Average Electricity Consumption – Part 2

 Average Electricity Consumption – Part 2

You may have been surprised, as I was, by the concept of:  'Your Annual Consumption (based on average usage)', i.e. based on someone else's consumption; particularly as my household is half the average size and twice as frugal.

And even more surprised when your supplier tells you that they are ordered by OFGEM to write this on the bills.

I approached OFGEM who took my enquiry very seriously and gave it the full works 'under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”)' in a letter running to 1,364 words. It may be worthwhile passing on verbatim the meat of their response, as it affects you all. (The punctuation is that of OFGEM.)

"(a) where the Customer has held their Domestic Supply Contract or Micro Business Consumer Contract (as applicable) for at least 12 months and the licensee has obtained actual meter readings (including meter readings provided by the Customer and accepted by the licensee in accordance with standard condition 21B) which can reasonably be considered to cover the whole of that 12 month period, the quantity of electricity which was treated as consumed at the Customer’s Domestic Premises or Non-Domestic Premises (as applicable) during the previous 12 months on the basis of those meter readings; or

(b) where the Customer has held their Domestic Supply Contract or Micro Business Consumer Contract (as applicable) for:

(i) less than 12 months; or

(ii) at least 12 months and the licensee has not obtained actual meter readings (including meter readings provided by the Customer and accepted by the licensee in accordance with standard condition 21B) which can reasonably be considered to cover the whole of that 12 month period,

the licensee’s best estimate of the quantity of electricity that the Customer may be expected to consume during a 12 month period having regard to any relevant information that is available to the licensee or which the licensee could otherwise have reasonably ascertained (including any actual meter readings that have been obtained and which cover part of the previous 12 months)."

"As seen from the definition in the paragraph above, if a customer has held the same supply contract for at least 12 months, and has been providing actual meter readings, Annual Consumption should be derived from the meter readings provided."

The gist of this, applied to my case, is that they should have used my meter readings to calculate my annual consumption, because they had them (indeed for several consecutive years). 

It is easy enough to calculate your annual consumption in GB£ from you annual consumption in kWh units, simply by multiplying it by the cost (in GB£) of a single unit. To calculate your annual bill you have to add on the standing charges (= standing charge per day x 365). 

I think, rather than making fuel artificially cheap by capping the unit cost, it would have been better to abolish the standing charge (As I urge in my blog.)