UK Utility Bills

[Gardian]

Heard earlier today from our elder son.

DIL’s Mother (thus his mother-in-law) was sadly widowed 4 yrs ago.  Everybody thought that ‘things’ were being managed OK.

With what has been happening in the UK recently, a few surprises have emerged, not least a demand a day or two ago for £39k as her energy bill next year.  As you’d expect, she was more than horror struck.

Now, this is a widow, living in a 4 bed detached house. Not flush with money, not particularly short either.

It turns outs that her mthly debit had been ridiculously low for years + there’d been no meter reading for ages.

DIL has sorted things out - a quite large one-off payment , another one in a few months time, and a much more realistic mthly payment.

My point is that there will doubtless be folk in DIL’s Mother’s situation who don’t have somebody to sort them out.  If you were all alone and received a demand for £39k, how would you be ???

It seems to me that the Utility involved is as much to blame (if not more) in this nonsense as our DIL’s Mother.  The Utilities really must, IMO, stand back and say to themselves “Is it right to be sending a bill for £39k to a normal household?  Need to talk to them”

[Lehaut]

"Is it right to be sending a bill for £39k to a normal household?  Need to talk to them”  In an ideal world yes.  However, with IT as it is, no real person oversees things like this anymore.  Same thing happened in France a couple of year ago.  When a real person looked at it, their initial response to the same size bill  was "you must have left a light on".  The drive to provide the cheapest everything takes out the most expensive link the chain, people!

This is also one of the reasons Linky is so unpopular.  Some meters have been defective for years, so some bills have been artificially low.

The other crazy thing which gets my goat is the UK "Electricity Price Cap"  The common perception is that the £2500 quoted is the most people will pay. Only this week the BBC seems to be explaining that the price cap is per KWh Unit.  Use more electricity, you bill will still be higher.  Even Liz Truss did not seem to understand this on Sunday! 

[Martin963]

I was about to write much the same Lehaut.    The whole situation has been made more complicated by someone high up in the industry's aim to make it simple.    The idea of a price cap expressed as a "typical"  annual figure is nonsense,   and finding out the price per kWh on Ofgem's website has - for years - been nigh on impossible.     Many people (and this was demonstrated on the radio only a week ago) believe that the price cap means that - however much electricity they use - they can't be charged more than £x.

In addition,   there are many people who don't really understand that one's monthly debits are merely a "contribution" to one's balance with the provider,   and that periodically the actual balance is struck and - if out of kilter by a lot - the next year's debits will be eye-wateringly higher.    I've heard of people who simply argue and argue that they don't owe any more at the end of the year because "my debits have covered my use" and - sadly - in the end the providers give up and let them get away with it.    Again,   this is not helped by infrequent meter readings by the authorities and a complicated billing system that is - even when printed out in detail - incomprehensible to many.

As you also say,   smart meters can and do fail,   ours went AWOL from the network a few days ago and I immediately rang our provider Octopus and requested them to reset it,  which they did.    But here in Britain they store only three months' worth of data (so I'm told),   so if a network outage is longer than that it can make things very complicated. 

In the case cited by Gardian it's probably not easy,    but it's absolutely vital that one watches one's meter like a hawk and that one reconciles what it says to the bills one gets.   Again,   who prints out an internet bill?    Most people glance at the link and ignore it,   but it's better to get to grips with one's account frequently.

I must say that I resisted a smart meter for years,   but because we have solar panels and a Tesla House battery we're able to use an Octopus tariff that is incredibly cheap (if you use it correctly) but requires a smart meter to take readings every half hour.    But if our smart meter's initial problems are anything to go by,   the problems that they throw up for the industry are huge,    and I guess that many providers privately rue the day that such a ****-poor piece of technology replaced an annual manual meter-read.    And one gathers that Linkys are no better,   although we never had one.

There could be further ructions here next year when - if it happens as planned - Radio 4 Long Wave (ie Droitwich/Burghead/Westerglen transmitters) is finally turned off.    Buried within the carrier frequency is a signal that is used to control Economy 7 meters nationwide here.   When the control signal goes the Economy 7 meters will cease to function reliably,   and people are being warned that they will need to have a smart meter.    The death-sentence has been delayed several times,    but I suspect that the 2023 date will be respected,   not least because powering a 500 kW LW transmitter is getting incredibly expensive,   and the BBC have wanted to get rid of Radio 4 long wave for the last ten years.  

 

[Lori]

That is amazing Gardian.  We have a Linky and so far haven't had problems.  At the end of the contract calendar year, EDF will calculate the price for the coming year (monthly payment), based on the amount you used the previous year.  You can, of course, disagree with that and make it what-ever you choose.  You'll either pay at the end of the contract year or get a refund on any overpayment.  Did the lady in question never get an annual review from her service provider? 

I watch our EDF usage online like a hawk.  I know pretty much exactly what we spend each day.  How much the laundry day costs, how much is used when we are not even in the house (vacation, etc.).

I can't even fathom getting such a facture.

 

[Hectorsdad]

“This is also one of the reasons Linky is so unpopular.  Some meters have been defective for years, so some bills have been artificially low.”

Could you please say what kind of Linky defect would give rise to an error in recorded data which later needs to have a financial remedy. We assume the readings are correct and budget accordingly. The instantaneous readings correspond with what we are using at any moment and the cumulative totals look reasonable. I hope there isn’t a hidden flaw that I have not been aware of leading to a backdated demand for more money.

At the moment I am happy with our Linky and access to short and long term accounting. I can see the historical bills, patterns of our consumption and even half hourly usage in terms of kWh and in €. It all seems to be operating correctly but I would be less confident if there were technical flaws in their system. Apart from the accuracy of the primary measuring system in the Linky, what else can happen without it being immediately recognised? I think I will now make copies of all our  bills and payments for EDF and add them to the paper file which I had already archived.

