Sky High Energy projections/DDI increase requests

[Reorte]

39 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

We should be paying less for green power (and may well do so soon) as the cost of producing energy is not linked to the vaguries of the oil price

 

It is however linked to the vagaries of weather.

 

When it comes to who you pay it's best to think of every generator throwing in to a common pool. You're paying the company for their contribution to the pool rather than for what you take out of it (it's not a perfect analogy but I think good enough), so I don't find it an unreasonable claim that you're paying X or Y who generates in this or that manner (although I'd like the choice for my bill to go towards nuclear generation thank you very much).

[jjb1970]

The electricity sector has various regulatory drivers to transition to green electricity production and everyone is paying for it. Therefore, my advice would be to just look for the lowest price and not worry about it.

[hayfield]

27 minutes ago, Reorte said:

It is however linked to the vagaries of weather.

 

When it comes to who you pay it's best to think of every generator throwing in to a common pool. You're paying the company for their contribution to the pool rather than for what you take out of it (it's not a perfect analogy but I think good enough), so I don't find it an unreasonable claim that you're paying X or Y who generates in this or that manner (although I'd like the choice for my bill to go towards nuclear generation thank you very much).

 

It is now commonly accepted that the price paid for renewable energy should not be linked to the price of oil, rather the generation costs and is being looked at by the regulator with a view of changing it. With my own installation the cost is all up front and at the moment zero running costs unless you include the daily standing charge, which I would pay anyway.  The solar farms must be much the same where the bulk of the cost is up front with minimal running costs.

 

Granted solar power has its limits, but also its benefits must not be ignored. Wind power is not dependant on time of day or season and I was quite surprised whilst I was in Cornwall this October how many turbines were not in use during the day (we rarely drove at night and I guess visibility is much reduced. As a country we could make far more use of our natural resources rather than rely on gas and oil

 

A quick look at where our UK power is coming from this morning 3% solar 40% wind 11% nuclear, 5% bio mass 1% hydro. Over half (60%) of our energy use is being produced by non fossil fuel, why is it calculated on the gas price ? 

[Reorte]

5 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

It is now commonly accepted that the price paid for renewable energy should not be linked to the price of oil, rather the generation costs and is being looked at by the regulator with a view of changing it. With my own installation the cost is all up front and at the moment zero running costs unless you include the daily standing charge, which I would pay anyway.  The solar farms must be much the same where the bulk of the cost is up front with minimal running costs.

 

Granted solar power has its limits, but also its benefits must not be ignored. Wind power is not dependant on time of day or season and I was quite surprised whilst I was in Cornwall this October how many turbines were not in use during the day (we rarely drove at night and I guess visibility is much reduced. As a country we could make far more use of our natural resources rather than rely on gas and oil

 

A quick look at where our UK power is coming from this morning 3% solar 40% wind 11% nuclear, 5% bio mass 1% hydro. Over half (60%) of our energy use is being produced by non fossil fuel, why is it calculated on the gas price ? 

What should you be paying on cloudy, windless days?

 

And the costs aren't just monetary. Green energy has turned areas in to massive industrial estates, often places hitherto least touched by development. That's a serious price, as much as some would like to pretend otherwise. You can legitimately argue it's a necessary one, but I've no tolerance for anyone who pretends it's not one at all, which is why my preference is only to use it short-medium term but move over to nuclear long term. And I'd be happy to pay more financially for that, even if it means having to tighten my belt elsewhere.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Reorte

[BR traction instructor]

…tidal energy harvesting seems a bit quiet just now but we still get 2 high tides and 2 low tides every day 🤔

 

BeRTIe

Edited November 17, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[hayfield]

17 minutes ago, Reorte said:

What should you be paying on cloudy, windless days?

