3 Ways to Save After the New Green Electricity Rate Hikes

3 Ways to Save After the New Green Electricity Rate Hikes

Looking for tips on how to save money on your electricity?  Check out these 3 ways to save after the new green electricity rate hikes in the UK!

It’s more important to save money on electricity today than it has ever been in the past. This is because the new laws recently passed in support of the government’s ‘Green Subsidies’ are going to cause household electricity bills to soar. In fact, rates are expected to increase more than 40pc by the year 2020. If you’re one of the people who have already been overpaying your electric bill by £130 a year, then this is news you’ll not want to overlook.

In real terms though, while the actual increase is at 40pc, the real cost to the average homeowner will be more than 60pc per year. You see, the current cost per MWh is £131, and the average home in the UK uses about 4.5 MWh per year. With the changes, this cost per MWh will actually rise to £186 by the end of 2020. That’s a yearly increase in the average homeowner’s electric bill of about £250. It gets worse though, as by 2030 the cost is planned to rise all the way up to £205. That’s a shocking 60% increase in the total bill to consumers.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) says that they are actually saving money though, claiming that citizens in the UK have actually saved £90 this year over what they would otherwise have paid for electricity. Where they get those figures is anyone’s guess though, as the increased costs people are going to be paying aren’t tied to any savings of any sort. Instead, they are subsidies for more green forms of energy. To date, no one is benefitting from those, and DECC actually hid the numbers on real costs, claiming that they were ‘confusing’ to consumers. Instead they chose to draw attention to the fact that people had saved £90 this year. They weren’t real savings though – rather, some people had cut back on their consumption, which the DECC classified as a ‘savings’ – when that savings really had nothing to do with them.

However, it’s even worse for businesses, as they’re set to shoulder even more of this cost. That cost will undoubtedly be passed on to consumers in the form of increased prices for goods, which means that we will end up paying even more for electricity by paying more for the things we use from these businesses. For example, the average medium sized business uses around 11,000 MWh of electricity per year. Calculating the figures given above, a business would see their electricity bill jump from around £760,000 per year all the way up to £1.3mln. That’s an increase of £560,000.

The DECC insists that they are actually saving money for people by encouraging them to use less electricity and better insulate their homes to prevent energy loss. That doesn’t make real sense though, as a person could already be insulating their home and using less electricity, in which case they would still end up paying more because of price increases. This is what has people upset, and not without good reason.

To prepare for this, there are a few things you can do to offset the new costs. They are as follows:

1) Get a heater that isn’t running off electricity. While most of us are comfy with an electric heater, the fact is that there are less expensive options out there. With these absurd increases in the cost of electricity, other options will look even better as time goes on. This includes coal-burning stoves for those of you living out of town, or gas heat for those who live in town. Often times a gas arrangement can end up costing less money over time anyway.

2) Get rid of your water boiler. We discussed other methods of reducing the costs of a water boiler over time, but the fact is you can save even more by switching to a high efficiency mini water heater. These units only boil water when it is needed, and they save money by not ever being on unless they are in use. Use a gas one, and you save even more on your electricity costs.

3) Change out your traditional lights for LED bulbs. An energy compliant LED light will last up to 25 times longer than a traditional incandescent bulb, and run on a fraction of the power (less than 25pc of the same energy). These lights will keep shining long after other bulbs will have needed to be replaced, and they cost significantly less in energy usage. Overall this adds up to a huge savings.

3 Ways to Save After the New Green Electricity Rate Hikes – Final Thoughts

While saving money and being green are great things to aspire towards, the fact of the matter is that the common person shouldn’t be forced to pay more to put these initiatives in place. It’s a betrayal of the trust placed in government that they’d start overcharging people simply to justify covering the costs of new and greener initiatives. If you’re one of those who will be impacted by these changes, let us know what you plan to do about in the comments section below.

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