawds sake!
    And today BP announced their highest profits for 8 years, $12.8billion….
    Shell reported profits of $19bn last week. 

    Disgusting. 
    It is if they don't pay tax on it. Otherwise it drives an enormous contribution to the finances of the UK and other countries in which they operate.
    Profits are not inherently evil. 
    And the shareholders of these companies who benefit from these profits are mostly... pension funds!

    As Supertramp once said.

    Who are these men of lust greed and glory?
    blah blah blah
    Look there's you and there's me!
    I don't believe this is the case any longer. 

    "Analysis of official statistics shows that the proportion of UK shares directly held by UK pension funds fell from almost one in three in 1990 to less than one in 25 by 2018 – a decline of over 90 per cent. Most UK shares are now held by overseas investors. The proportion of UK shares owned by overseas investors rose from 12 per cent in 1990 to 55 per cent in 2018.

    In addition to direct share ownership, some pension funds will own shares indirectly through pooled funds controlled by insurance companies and asset managers. Examining the data on this, we conclude that in total UK pension funds own directly or indirectly under six per cent of UK shares..."

    https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/do-dividends-pay-our-pensions
    Pension Funds and institutions like insurance companies and asset managers running pooled funds diversify investments on a global basis and allocate assets relative to size of country economy and industry sector.  So as the US and Asia grow at a greater pace than the UK, and Technology industry is favoured over other sectors, the proportion allocated by institutions to the UK economy has fallen.  Pension funds used to hold a high proportion of UK shares on the basis that holding UK sterling assets was prudent as it matched their liability was to pay UK pensions in sterling. But the way currency exchange rates have moved over recent decades means that the windfall from owning overseas shares paying dividends in dollars and converting them to sterling, outweighs the mis-match in sterling liabilities.  Today few pension funds would own more than 10% of UK shares simply on the grounds of spreading the investment risk globally. 

    You can't draw conclusions about how much pension funds are holding in BP from trends in the size of total UK holdings. BP still forms a significant part of UK pension fund/institutional pooled investments. 

    Local Government pension funds love BP and energy companies, just checked some figures which show they hold around £10 billion in global energy companies, with BP forming nearly half of those holdings.  The fact they have been selling out of UK shares in other companies for US and Asia investments proves nothing about investment in BP.  BP profits are flowing into UK pension funds - however distasteful to some.


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    Don't worry, we can all sort this out by not asking for pay rises it seems
    Can we all have pay rises then? Maybe the Scottish teachers are affected mpre than the rest of us?
    Yeah, everyone gets a 10% rise.

    Sincerely The Rishmeister

    I must have missed something about Scottish teachers!

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    Had an email today from Shell to say that our bills will be going up a further £1k. Meaning an increase of £1.6k over the last 5 months - a 150% increase. WTAF
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    Had an email today from Shell to say that our bills will be going up a further £1k. Meaning an increase of £1.6k over the last 5 months - a 150% increase. WTAF
    With what’s going on in Eastern Europe I think we can expect even more increases too
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    This is going to kill the economy stone dead, Government should be doing more here but they won’t.

    Stormy waters ahead.
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    Next winter is going to be tough for a lot of families. What’s happening with Russia will push up wholesale gas prices even further. Add in rocketing food prices and inflation and I think we could see some really quite ugly scenes when enough people have had enough. I have no idea what should be done to ease the burden but something does need to be done. These are very troubled times for many reasons.
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    Next winter is going to be tough for a lot of families. What’s happening with Russia will push up wholesale gas prices even further. Add in rocketing food prices and inflation and I think we could see some really quite ugly scenes when enough people have had enough. I have no idea what should be done to ease the burden but something does need to be done. These are very troubled times for many reasons.
     Can anyone answer me this.
    How are people affording brand spanking new motors?
    I've seen so many around in the last couple of weeks. 30 - 50k a pop.
    It don't add up.
    Baffling.
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    edited February 2022
    A lot of households get by. They work hard and get by. They can’t save but they get by. What’s happening now and like I said not just with energy prices is going to cripple some people and even those with a small amount of savings are going to see those disappearing. A lot of people are going to be very pissed off that they can’t afford to keep their family warm and well fed, when all the time we’re being told just how well everything on the economic front is going. I can’t see a quick fix for this at all. People only tolerate tightening their belts for so long. I see huge problems heading down the track. Social as well as economic.
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    Next winter is going to be tough for a lot of families. What’s happening with Russia will push up wholesale gas prices even further. Add in rocketing food prices and inflation and I think we could see some really quite ugly scenes when enough people have had enough. I have no idea what should be done to ease the burden but something does need to be done. These are very troubled times for many reasons.
     Can anyone answer me this.
    How are people affording brand spanking new motors?
    I've seen so many around in the last couple of weeks. 30 - 50k a pop.
    It don't add up.
    Baffling.
    Finance. Everything is finance these days - another bubble waiting to burst
    Everything on finance, clothes on klarna, NFTs on credit cards.

    Recession imminent.
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    This is going to kill the economy stone dead, Government should be doing more here but they won’t.

