Heating and electricity bills

[Blanche Neige]

 b) you have longer lunch breaks than the French (admiration !!)

Owens 88

b is the correct answer but when in France we often eat  a late lunch.[:)]

[hastobe]

I think oil is expensive atm in the UK too - so the bills are probably

not so much to do with being in France but just bad timing!  

If its any comfort UK gas bills are about to go up by 22% to stay in

line with the increasing oil bills. We are in the UK and fill our tank

a couple of times a year and reckon we are spending at least £1200 a

year, on average, atm - even though we rarely have the heating on in

the summer.  Unfortunately, we have no choice here as we have no

mains gas - good preparation for moving to France LOL. We have a

woodburner in the lounge which throws out a serious amount of heat and

so if we can get wood cheap / free this is a lot more cost effective

than oil.  I think the same applies in France.

With regards to the electric - its worth investigating the EDF tariffs

- my understanding (from friends in France) is that, so long as you are

careful when you use it, the off peak rates are pretty cheap, but the

50 or so days in the year when they hike up the rates its very

expensive - you just need to know when those days are.  I think

they change the peak and off peak days fairly regularly so you need to

keep a tab on the latest tarriffs.

Hastobe

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="hastobe"]With regards to the electric - its worth investigating the EDF tariffs - my understanding (from friends in France) is that, so long as you are careful when you use it, the off peak rates are pretty cheap, but the 50 or so days in the year when they hike up the rates its very expensive - you just need to know when those days are.  I think they change the peak and off peak days fairly regularly so you need to keep a tab on the latest tarriffs.

Hastobe

[/quote]

They're not peak and off-peak days.  They are blue, white, and red days.  There are 22 red days (only in winter, of course!) when the electricity is prohibitively expensive. 

On each of these days you have peak and off-peak times.  Off-peak is 10pm to 6am.  It's fine if you like going to sleep to the sound of the washing machine spinning!

You keep a tab on the latest tariffs by looking at the little box you get when you sign up for this system (it's called Tempo).   It changes at about 8pm every day to tell you what tariff tomorrow will be.  Or you can look here http://particuliers.edf.fr/article482.html

 

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

[quote user="hastobe"]With regards to the

electric - its worth investigating the EDF tariffs - my understanding

(from friends in France) is that, so long as you are careful when you

use it, the off peak rates are pretty cheap, but the 50 or so days in

the year when they hike up the rates its very expensive - you

just need to know when those days are.  I think they change the

peak and off peak days fairly regularly so you need to keep a tab on

the latest tarriffs.

Hastobe

[/quote]

They're not peak and off-peak days.  They are blue, white, and

red days.  There are 22 red days (only in winter, of course!) when

the electricity is prohibitively expensive. 

On each of these days you have peak and off-peak times. 

Off-peak is 10pm to 6am.  It's fine if you like going to sleep to

the sound of the washing machine spinning!

You keep a tab on the latest tariffs by looking at the little box

you get when you sign up for this system (it's called

Tempo).   It changes at about 8pm every day to tell you what

tariff tomorrow will be.  Or you can look here http://particuliers.edf.fr/article482.html

 

[/quote]

Tempo is a great money saver if you can bias your consumption into the

summer months when the tarif is more or less entirely blue - this is

possble for us as we only rent our properties betwwen April and

October, so two pool pumps, all the washing and dishwashing machines

and electric water heating can the done on "cheap" electricity. On red

days (like today - EDF will make sure that they use up all the 22 days

that thay are allowed, so there is frequently a clump in early March -

God rot their socks) we hibernate and do as little as possible.

Tempo has day and night rates to complicate matters further: prices (hors taxe) in centimes per kwh are -

Blue Day         3.81

Blue Night       2.99

White Day       7.79

White Night     6.51

Red Day         35.46

Red Night       12.42

The white prices, I think, are about the same as EDF "normal" tarif.

Over a year, this arrangement saves us as a business close on €1000 per

year - we are a high user of power, during the summer anyway.

I seem to recall that when we went on to this systam a few years ago

there were minimum consumption levels that had to be met before tempo

could be applied - that might have changed.

