Nan,
I just started my research and am overwhelmed already. I don't understand the billing compared to US.
We have electric heating, yes. No gas at all.
No smart meter or anything. Just a dongle key to add money on at a Pay Point.
We have to turn the boiler on when we want hot water and we do have an electric shower.
We only ran the heat in the living room, we don't even have a radiator in the bedroom. I don't use the oven very often, I use the pressure cooker mostly. I do run my ice maker but not that my iron is under control I won't need so much ice. Lol
I'm trying to get it sorted now before winter rolls back around and I have to turn the radiator back on.
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Ok. I will, with my limited understanding, try to sort it a bit. As I understand it:
For a standard meter you pay a "standing charge" every day, regardless of what you use. (Not sure why. Possibly to cover upkeep of the system?) It's not huge - my standing charge with SSE (my last provider) was about 15-ish pence a day. Then you pay a charge per kilowatt hour for the electric you actually do use. Then there is 5% VAT added on top of the total of standing and energy charges. The total of all three is what you pay.
You would either be on a fixed tariff (agreed for a certain amount of time) or a variable tariff (can go up when energy prices go up). You can be on a direct-debit, pay quarterly, or, as you have, a pre-paid meter. I am on a quarterly billing cycle, but agreed to allow them to average my bill for a year and take out 1/12 of the annual cost monthly. I got a discount for allowing them to do that, and another discount for paperless billing.
You are having to use the dongle thingy to pre-pay. You are buying a certain amount of electricity when you charge up the dongle. You're still paying the vat, standing, and energy charges, it's just all rolled into whatever you pay at the pay point. (Potentially with a service charge to cover the merchant's expense of using the pre-pay system? Don't know, just guessing.) It is my understanding that "prepaid" is usually some of the highest priced electricity.
The amount you are being charged for the standing charge and the energy itself is determined by the power company that your meter is associated to, and the specific plan you are on (if they offer more than one). You need to look at the amounts you're being charged for standing charge/kilowatt hour charge by your power company. You can then compare any other options you might have with other power companies.
You can check the rates for "Our Power", if you wanted to look at them, here
https://our-power.co.uk/ plug in your zip and look for your options. Or go here
https://our-power.co.uk/tariffs They charge the same rate if you are on a pre-pay meter or a standard meter. Again, warning, customer service with them is irritating, but they are cheaper than a lot of companies.
You might want to read up -
https://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/guides/prepayment-meters/ It may be possible for you to have the meter changed out to a standard meter. You'd need your landlord to agree, I believe, and if you are with one of the major suppliers they might do it for free - especially if there's an upgrade to a smart meter at the same time.
[There is also something called a restricted meter, and the costs for power used by it change depending on the time of day/demand on the grid. I hope you are not on one of those, unless they were very clear in telling you the costs per time-of-day.]
The amount of insulation you have in your walls/ceiling and the kind of windows (single pane, double pane, etc.) you have will impact your costs, indirectly, as you'll have to run the heat more in a drafty, badly-insulated space. I am such a skinflint that I put packing bubble-wrap across the inside of my bathroom windows in the winter, even though I've got dual pane glass, to cut down more on the heat transference (it did help).
Not sure if the above is TMI, but I think that uswitch link will help you out.
