'Is it time to change energy pricing to ‘kettles boiled’?' blog discussion

A question about : 'Is it time to change energy pricing to ‘kettles boiled’?' blog discussion

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's Is it time to change energy pricing to 'meter rent' and 'kettles boiled'? Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

Best answers:

• Meter rent I could live with, however I think the "kettles boiled" is a dodgy comparison because of the massive potential variation in the power of the kettle and the amount of water put in. Someone boiling 1 cup would obviously use a lot less energy than someone boiling 8. Whilst I realise that the intention is to use a standardised illustrative amount, I think the potential for confusion is massive when someone boils their 8 cup kettle and it costs them 2 or 3 times the expected electricity cost.
  In essence 1kWh is a pretty standard unit - what perhaps needs explaining is what that does - e.g. boils so many litres or mugs of water, runs a 2kw fan heater for half an hour, runs your 10kw shower for 6 minutes. Maybe printing something like that on a bill would be more helpful. That might also help people understand how to save energy safely - cutting back on the heating but spending 20 minutes in the shower isn't as good as having a shorter shower and leaving the heating on for as long as before.
  The bigger difficulty arises over gas but until we get more roll out of smart meters that can instantly convert m3 to kWh's its hard to see much progress there.
• I'd hate "kettles boiled", I don't get it. Not only because my immediate reaction was the same as WestonDave above (a full kettle? a half kettle?), but also because it has zero connection with where you actually spend your energy (the majority in boiling water? really?), and also it would make the UK the laughing stock of the world...
  I'm surprised you're not asking for water pricing to be measured in "baths filled", or a similar stupid thing, instead of cubic metres... After all, if people don't get a basic thing like kWh then they don't get m3 either, right?
  But we all know it's always better to dumb things down instead of teaching people --> this is sarcasm...
• From our previous suppliers, who's motto seemed to be 'if it's bungleable, we'll bungle it' we switched to Ovo. They had a worrying missionary zeal about them that turned out to be pure facade. Neither company have yet informed us of their bank-like predilection for pilfering. Only in an online bill seen today was there mention of a 'rebate', giving it the aura of a kindness. No mention of previous suppliers or faulty/rigged meters was made. Whatever the motivation, I was perplexed by the method chosen for refunding what is, in effect, overcharging. The Ј12 is deducted from the total after the addition of VAT. I make no claims for financial expertise, but this seems to favour the transgressors. Moreover, I have just discovered that I hold have been sent a letter at least 42 days before the end of my current tariff - no letter. To top it all off, I go to the trouble of sending them actual meter readings every month, they, however, stick to estimated readings unless actual readings provide a higher yield. Are these experiences unique?
• How about television-hours instead of kWh? Say an average TV is 250W then the new unit will be exactly 1/4 of the old one, which will make conversion much easier. Boiling a kettle is highly variable, as it depends very much on whether you fill it brim-full every time or just enough for a mug of tea.
  But my overall feeling is this is a bit of dumbing down. Is the concept of a kWh so difficult to grasp? It was chosen because one bar of an electric fire, ubiquitous a few decades ago, was 1kW, so the unit was one bar for one hour. Now the TV is the ubiquitous appliance so that makes more sense. But it needs to be a simple conversion old-new.
• Daft idea.
  If you really want to pursue the idea further, then I would suggest 'fixed charge' is better than 'standing charge', and just replace 'kilowatt hours' by something straightforward like 'electricity units' (1 kWh = 1 electricity unit).
• Meter rental is ok. Kettles boiled is patronising. Kwh is accurate but confusing and meaningless to many.
  I suspect bills are deliberately misleading. The first page of my previous suppliers bill would state. "Your gas bill -Ј34.20." In large letters. Note the minus sign. The truth of this bill would be I am Ј34.20 in credit. They are designed to confuse so the customer accepts higher dd payments.
  There is too much focus on monthly dd amounts which hides real costs.
• "Meter rental" just sounds wrong to me. People will be asking why they have to pay so much every month for a meter that hasn't been changed in years. If I'm going to pay for the meter, I at least want a new one! "Standing charge" has been around for as long as I can remember, but perhaps something like "maintenance charge" might be more informative.
  I agree with the others that "kettles boiled" isn't very helpful. It will depend so much on how much water you put in the kettle, and even how cold the mains water was. I can also see people trying to save money by boiling the kettle as little as possible, then still wondering why their bills are so high. How about "One kilowatt heaters left on for one hour". We could even shorten that to something nice and snappy, such as kilowatt-hours!