[Weedon]

Since our first bill in 2000 for central heating oil it has increased in price from €0.30 per litre to the current €0.655 inc tax.  During those years we average out 3248 litres use per year and at todays price that equates to about €6 per day. That is heating in 9 rooms and constant hot water (we have no immersion). Of course the heating wouldn't be on, probably from late April to September/October, but the part for heating the water is.   We do have a log burner which we use only in extreme conditions, no more than maybe 8 or 10 times during the winter including the rare occasion we experience a power cut.  Perhaps I could cut oil consumption by using the log burner more often but I mostly can't be bothered as  it is more effort and the log burner will only heat the sitting room.  As we are about 2 miles outside of the village I don't think we have any alternative to oil and on balance I think that  €6 a day for a nice warm house isn't bad.

weedon

[Quillan]

I think your unit rates are old, see the EDF website.

Below is a comparison table I have created. In the first part I am compairing like for like between EDF and Scotish Power. The reason for using Scotish Power is because they are the only site I could find that actually give you their rates, all the rest ask for your previous bill and tells you what they would charge.

I have used 1.47€ to the pound as a currancy rate. I have also used the 36kva (60A) supply which is the biggest available equivilant to a UK domestic power source which is actually 100A.

The second part is for the EDF Tempo system. The number of units used are my own and represent a family home using electricity to heat with. What you really need to take in to account with Tempo is that when on red days you don't use the heating so you must use an alternative source and what the cost of that source is. We use parafine and I would estimate that we have spent around 180€ on it per year plus around 250€ worth of wood for the fire. This is all on the spreadsheet I have pasted below (hope it works) and if you want a copy to play with just email me.

Oh I forgot, there is no VAT or other tax applied to these figures and don't forget in France you pay a national and local tax on electricity. With Tempo there are 22 Red days, 43 White Days and 301 Blue days per year.

	Standing				Day Units	Night Units		Total Unit Costs		Total Inc
	Charge	Day	Night		Used	Used		Day	Night	Standing Charge
EDF	832.44	0.1057	0.1057	Used	11607.6	2723.4		€ 1,226.92	€ 287.86	€ 2,347.23
France	1329.94	0.1057	0.0644		11607.6	2723.4		€ 1,226.92	€ 175.39	€ 2,732.25
Scotish	57.52	0.114	0.114		11607.6	2723.4		€ 1,323.27	€ 310.47	€ 1,691.25
Power	58.4	0.1127	0.5204		11607.6	2723.4		€ 1,308.18	€ 1,417.26	€ 2,783.83
EDF Tempo	Unit	Units
	Cost	Used	Cost
Blue Night	0.0446	2065	92.10 €
Blue Day	0.0553	9111	503.84 €
White Night	0.0907	424	38.46 €
White Dy	0.1075	2180	234.35 €
Red Night	0.1682	233	39.19 €
Red Day	0.4702	316	148.58 €		Total Inc
					Standing Charge
	Units Grand Total		1,056.52 €		1,606.24 €
	Standing Charge		549.72 €

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Weedon"]

As we are about 2 miles outside of the village I don't think we have any alternative to oil ...

[/quote]

Same here. I permit myself a smirk when I see those GDF ads on the box.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I think your unit rates are old, see the EDF website.

[/quote]

Wierd - they came off our latest bill (16th Feb), so they are hardly

old, and they are certainly the rates that have been applied on the

bill. As you say, they are without tax, etc, but even so...I shall have

a look at the website.

EDIT - I understand: the prices they quote on the website are TTC

(extract below); I was quoting HT, which excludes all the TVA and local

taxes and the contribution au service publc d'électricité,

which if I put in (and this really isn't that simple) I get from 2.99 /

kwh for blue nights to 4.46 / kwh...and there I was thinking that I

might have got some deeply special deal for having a cheeky face. They

do enjoy making things complex.

Option Tempo
Puissance souscrite (kVA)	Abonnement annuel TTC (Euros/an)	Prix de l'énergie TTC (Euro/kWh)
		Jours Bleus 300 jours		Jours Blancs 43 jours		Jours Rouges 22 jours
		Heures Creuses	Heures Pleines	Heures Creuses	Heures Pleines	Heures Creuses	Heures Pleines
9 kVA	162,42	0,0446	0,0553	0,0907	0,1075	0,1682	0,4702
12-15-18 kVA	222,36
24-30 kVA	409,06
36 kVA	549,72