 

And the costs aren't just monetary. Green energy has turned areas in to massive industrial estates, often places hitherto least touched by development. That's a serious price, as much as some would like to pretend otherwise. You can legitimately argue it's a necessary one, but I've no tolerance for anyone who pretends it's not one at all, which is why my preference is only to use it short-medium term but move over to nuclear long term. And I'd be happy to pay more financially for that, even if it means having to tighten my belt elsewhere.

 

Exactly what I am paying now, full price. You have missed the point and infact paying so much for renewables may help maintain the high oil/gas prices, if they had more competition perhaps the cost would be lower ?

 

Agree we need a larger part of our energy produced by nuclear, but cheap gas prices stopped investment (yes I do have a nuclear power station near me 18 miles away and a solar farm has planning permission just outside our village). far from being a NIMBY I realise we need to use our resources far better, investing in renewable energy is a sound financial strategy, as is using nuclear power, as part mainstay and part back up system. I also feel using our own fields for foodstuff  rather than transport food hundreds if not thousands of miles, rather than pay farmers to set aside land, a far better proposal is to use it more, providing at the same time we minimise the impacts on local nature habitats. Basically a bit of grown up thinking

 

Recent events have proved that green/renewable energy does not need to be the most expensive option, my own decision to use solar energy was nothing to do with high gas prices, but getting fed up giving my money to banks for little or no return. By default I have not only been greener but saved far more than I expected. It seems a good long sighted business opportunity for generating companies to invest more into alternatives to oil and gas so all can benefit

[Mike 84C]

Here in rural Lincolnshire farmers are applying to build solar farms all over the place, its a disgrace!, I think that joe public should receive grants and better feed in tariffs so all suitable roof's can have solar panels. Not on good farming land.  And why did DEFRA give grants for biomass boilers when there was an oppertunity to fit solar panels on farm buildings?  Biomass, another word for wood chippings. In this area, brought down from the Borders in very large lorries, used as bedding for about 34/40 days in chicken sheds then when the crop of chickens is cleared, the litter is loaded onto very large lorries and taken to a power station in Norfolk where its burnt. Not so very green to me! Here in Sleaford there is a power station that burns straw bales this also arrives on very large lorry's. To which I give a vey wide berth. They always seem to be driven furiously and as I used to drive very large lorry's!  I recognise  the style.

[hayfield]

I read in one of the paper headlines today that the government is to take energy companies to task if they try to pressure customers into paying extremely high DDI payments

 

Just had my November bill and my usage has ramped up and is 73% higher than a year ago, but only 70% of what the Octopus forecast and only £40 higher than I wanted to pay via DDI (I made an error and increased it by more than I wanted) The energy cap saved us £84 according to my bill and my usage was within 2 kwh of last years usage

 

I see my Octopus forecast is updating as the months go buy, whilst its gone down by 1% its still showing my costs will be 70% higher than this month !!! Really ?

 

But it is right that customers are being made aware on what the costs may be over the winter, I planned to use more energy than my winter payments would fund (that's why I paid more during the summer, it cost more than I hoped for over the past 2 months

[Phil Himsworth]

4 hours ago, hayfield said:

I see my Octopus forecast is updating as the months go buy, whilst its gone down by 1% its still showing my costs will be 70% higher than this month !!! Really ?

I suppose it has been well above average temperature so far this winter, so I imagine most people have used less energy for heating than normal. Whether it would normally be 70% higher, that does sound an awful lot doesn't it...

[hayfield]

Phil

 

I was looking at my heating thermostat program a few days ago and it said that on average its been 2 degrees warmer this year against last year, though I think the BBC stated in the east of England rainfall is 80% higher than average. With 3 days to go in the month I have produced to date just over 3kwh than last year (both being quite poor)

 

I looked further at my bills this year and last year up to November the 25th and you cracked it. We have used 419.6 kwh less gas this year, but its cost us £57.39 more even after a £47.38 energy price cap discount and my usage has increased slightly (3 kwh) for the first time in 15 months.

 

So for November the Forecast may have been a bit more accurate than I thought. But October was still way out of kilter.