• So how do you convert "kettles boiled" to calculate the cost of running other electrical items?
  If I know the price per kilowatt hour I can work out how much a 1kW iron costs to run.
  If I know the cost per "kettle boiled" how do I work out much the iron costs to run? You can't without converting back to kWh at some point in the calculation.
• "I never boil a kettle, so why am I being charged?" will be a question at least some people would be asking.
  Mandelbrot has suggested 'electricity units', once upon a time, they were 'Board of Trade Units', 1 unit = 1kWh, but without the then almost unknown kilo prefix or watt power rating.
  The standing charge covers much more than the meter, so calling it 'meter rental' is asking for trouble as trade description apart from anything else. 'Line Rental' might be a better description.
  The 'television-hours' suggestion is also flawed as TVs vary widely in both size and technology.
• No problem with the meter rental idea, though the daily rate should accurately reflect the real cost of maintaining a typical property's local link to the supply network - like the financial industry has been stopped from charging extortionate amounts for sending letters to the customer.
  Though not exactly correct scientifically, the kW has become the standard for measuring the "power" of things from cars to boilers to kettles to led light bulbs. It really in not brain surgery to realise that a 3kW kettle left boiling for an hour would use up 3 kWh of chargeable electricity. (*)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour
  Please try to educate the users of this web site, not dumb down to the lowest level.
  John
  When we joined the European Union we had to agree to standardise down from our 250 volt supply to their 230 volt supply. If you need a campaigning cause there may be a case to answer if you find out how many people are being charged for 250 volts when all their appliances now need only 230 volts - I make that about an 8% overcharge but at least the kettle then works 8% faster !
  I wonder if the over voltage burns out appliances faster and if it may be responsible for risks like Bosh having to do a recall on the controllers of their dishwashers, following reports of smoke logged kitchens.
• I have no issue with meter rental, however, would like to see the elimination of standing charges totally, why is it wrong just to pay for what we use whichever day we use it.
  Kettle boils would blow some folks minds, they would then start saying, I don't use a kettle, I just boil much my water in a pan on the electric stove! And also forget the electric fire/heater/radiator/oven/Hob/central heating pump uses electric.
  DG
• Different size kettles make this a fail .
  kwh actually works if it does not require like gas a conversion factor .
  Standing charge for services not hard to understand .
  Meter rental misses the rest of the services .
  Whatever method is used just as many people will be just as confused .
• Very interesting post - I had not realised that all the grid linked generators somehow slow down or speed up, depending on the load, even if the source of the power might be next door rather than at the other end of the country.
  Logically it has to be all kept in sync but it is difficult to understand how a sudden surge of power use in say the south can instantly transmit the need for extra load (ie "lets slow down" ) to a generating set in the north.
  I am typically on 250 volts.
  Near to "a substation" it is a transformer up a wooden pole about 200 yards away.
  I share it with a neighbour.
  However I am last on the wire coming from the West and my other neighbour is last on the wire coming from the East.
• What's the problem with energy bills ? I can't see how they could possibly be any simpler. There's really no need for change, we need to change the consumers brains not the bills
• Seems a really dumb idea. The kWh is a perfectly normal and graspable amount. The name may be confusing (with kWh used per hour being mixed with kW per hour) but the size of the unit is fine.
  A single bar of an electric fire for an hour. Why is that difficult? If a kettle is used continually for an hour it uses the same as 2.6 bars (well, it'll use far less due to blowing out sooner).
  The suggested measure (2,600 Watts for four minutes) is not very usable. That would be 4x60x2.6 kWseconds or 624 kWseconds.
  "Hello, you used 59 million units last year." not very graspable.
  "Hello, you used 95,192 kettles". any less usable than kWh?
  A boiler uses 624 kettles when going full blast. Why is that more useful?
  I really don't see how combining kettles and megaKettles and centiKettles would be any more or less difficult than getting your head round the current standard of 1,000 Watts for an hour is 1 kWh and working out combining xy Watts for z hours for 7 days a week is xy * z * 7 Watt hours.
  Yes, working out how that sort of calculation is done can take time - but using a smaller unit does not make the concept simpler.