Electricity Rates in UK

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when you had no choice about your supplier.  You just had a contract with "the electricity board" for your region (Eastern Electricity, Southwestern Electricity Board, etc.) and as far as domestic customers were concerned there were only two or three distinct tariffs available.

Today though, you have the choice of dozens of suppliers no matter where you live, and each company can have dozens of different tariffs available, so it's difficult to give precise figures. 

I am currently with Powergen/e-on with an Economy 7 tariff which has the following rates:

Day rate, first 239 units @ 17.2p per kW/h, remaining units in billing period 10.31p per kW/h
Night rate 4.65p per kW/h.

All plus 5% VAT, no standing charge.

Holy cow that is expensive.  Ok if I get denied I'm staying in the US.  The hell with that...
Add in everything else and I see why some people barely make it paycheck to paycheck.

There's this thread, although even the later entries are almost two years old now:
http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=557.0;all

Electricity costs have rocketed recently.  My last bill covering the quarter from late August through late November was £176, and the summer quarter before that was around £140.   I'm on electric for cooking, space heating, and water heating.   The next one over the winter is likely to be £200 or more at the current rates. 

A couple of other things I quoted in that thread (reply #8) have increased a fair amount since then as well.  My combined water/sewer bill for this year is £340, but that's unmetered (i.e. unlimited use of water).     Council tax is up to £677 with the single-person discount (£903 full rate, and that's only band A).

Basic BT line rental and service package is now around £50 per quarter.  My vehicle license is now £185 per year, insurance is still reasonable at £166 for the last renewal, but that one will vary drastically depending upon your circumstances.

DSL service (which I finally managed to get here just a few weeks ago) is £18 per month, although I'm on an introductory rate of £8.95 per mo. for the first 6 months.

That still seems comparable to what we are spending here if not a bit lower if you don't convet pounds to dollars.  Thank you so much for the updated info on how things are running recently.  Prices are going up everywhere it seems!

It's only about 3 years or so ago I was commenting on how despite many other prices rising drastically electricity hadn't really increased much for some years.  At that time my bills were running at around 7p per kW/h day rate and less than 3p per kW/h night rate (plus VAT), although there was an extra £9 per quarter standing charge on top of that.   We've really taken a beating since then -- If I recall correctly I had no less than three price hikes during 2006 alone.   

If looking at my quarterly totals though, do bear in mind that I'm using electric for all heating (space & water) plus cooking.  We have no city gas supplies out here, although some people have bottled LP gas (Calor) delivered, and an increasing number of people have oil-fired heating.  But prices for heating oil have gone through the roof in the last couple of years as well, and my friend across the street who only uses LP gas for his range is complaining that bottles seem to be getting more expensive with every refill.

If looking at my quarterly totals though, do bear in mind that I'm using electric for all heating (space & water) plus cooking. 

That's a good thing to keep in mind.  My £30/month total for electricity doesn't go towards cooking or heating -- we have gas for that. 

I just remembered that my £108 figure for council tax is a bit skewed. We ended up having to pay 2007's council tax over fewer months than normal (basically our house was a new build and we had to wait ages for it to be banded when we moved in). 

our house (3/4 bedroom terrace) spends about £140 per month on electricity and gas- lights, cooking, heat and appliances.

For k27davis- we pay £60/month for phone, cable TV and broadband internet combined (all one bill with Virgin Media) and council tax for our house is £90 per month roughly.  Water is free with our rent.

I live in Kensington and have EDF for my gas and electric (we just stayed with the incumbent..at least so far). they budgeted 30 per month for gas and 30 per month for electric (2 of us live in a 3.5 bedroom terraced house).  My first bill just arrived - and I held my breath.  Even though I'm home during the day, I try really hard to limit how much I turn on the heat and how much electricity I use.  I had gone "over" by 148 pounds on the electric and couldnt' believe it.  Turns out that even though they took an actual reading 3 days after we moved in, they sent me a bill using an "estimate" from the date we moved in.  It was very very subtle...there was a little "e" next to the start reading and an "a" after the ending reading (estimated and actual).  It dropped down by more than 120 pounds when they used the actual reading!  Call me paranoid, but I think it was a trick to try to get us to pay for the bill the prior tenants left behind....

Our Thames Water bill is almost 400 pounds for 6 months - unmetered.  Since that's just crazy for 2 people, I have started the paperwork for a meter.  It takes up to 3 months from when they receive your written request....but once installed I'm told it would save us "several hundred quid" per year. 

Our council tax in Kensington and Chelsea is just under 2000/year.

The rest of our utilities are sky (TV, Broadband, phone) and we buy a lot of TV channels in the hope of getting better US programming.  Not sure that was such a good move.  Plus of course our 11 pounds/month for BT for the line rental (in addition to the 5 pounds/month to Sky for Talk Plus - unlimited calls to US included).

Thanks for the info on the electric tariff...I still think we should move from EDF but I don't know where to start to investigate a lower tariff...

