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Gas 10.14 and 26p standing
Elec 37p and 24p standing
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Energy Prices
I’ve just scanned the thread as not been on the forum for a while and didn’t see anyone mention this but I’ve had an EV on order approaching 11 months now (so since before all this craziness) and I was on the Octopus variable rates. Someone on a FB group for the car I’ve ordered has been posting regularly about the price cap changes and whether an EV specific tariff is the best option or stick to the new cap. After seeing the new cap, I switched last week to Octopus Go for electricity which gives 4 hours of 7.5p/kwh and 39.35p/kwh at peak so still cheaper than the predicted new prices. The standing charge is 44.48p.
We’re still waiting on the car but in the meantime we’re switching our washing cycle over to the cheap hours (00:30 - 04:30) which saves us some pennies as we do a lot of washing (5yr old and 5 month old in the house). Annoyingly the dishwasher we inherited from the previous owners (built-in) doesn’t have a timed function so is on for 3 hours (Eco apparently) from about 22:00 - 01:00. I’m considering purchasing a new one as will probably save me more than running it at peak times.
Such a shame we find ourselves in such a messed up time but if there are any other EV drivers or with one on order, I think the Go rates are still the same and haven’t been increased yet post announcement. The Go electric estimation is still much less than the loyal fixed option they gave me too.
Alexvs Have you looked at whether a smart plug may help with the dishwasher? If it retains “pre-switching-off” status, you can simply use the timer function on the smart plug, which at £10 is a good sight cheaper than a dishwasher…
My experience with dishwashers has been that smart plugs don’t work - every one that I have had that didn’t have a built in timer needed intervention to start a cycle when power was restored.
Replacing a working dishwasher with one that adds a timer to use off-peak is likely to be a false economy. A single cycle us likely to use around 1kWh so payback time would be in the decades = or centuries!
CoyoteOldMan I had this on my list of things to test and it completely slipped my mind over the weekend. Just tested with a spare plug I have and it does in fact remember the status, or at least did when I just did it. Will test after a few hours. Thanks for the reminder!
Gagaryn I’ll test whether the cycle starts off the smart plug later but you’re probably right. I didn’t realise how much integrated dishwashers are, haven’t shopped for one in years! Double checked my standard cycle usage and you weren’t far off, 1.04kw for the 190 mins cycle. Seems to be A+ rated, however think they’ve changed the rating scale since this one was built.
Thanks for the advice.
Cuprajake Gas 10.14 and 26p standing
Elec 37p and 24p standing
not too bad, mine is about 1p lower for each and fixed until April 2024.
Alexvs an EV specific tariff is the best option or stick to the new cap. After seeing the new cap, I switched last week to Octopus Go for electricity which gives 4 hours of 7.5p/kwh and 39.35p/kwh at peak so still cheaper than the predicted new prices. The standing charge is 44.48p.
If you think Octupus will continue go for a while…Investigate getting a battery+inverter try and get the largest capacity inverter for the total max draw you think your home will do minus the charging of the car.
e.g. If you are using 7kw per day plus the car…then get a 8-10 kWh usable battery.
have the car charger taking from the mains and charge the inverter as well during peak hours. If you can draw even 7kW for the inverter, you will fully charge the battery easily during the cheap rate.
Then all your electric will be at 7.5 p per kWh.
If you later have to get a heat pump…get another battery and add it, then you can run your heat pump for the same cheap price. At less than 3p per kwh (at worst) for the heat generated by the heat pump…it’s going to work out cheaper than gas. Even if you use an Aetherma high temp heat pump.
At 7.5p per kW vs almost 40p….for household leccy if you used 10kW per day, you will save about £1180 per year
No VAT on the products I think, didn’t the chancellor remove vat from that stuff?
Only VAT exempt if supplied as part of a solar installation. So 6 year payback on the item linked above - cash savings in the seventh year based on calculations above. Assuming it still works!
Gagaryn Only VAT exempt if supplied as part of a solar installation. So 6 year payback on the item linked above - cash savings in the seventh year based on calculations above. Assuming it still works!
Batteries should retain plenty of capacity for 20 years, inverter around 10 year life I reckon.
I can’t have solar, so if they ever ban the gas boiler, or rack up the price of gas to force us all to have heat pumps. If cheap rate is still about, I may go battery, inverter and multisplit air to air units (even though air to air multisplit gives no guvmnt grant). Then I just have to figure out how to do the HW, perhaps a tank with heat pump. Sadly cos there is no grant for the more efficient multisplit air to air units….then manufacturers have not developed them to have their own HW preheat circuit.
DavecUK heat pump
Do you think this is worth it? Air Heat pump is probably cheaper than ground-source heat pump. I thought this still fall short by some margin relying on the gas. Furthermore, one needs to either instal a solar panel or draw electricity from the provider. In our case, the electricity consumes a half of our utility bills.
So, overall, we are unlikely to recover the sunk cost.
Still all electric though so will be mega bucks.
