We’ve just switched energy suppliers at the end of a fixed rate term. Unit costs are as follows:
| Oct 2015 - Sep 2016 | Oct 2016 - Dec 2016 | Jan 2017 - date |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Day-time electricity | 11.71 p/kWh | 11.90 p/kWh | 11.48 p/kWh |
| Night-time electricity | 7.57 p/kWh | 6.86 p/kWh | 7.87 p/kWh |
| PV electricity (when available if metered) | 4.85 - 4.91 p/kWh | 4.91 p/kWh | 4.91 p/kWh |
| Any-time gas | 3.01 p/kWh | 2.43 p/kWh | 2.35 p/kWh |
| PV electricity (when available if deemed like mine) | 0.00 p/kWh | 0.00 p/kWh | 0.00 p/kWh |
In both cases electricity is on so-called ‘green’ plans where the supplier sources electricity to match my consumption from renewable sources such as wind turbines, solar farms, or hydroelectric.
I’ve included my export rates in the table as for some technologies this will make a difference to the cost-effectiveness of that technology. My electricity company chooses to deem my export so it pays me assuming that 50% of my generated electricity is exported, rather than metering and paying for my actual export. That results in the cost to me of using my own solar being zero, whereas if export was metered then using my own solar would cost me the export payment. Thus for me it’s economically attractive to use excess solar to make hot water rather than using gas thus saving the cost of gas but, for someone with metered export, the lost export payment would outweigh the saving in gas.
Since the table rows are ranked by unit price (higher priced fuels are at the top) then another way to look at this is that it’s financially attractive to replace a fuel higher in the table with one lower in the table, but disadvantageous to replace a fuel lower in the table with one above.