Our Thames Water bill is almost 400 pounds for 6 months - unmetered.  Since that's just crazy for 2 people, I have started the paperwork for a meter.  It takes up to 3 months from when they receive your written request....but once installed I'm told it would save us "several hundred quid" per year. 

I find that odd with your water rates. Where we lived last our place was unmetered but everyone is the apartment complex just paid the same. Everyone paid £12.50 a month which works out to £150 a year. Now my MIL is on metered, lives by herself and pays over £350 a year for her water. I thought that was high!

could the Thames rate be affected b/c we're in a house?  I'd love to know if there was a way to challege it, but that's the rate they gave me when we moved in and there didn't seem to be a way to argue. Monopolies being what they are and all....

Hi Judy,

Our Thames Water bill is almost 400 pounds for 6 months - unmetered.  {.....}  could the Thames rate be affected b/c we're in a house? 

£800 per year sounds very expensive.  There was a time when all residential supplies were unmetered and the amount charged was based upon the rateable value of the property (i.e. the annual amount charged for "rates," the old property taxes).   In fact people would talk about "paying the water rates," because of this link.   The relationship of house value to unmetered water rates carried forward to the current system of council tax, so a house in a high council-tax band would account for the high water bill with unmetered service.

Thames Water's current unmetered tariff is listed here:

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/en_gb/Downloads/PDFs/leaflet07-08_Unmetered_charges.pdf

It appears that you have a fixed annual charge of £25 for supply plus £32 for sewer, then for Kensington & Chelsea the rateable portion is 44.64% for supply plus 19.95% for sewer.  Those are percentages of the house's rateable value.  You can do the math and see if it works out about right for your home.

Anyway, looking at the current metered tariff the charges when you switch over will be  a fixed annual fee of £24 for water plus £43 for sewer, then 99.18 + 48.57 pence = £1.4775 per cubic meter used.   

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/en_gb/Downloads/PDFs/leaflet07-08_Metered_charges.pdf

A cubic meter is approx. 220 Imperial gallons, or 264 U.S. gallons.  By my calculations, to get anywhere near to your present £800 bill you'd have to use 300 Imp. / 360 U.S. gallons every single day.  So I think you're going to save! 

I still think we should move from EDF but I don't know where to start to investigate a lower tariff...

You could try here for a start, although it's only a rough guide:

http://www.uswitch.com/Energy/Index.aspx

OK I'd like to contribute but first tell me how to bring up the pound sterling key. I thought I had the instruction but it didn't work. I have a Toshiba laptop.
Anyway so I don't get shot by the moderator I will say my recent electric bill ending Dec 6 is $40.45. Water is $19.36 and sewer is $17.28. These are all for the month. There are other things such as garbage $$9.90 for a total of $94. I have a 3600 sq foot house. Oh the gas bill for the month is $115 to Dec 17.
Property taxes for the 2008 year are $2100. This is in Southern Utah, US

OK I'd like to contribute but first tell me how to bring up the pound sterling key. I thought I had the instruction but it didn't work.

Alt0163 seems to work on most computers.

Depending upon your configuration, Alt 156 might also do the trick.

My combined water/sewer bill for this year is £340, but that's unmetered (i.e. unlimited use of water)

Paul, your water and sewerage seems VERY high if it's just you living in the house.  Are you taking a couple of baths every day?
We pay £14/month or £168/year with 3 of us including a bath for the baby every day and us taking showers daily.  This is in a 3 bedroom terraced.
You might want to look into getting a meter, I think they must be charging you double because there's no meter to track how much you actually use (which I imagine is a lot less than what they're charing you unless you're filling up a swimming pool)

Paul, your water and sewerage seems VERY high if it's just you living in the house.

I've been considering switching to a meter from the old "water rates," but my savings wouldn't be so dramatic as in the example above.  With the Anglian Water tariffs, my break-even point comes out at approx. 70 Imp. gallons (84 U.S. gals.) per day.   

That sounds a lot for one person (plus cat!), but it's surprising how quickly you can use that much, especially in winter for washing vehicles, hosing off boots, etc. from the muddy country roads.   I probably will still save on a meter though, but I've been putting it off for a while because I'm planning to build a garage and workshop which will involve re-routing some underground plumbing -- Don't want to get the meter installed for free, then find that it's in the wrong place for tapping a supply and have to pay £££ to get it moved.   

I do have the surface water abatement though, which is something a lot of people don't even realize exists.   You can claim it if you have no surface water from your property which drains into the sewer, either directly or indirectly.  In other words, you must have no gutters or drainage gulleys which connect to the sewer, nor must any part of your property such as a garden or driveway drain into the street and from there into the road drains (so it's pretty much only rural dwellers who can claim).  In this area it takes £30 off the bill -- Not a huge amount, but £30 is £30!

I just found this link which lists the current average electricity price per kW/h by state:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/e_profiles_sum.html