 

I still think the assumptions may be a bit high and as far as electricity is concerned it does not take into account my exported energy which at todays rates is worth £262 pa

 

Sorry its getting a bit nerdy, lets hope this energy crisis eases in the near future

[hayfield]

My first reaction to Octopus's energy use projections was disbelieving, well they were well out on Octobers assumptions, Novembers projection was a bit nearer but was still 40% + out . But how is Decembers bill looking against projections

 

Their projections has fallen slightly from £353 to £345 for December

 

I look at the December accounting period up to the 25th

The first 15 days are as follows  Electricity  £36,70. Gas  £110.94  Standing charges £9.60  total £157.24, 

 

Their assumptions seem to be much nearer the bone, we are in a cold snap so £300 a month for the worst 3 months could be likely.

 

Thankfully partly because I made an error with my DDI I stilled paid more into my account than I used, so for me its well within my normal budget.

 

I do feel sorry for those who are struggling with the costs of energy and I believe we need to look at how we treat those who build up arrears and are forced on to meters. Charging them more is not the answer,  But this is for another thread

 

But this is looking at the worst months, when I look at the spring and summer months I am still of the opinion its still far too pessimistic, After April gas consumption just falls away, for those of us with panels the new export rates will come in very handy and along with using our own power generated will continue to halve our bills. Hopefully this madness in eastern Europe will have stopped reducing base costs 

 

[hayfield]

I keep hearing that its cheaper to turn off your central heating when you are out than keeping it on lower all the time

 

We have several time periods on our thermostat with differing temperatures which caters for differing circumstances during the day, plus automatic energy saving facilities. So we do try to save energy

 

Over night we set the thermostat to 15 degrees- 7:30 to 10 am 20 degrees - 10 am;-3;30 pm 19 degrees- 3;30 pm to 6 pm 20 degrees, finally 6;00pm to 10;30pm 20.5 degrees. These take into consideration which rooms we use and outside effects (eg 10:00 am to 3:30pm south facing family room has most usage)

 

We were away for 2 days at the end of November it took our boiler 3 hours at full blast to bring the house temperature back up to 20 degrees from 15 degrees and from midnight the previous day the heating was coming on gently to keep a minimum temperature of 15 degrees, this is the first time in the 6 years we have lived in the property that the heating has ever come on over night !! **

 

Yesterday we went out for 2 hours, our heating turns itself off if we both leave the house. Yesterday was warmer than Monday, yet it cost more to heat the house than on Monday even though we were out for 2 hours yesterday  and it was warmer

 

Common sense clearly states if the boiler is off then its cheaper than its being on, but seemingly its costing more to reheat the house for short periods of being out ?

 

**over the 4 day period we did use less energy, but the day we came back we used much more gas than usual 

[DaveF]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

I keep hearing that its cheaper to turn off your central heating when you are out than keeping it on lower all the time

 

We have several time periods on our thermostat with differing temperatures which caters for differing circumstances during the day, plus automatic energy saving facilities. So we do try to save energy

 

Over night we set the thermostat to 15 degrees- 7:30 to 10 am 20 degrees - 10 am;-3;30 pm 19 degrees- 3;30 pm to 6 pm 20 degrees, finally 6;00pm to 10;30pm 20.5 degrees. These take into consideration which rooms we use and outside effects (eg 10:00 am to 3:30pm south facing family room has most usage)

 

We were away for 2 days at the end of November it took our boiler 3 hours at full blast to bring the house temperature back up to 20 degrees from 15 degrees and from midnight the previous day the heating was coming on gently to keep a minimum temperature of 15 degrees, this is the first time in the 6 years we have lived in the property that the heating has ever come on over night !! **

 

Yesterday we went out for 2 hours, our heating turns itself off if we both leave the house. Yesterday was warmer than Monday, yet it cost more to heat the house than on Monday even though we were out for 2 hours yesterday  and it was warmer

 

Common sense clearly states if the boiler is off then its cheaper than its being on, but seemingly its costing more to reheat the house for short periods of being out ?