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My other half was talking to my neighbour about the rise in electrickery and he was going on about this thing called Phantom/Vampire electricity that can cost households hundreds of pounds a year. He said he has unplugged everything in his house except the combi boiler and fridge freezer. He claimed that even a toaster left plugged in even though the wall switch is off can still draw electricity. You have to completely unplug it to stop it drawing electric.
I was very dubious and thought unless the unit has a standby option like TV’s if the power is switched off then how the chuff can it draw electricity?
My other half showed me an article from the USA which said exactly that. However, when I looked at it for the UK websites here they seemed to indicate the term ‘Phantom’ was another word for stuff on standby.
So you clever lot out there… can something like a toaster still draw electricity if not being used or do we really have to not just switch it off at the wall but completely unplug it to save energy… or is the American article wrong or has my neighbour misunderstood it?
My logic says if it isn’t on standby or have that facility or a luminated digital readout like the microwave clock etc then when it’s off it aint drawing anything.
Over to you….
“He claimed that even a toaster left plugged in even though the wall switch is off can still draw electricity.”
As an electrician, this seems like nonsense, unless the toaster has an electronic component that is monitoring something, or it’s faulty. There shouldn’t be any load going to it at all, and with the switch off (which American outlets don’t have discounting RCCD sockets in bathrooms) the line/live will be disconnected from the circuit, as will the neutral in cases where there is a double pole switched socket.
In my experience, a homes base load will be about 25% ‘phantom’ or standby power. This isn’t including wifi, thermostats etc but more like sound systems, TVs, Sky etc.
My base load for example is about 225w, and if I turn off all the TV’s etc it drops to 190w, but we’ve only one TV, no Sky boxes, and not much else that has a standby draw.
I’ve pinched the smart plug from the coffee machine and using it to monitor all my pond paraphanalia, a fountain, a waterfall/big filter and an air pump, they use 2Kw day, turning each one off to see what they use, come winter the fountain will be off, maybe one of the others though we have a lot of fish (probably due to the oxygen all this water sloshing about incorporates) and don’t want them dying through lack of oxygen.
DavecUK That seems optimistic. The warranty on the product states 60% capacity after 10 years or 6MWh throughput - whichever comes first. As 6MWh over 10 years is only about 1.65 kWh per day I’d assume the throughput is the most important. If you are using the stored energy daily you would likely see reduction to around 60% capacity in a couple of years. I’m not sold on the idea that these are viable for cash savings over lifetime - and that is using the manufacturers own data.
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Pompeyexile So you clever lot out there… can something like a toaster still draw electricity if not being used or do we really have to not just switch it off at the wall but completely unplug it to save energy… or is the American article wrong or has my neighbour misunderstood it?
as @Del_UK Not a dumb toaster no, and under new regulations items on standby are not meant to be drawing more than 1 watt. It was a law change possibly from 8-10 years ago.
Del_UK My base load for example is about 225w, and if I turn off all the TV’s etc it drops to 190w, but we’ve only one TV, no Sky boxes, and not much else that has a standby draw.
I have a huge problem with a baseload I have struggled to identify…if I turn everything off, my phantom baseload is still around 128W…I have tracked it down to 3 things I think may be causing it.
- Two quartz aqualisa shower pumps, at least 16 years old
- Possibly a stuart turner shower pump 9 years old
- My inverter aircon/heater unit around 10 years old.
These are the only items I can’t easily turn off or unplug. The Aqualisas want to run from time to time as if on a maintenance schedule, they always have. The stuart turner will run very occasionally when the pressure in the pressure cylinder drops and I am sure the aircon unit is always up to something (thinking)
SurreyAlan waterfall/big filter and an air pump, they use 2Kw day, turning each one off to see what they use, come winter the fountain will be off, maybe one of the others though we have a lot of fish (probably due to the oxygen all this water sloshing about incorporates) and don’t want them dying through lack of oxygen.
I managed to get my pond in balance and although not 100% clear, stays pretty clear all year round and my fish don’t die. I used to run the waterfall (fed by the pressurised filter) 24×7. This was proving expensive even with an efficient hi flow 100W pump. Some months ago I purchased an aerator (to bring up lower level water for aeration). This uses very little power and I now power the pump for 5 hours per day. The water is possibly better oxygenated than before and the bacteria in the filter don’t dry out and die.
and because the airstones will arrive broken, buy this as well
It’s very low consumption 12W and 4 airstones, rather than Y connectors on 2 airstones….which I hope will help the membranes last longer…it certainly gives more air. Hopedully I won’t need to run the pump much at all over the winter.
P.S. I no longer us UV, haven’t for many years…which saves another 35W
I hadn’t thought about 4 airstones instead of 2 on Y connectors, I do recall reading that the aerator was the best for raising oxygen levels. The waterfall and fountain are very good at stopping the pond freezing when it gets very cold.
Anything that breaks the surface with give gas exchange.
Have you thought of winter plants to add oxygen to the water?
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This base load thing, are you guys all on smart meter?
My meter is smart I think, but not connected to anything
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