    Stormy waters ahead.
    Why should the government be doing more?
    Some of us have had it easy for years,  and when things start to go tits up expect someone else to bail us out.
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    edited February 2022
    Next winter is going to be tough for a lot of families. What’s happening with Russia will push up wholesale gas prices even further. Add in rocketing food prices and inflation and I think we could see some really quite ugly scenes when enough people have had enough. I have no idea what should be done to ease the burden but something does need to be done. These are very troubled times for many reasons.
    for a start the extra £20 a week benefit paid during the pandemic should be reinstated, the NI rise scrapped and the bands at which tax and NI start being deducted raised.. the UK is a reported x trillion (who knows ?) in debt .. f f s sake what ever happened to the humble billions and the now not worth having millions .. so a few more billion quid in the red will not mean a lot .. I am NOT in favour of windfall taxes or soaking the rich, not yet anyway
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    clb74 said:
    This is going to kill the economy stone dead, Government should be doing more here but they won’t.

    Stormy waters ahead.
    Why should the government be doing more?
    Some of us have had it easy for years,  and when things start to go tits up expect someone else to bail us out.
    It’s what we have government for. That’s why. Millions of people are going to be forced into not heating their homes. In France for example the government have forced the energy companies to take the hit. We’ve got a compulsory £200 loan.
    And those that need the help, should be helped.
    But should the government help us all out?

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    clb74 said:
    clb74 said:
    This is going to kill the economy stone dead, Government should be doing more here but they won’t.

    Stormy waters ahead.
    Why should the government be doing more?
    Some of us have had it easy for years,  and when things start to go tits up expect someone else to bail us out.
    It’s what we have government for. That’s why. Millions of people are going to be forced into not heating their homes. In France for example the government have forced the energy companies to take the hit. We’ve got a compulsory £200 loan.
    And those that need the help, should be helped.
    But should the government help us all out?

    By next winter the average dual energy bill will be more than double what it was in 2020 at around £4K a year. There are many ordinary fully working families that won’t cope with that sort of increase. They can’t cater for it either. I don’t think many understand just how many people just get through each month. 
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    clb74 said:
    clb74 said:
    This is going to kill the economy stone dead, Government should be doing more here but they won’t.

    Stormy waters ahead.
    Why should the government be doing more?
    Some of us have had it easy for years,  and when things start to go tits up expect someone else to bail us out.
    It’s what we have government for. That’s why. Millions of people are going to be forced into not heating their homes. In France for example the government have forced the energy companies to take the hit. We’ve got a compulsory £200 loan.
    And those that need the help, should be helped.
    But should the government help us all out?

    Who said all, I simply said more, don’t make things up.
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    clb74 said:
    clb74 said:
    This is going to kill the economy stone dead, Government should be doing more here but they won’t.

    Stormy waters ahead.
    Why should the government be doing more?
    Some of us have had it easy for years,  and when things start to go tits up expect someone else to bail us out.
    It’s what we have government for. That’s why. Millions of people are going to be forced into not heating their homes. In France for example the government have forced the energy companies to take the hit. We’ve got a compulsory £200 loan.
    And those that need the help, should be helped.
    But should the government help us all out?

    By next winter the average dual energy bill will be more than double what it was in 2020 at around £4K a year. There are many ordinary fully working families that won’t cope with that sort of increase. They can’t cater for it either. I don’t think many understand just how many people just get through each month. 
    So should we all get bailed out or just those that need it.?
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    Next winter is going to be tough for a lot of families. What’s happening with Russia will push up wholesale gas prices even further. Add in rocketing food prices and inflation and I think we could see some really quite ugly scenes when enough people have had enough. I have no idea what should be done to ease the burden but something does need to be done. These are very troubled times for many reasons.
     Can anyone answer me this.
    How are people affording brand spanking new motors?
    I've seen so many around in the last couple of weeks. 30 - 50k a pop.
    It don't add up.
    Baffling.
    Now you mention it, I have too. I guess a lot of people (and I know this doesn't apply to everyone and some people really won't be able to afford to eat and heat) will have to prioritise what they spend their income on - very little more important that eating and heating.

    After 2 years of very limited options for holidays abroad, many families may have excitedly booked a holiday before all this increases, that might have been one of the first things to be cut
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    edited February 2022
    Next winter is going to be tough for a lot of families. What’s happening with Russia will push up wholesale gas prices even further. Add in rocketing food prices and inflation and I think we could see some really quite ugly scenes when enough people have had enough. I have no idea what should be done to ease the burden but something does need to be done. These are very troubled times for many reasons.
    for a start the extra £20 a week benefit paid during the pandemic should be reinstated, the NI rise scrapped and the bands at which tax and NI start being deducted raised.. the UK is a reported x trillion (who knows ?) in debt .. f f s sake what ever happened to the humble billions and the now not worth having millions .. so a few more billion quid in the red will not mean a lot .. I am NOT in favour of windfall taxes or soaking the rich, not yet anyway
    I agree that the £20 UC should be reinstated and NI rise should be scrapped and the bands at which NI & tax start should be raised, especially for those on lower salaries, however it is obscene that oil and gas producers are raking in billions on the backs of ordinary people. There should definitely be a windfall tax on those incredibly high profits.

    Isn't that what corporation tax is? The more you make the more you pay (granted you could increase the rate etc). 
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    Just got the dreaded email from Shell Energy . My yearly bill for my three bedroom semi detached is going up over a grand . 
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    My 3 bed semi
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    @Bedsaddick and @guinnessaddick
    When did your fixed tariff deals end ?
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