 

**over the 4 day period we did use less energy, but the day we came back we used much more gas than usual 

 

I have found the same, if I turn the heating off when I go out for the day I end up using more gas overall that day,  I always used to keep the house at 19C from 7.30am-6pm then 21C until 10.30pm, then off overnight.

 

3 winters ago I started to leave it at 21C from 7.30am - 10.30pm.  I used less gas overall - my bill went down by over 10%.

 

In theory it doesn't make sense.  When I look at my daily usage online - the Scottish Power website enables me to see a graph of usage by 30 minute periods - once my house has heated up the boiler often remains off for several hours, if it does come on it uses less then 1kw at a time.

 

At the moment it is set to 19C as I don't seem to feeling the cold as much as usual so I am saving even more.  

 

David

 

 

[hayfield]

47 minutes ago, DaveF said:

 

I have found the same, if I turn the heating off when I go out for the day I end up using more gas overall that day,  I always used to keep the house at 19C from 7.30am-6pm then 21C until 10.30pm, then off overnight.

 

3 winters ago I started to leave it at 21C from 7.30am - 10.30pm.  I used less gas overall - my bill went down by over 10%.

 

In theory it doesn't make sense.  When I look at my daily usage online - the Scottish Power website enables me to see a graph of usage by 30 minute periods - once my house has heated up the boiler often remains off for several hours, if it does come on it uses less then 1kw at a time.

 

At the moment it is set to 19C as I don't seem to feeling the cold as much as usual so I am saving even more.  

 

David

 

 

 

 

David

 

Thank you that is very interesting, I can measure it 2 ways. Using the Octopus website the following day gives me the same half hourly data. The Tado  program gives me the boiler operating data in real time showing both when the boiler is on and if at an energy saving mode  (Off/low/medium/full), one of the energy saving facilities built in to its programming. This automatically decides at what level the boiler is working, presumably doing what you do manually

 

The other bit of good news is the petrol price is falling, yesterday at Sainsburys I topped up as I was passing and was £1.509 per litre. For round here its cheap. Other local stations at £1.569 hopefully the wholesale prices for gas and electricity will also be in decline 

[Phil Himsworth]

Theoretically a colder house will lose less heat, so only heating it while you're there should use less energy and so be cheaper.

 

I wonder though if you've got a boiler and control system that can modulate, keeping a constant low level of heat means the boiler can run much more efficiently than if it has to work at full tilt to reheat the house from cold, so using less energy overall.

 

I don't understand it either to be honest; ours is not a modulating control system, relying only on any return temperature modulation that the boiler does, and I couldn't help notice that our house seemed to use more energy this weekend when we were not there; what was saved from turning it down seemed to be outweighed by the extra required turning it back up again. In this case maybe it was in part because it was a lot colder over the weekend, so it would probably have used more anyway, but I'm still not convinced that's all of it...

Edited December 14, 2022 by Phil Himsworth

[DaveF]

I should have mentioned that my radiators are somwhat bigger than would normally be specified, they do keep warm for quite some time after the boiler stops working.  They are  all on walls, not under windows.  I also keep doors shut.

 

David

[Reorte]

20 minutes ago, Phil Himsworth said:

Theoretically a colder house will lose less heat, so only heating it while you're there should use less energy and so be cheaper.

It doesn't make much sense to me either but I've heard enough people say that it works that I'm reluctant to dismiss it.

 

Personally I leave the heating off during the day when I'm not in. I would leave it with a thermostat set to low, if I had one. I was rather surprised that it didn't come with a themostat when I replaced the boiler five or six years ago, getting one has been on my to do list ever since.

[hayfield]

13 minutes ago, Phil Himsworth said:

Theoretically a colder house will lose less heat, so only heating it while you're there should use less energy and so be cheaper.