[Gardian]

Hectorsdad .........

Unless I’ve misread him, I think that Lehaut was suggesting that ‘old meters’ rather than Linkys were liable to inaccuracies.

 

[Gardian]

Lori ........

This situation occurred in the UK, so Linky’s aren’t involved.

As to how all this occurred, it’s all (to say the least !) more than a bit hazy.

The only things that I can say categorically are that:

• the account was being (innocently) underpaid for years
• there had been no meter readings for years - you’d have to point the finger at the utility company
• a massive forecast bill was generated, which the Utilitie’s software should have halted

The lady concerned in all this is charming and by no means daft.  However, losing her husband (who managed all their finances) clearly left her a bit adrift.  Happily, her daughter has taken over and sorted things out.

My point in all this is that the Utilities need to ensure that there are checks & balances in place.  Sending out a demand for £39k to a ‘private customer’ as opposed to a Company, makes no sense.

 

[Lehaut]

Hectordsdad, Guardian was indeed correct.  There have been stories in the French Press of people getting much bigger bills after their old meter was switched out for the new Linky.  They continued to use their electricity as the same rate as before and saw a considerable rise in their bills.  

In our old house, the water meter (subject to annual physical readings) went defective for 11 months before they noticed! The replaced it with an up to date one they could read in the court yard without the need to enter the house.

Martin963 - I think your grasp of the system is quite a bit higher than the average joe.  I had the same conversation with a UK Lloyds Insurance company owner!  He thought it was the maximum charge permissible.

The latest in the press for those on the Heures Pleines/Heures Creuses meters is that the Government may give the suppliers the authority to turn off  "à distance" the lunch time period of cheaper power (over riding the switch in the Linky box) to release  more power for industry.

Turn off Radio Long Wave!!!  When I was on patrol in the UK SSBN deterrent submarines, our last check that the UK was functioning ( if we lost all comms from headquarters) was to listen out for Radio 4 long wave.  The up to date targeting information was sent out on very slow morse code as it was expected to survive longer than Rugby etc. In fact, once when we lived on our narrow boat at Rickmansworth, working at Northwood,  we lost all TV signals.  My first reaction was to tune into Radio 4 longwave.

[Martin963]

@ Lehaut - that's interesting,  because the business of the submarines listening to 198 kHz comes up often in technical forums,    and has often been dismissed as a myth.   So it's interesting to hear that it isn't.   But one thing puzzles me about the story,    there are a number (or were,   at the height of long wave use) of other powerful broadcast stations that shared the frequency,   and in many parts of the globe it would be hard to detect the presence of Radio 4 as it would be blanketed by the other signals,    and of course even on long wave the coverage isn't world wide.     But certainly in a huge area of the waters nearer Britain it would be a useful indicator.     Although even Droitwich hasn't been without its problems,    at various times the T aerial has blown away in a storm and the station has been off for three days at a time.    I seem to remember that one of the longer outages co-incided with the Christmas invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets!

 

As you say,  it's been a reference for years,   but its days are numbered,   with a close down currently thought to be penciled in for 31st March 2023.   The cost of the power for Radio 4 is now partly funded by the Electricity Providing companies (ie to keep the Economy 7 meters alive) and the BBC certainly want rid of it.  

 

Not dissimilar situation with Allouis on 162 kHz which carried France Inter and was France's radio willy-waving contribution to the race to be the highest powered station  (over 2000 kW).    Radio France no longer needed it in about 2016,  and all was set for it to be turned off,   until with two months to go someone pointed out that all the clocks in SNCF stations,   and many other civilian clocks in France,  were synchronised by an inaudible signal buried in the carrier (similar tech to what is used at Droitwich for the electricity meters).   Emergency discussions were had,   and now the ANFR (I think it is) pays for Allouis to radiate unmodulated carrier at about 900 kW,  ie no audio but with the clock signal still available.   It must have cost a fortune to run it for the last six years,   and with the increase in industrial prices for power I guess there's even more urgency to finish the job of changing the clocks throughout France,   that could - with modifications - perfectly happily run on the German time signal on about 77 kHz.

 

Long wave is getting emptier and emptier,   with Allouis gone in 2016 ish,   and in the last three years both Saarlouis Europe 1 and Roumoules Radio Monte Carlo have been silenced.    For the French peripheriques only Radio Luxembourg is left......

[Harnser]

The technical problem that will eventually scupper Radio 4 long wave 198 is that the transmitter uses archaic meter high glass valves. They are no longer made or technically supported - when they are done, so is R4.   

[Lehaut]

Martin963. Worldwide range was not really a problem.  Without giving anything away,  take the max range of previous/current Polaris/Trident missiles and draw a circumference round suggested targets, then look at the UK Sub bases.  That will give you an idea of the area that would need to be covered by Radio 4. 

We did not listen to it all the time, the continuous broadcast came from the other well documented VLF transmitters dotted round the UK.  One of the many responsibilities as Officer of the Watch was to keep the orientation of the aerial in the zones to pick up this broadcast whilst manoeuvring -changing course, clearing stern arcs etc.  It was a matter of considerable pride for the comms section to have either zero or very few minutes of lost connection during the 2+ months patrols. I can still see in my minds eye the comms chief rushing into the control room as I looped the wire through a null zone to confuse any trailing boats when the quality of the broadcast dipped.

We were talking last ditch comms with R4 - morse code where the characters were seconds long to cut through other noise.  All picked up on a floating wire aerial several hundred meters long with the boat at a safe depth.