 

I wonder though if you've got a boiler and control system that can modulate, keeping a constant low level of heat means the boiler can run much more efficiently than if it has to work at full tilt to reheat the house from cold, so using less energy overall.

 

I don't understand it either to be honest; ours is not a modulating control system, relying only on any return temperature modulation that the boiler does, and I couldn't help notice that our house seemed to use more energy this weekend when we were not there; what was saved from turning it down seemed to be outweighed by the extra required turning it back up again. In this case maybe it was in part because it was a lot colder over the weekend, so it would probably have used more anyway, but I'm still not convinced that's all of it...

 

Phil

 

We use the Tado system which in many cases actually saves us money, It has as I said 3 heating levels and also takes into account what is occurring outside, somehow knows when doors or windows are left open and is a really useful piece of kit. It knows where our mobile phones are, so we ensure we take them with us. Simply if we leave one of our phones behind it thinks one of us are in. It turns the heating off when both phones are more than half a mile from home. We have set the default setting at 15 degrees

 

Normally if we go out we manually turn the heating on about 15 mins before we expect to arrive. Then the house is warm when we arrive. As I said two weeks ago after spending 2 days away we turned the heating on once we exited the Dartford tunnel, should have done it when we left Maidstone.  I have noticed recently the house is getting colder just before the heating goes on, at the beginning of the month it was going down to just over 17 degrees, recently it ends up at 16 degrees. Thankfully the weather is warming up a bit at the weekend , in fact sun, Mon and Tues are forecast to be in double figures !!

 

It may well be in extreme weather its better to have a constant but lower heat ticking over rather than see the boiler doing overtime twice a day

[AndrueC]

I'm about to fit a weather compensation thermostat to my boiler. No point doing it when it's this cold since the boiler will aim for maximum temperature anyway but spring/autumn it should save me quite a bit by allowing the boiler to work at a lower and more efficient temperature.

 

It's actually a complicated but technically interesting subject.

 

https://theintergasshop.co.uk/content/187-why-your-new-gas-boiler-isnt-efficient

also:

https://theintergasshop.co.uk/content/189-why-hot-water-priority-is-the-reason-s-and-y-plan-should-be-banned

 

Sadly the cost of converting my Y-plan system to something better would outweigh any cost savings but fitting a weather compensation thermostat is trivially easy and only costs £30.

[57xx]

On 14/12/2022 at 13:55, hayfield said:

somehow knows when doors or windows are left open

 

It's nothing magical, just draft detection. If the TRV is calling for heating is knows the temp of the room and then detects a sudden drop in temperature (e.g. a cold draft from an open window or door) it will then switch off to stop heating the room. My Evohome stats have this but I turned it off on most of them as the hysteresis was a bit crap and they were overly sensitive to a door simply being opened on entering a room.

[hayfield]

On 14/12/2022 at 13:55, hayfield said:

 

Phil

 

We use the Tado system which in many cases actually saves us money, It has as I said 3 heating levels and also takes into account what is occurring outside, somehow knows when doors or windows are left open and is a really useful piece of kit. It knows where our mobile phones are, so we ensure we take them with us. Simply if we leave one of our phones behind it thinks one of us are in. It turns the heating off when both phones are more than half a mile from home. We have set the default setting at 15 degrees

 

Normally if we go out we manually turn the heating on about 15 mins before we expect to arrive. Then the house is warm when we arrive. As I said two weeks ago after spending 2 days away we turned the heating on once we exited the Dartford tunnel, should have done it when we left Maidstone.  I have noticed recently the house is getting colder just before the heating goes on, at the beginning of the month it was going down to just over 17 degrees, recently it ends up at 16 degrees. Thankfully the weather is warming up a bit at the weekend , in fact sun, Mon and Tues are forecast to be in double figures !!

 

It may well be in extreme weather its better to have a constant but lower heat ticking over rather than see the boiler doing overtime twice a day

 

 

Well we were out for 6 hours during the day yesterday (central heating off unless the temperature falls below 15 degrees), yet despite being away for 6 or the 15 hours our heating is on it was our highest use of gas during the day this week (and I guess this year). Clearly it seems the cost of starting up the heating when its very cold outweighs the cost of it ticking over.

 

Whilst it was very cold yesterday, it felt very much colder on Wednesday. In Kent it reached +1, though in our area (mid Essex) it never got over -2. After lunch I will get a half hourly report and I can compare it to time periods for the other days this week

[APOLLO]

For me TRV's (Thermostatic Radiator Valves) fitted years ago save a lot, just turn them down in rooms not used and keep the door shut. Ensure at least one rad is NOT trv fitted (usually the bathroom).

 

Yesterday my CH didn't come on in the morning (this weather t/stat set to 16 deg overnight). Problem quickly found, condensing pipe drain outside frozen solid. The boiler (Valiant eco fit) was showing error code F29. I disconnected the flex drain at the boiler, and put a bucket underneath, pressed the reset button and up she fired. The ice blockage was removed by 1/2 hour with a fan heater and all good.

 

Funnily enough I received an email from British Gas warning of this and asking customers to check this first if their heating goes off - they failed to mention press the reset button to restart the boiler though, and my boiler handbook states F29 could be various faults causing the boiler not to light (including iced condensate drain pipe) and "call an engineer".

 

As an experiment I left the bucket on 20 odd hours to see how much water was made - about 1/2 a gallon.

Pipe now refitted but as the freezing conditions continues I'll keep an eye on the pipe.

 

Brit15

[Hibelroad]

My supplier is Octopus and I thought their winter projections were ridiculous when I first started taking notice in the Spring, however I have since found them to be depressingly accurate. Having said that I have just moved and no longer have gas (using oil) so all I'm not sure what the costs will be. However I do now have a wood burner and a good stack of logs so at least we can keep warm in the evenings. 

[hayfield]

26 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

For me TRV's (Thermostatic Radiator Valves) fitted years ago save a lot, just turn them down in rooms not used and keep the door shut. Ensure at least one rad is NOT trv fitted (usually the bathroom).

 

Yesterday my CH didn't come on in the morning (this weather t/stat set to 16 deg overnight). Problem quickly found, condensing pipe drain outside frozen solid. The boiler (Valiant eco fit) was showing error code F29. I disconnected the flex drain at the boiler, and put a bucket underneath, pressed the reset button and up she fired. The ice blockage was removed by 1/2 hour with a fan heater and all good.

 

Funnily enough I received an email from British Gas warning of this and asking customers to check this first if their heating goes off - they failed to mention press the reset button to restart the boiler though, and my boiler handbook states F29 could be various faults causing the boiler not to light (including iced condensate drain pipe) and "call an engineer".

 

As an experiment I left the bucket on 20 odd hours to see how much water was made - about 1/2 a gallon.

Pipe now refitted but as the freezing conditions continues I'll keep an eye on the pipe.

 

Brit15

 

 

We had that issue 10 plus years ago after having a ned boiler fitted, the simple solution was to fit pipe cladding as you would do to an outside tap (this reminds me we have failed to fit our outside tap cover !! ) I noticed my granddaughters house which they have just bought has a drain pipe from their boiler which was not clad and they insulated it. I just looked at the net which covers our exhaust pipe from the boiler it has icicles hanging from it.

 

We have no outside drain pipe as when we remodelled the house the boiler had to be moved  and it was easier to plum the drain pipe into the internal drain pipe

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, hayfield said:

I noticed my granddaughters house which they have just bought has a drain pipe from their boiler which was not clad and they insulated it. I just looked at the net which covers our exhaust pipe from the boiler it has icicles hanging from it.

 

When we had a condesing boiler fitted to our old house the pipe wasn't insulated but it had a syphon under the boiler so it would build up condensate and dump it all in one go rather than a constant dribble. Don't think it ever froze up.

Our current one drains internally where it's warm.