# Electricity Consumption



## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

We have just received our latest electricity bill which covers two months April/May. It is for 1,015 kWh that is *1 megawatt hour*. We are a family of three, we cook by gas, we heat our water either by a solar panel or a gas boiler, most of our light bulbs are either fluorescent type or LED. 

Does this bill seem excessive to you? Is our electricity supply being tapped by somebody else? Opinions please.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

That does seem very high to me. We are a two-person household and all electric (including for all cooking and heating the water). I get my bills monthly and have just had the one for May, for which the consumption was 166kwh. We didn't use any electricity for heating (or cooling) that month but have done more cooking at home than usual as we weren't eating out due to the lockdown. We cook two separate main meals each day as we eat different things.

Have you compared it to your normal consumption from past bills?


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## Tigerlillie (Apr 7, 2015)

baldilocks said:


> We have just received our latest electricity bill which covers two months April/May. It is for 1,015 kWh that is *1 megawatt hour*. We are a family of three, we cook by gas, we heat our water either by a solar panel or a gas boiler, most of our light bulbs are either fluorescent type or LED.
> 
> Does this bill seem excessive to you? Is our electricity supply being tapped by somebody else? Opinions please.


I have absolutely no idea but do you have last year's and the year before's bill for the same period to compare. :noidea:


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## Tigerlillie (Apr 7, 2015)

Lynn R said:


> That does seem very high to me. We are a two-person household and all electric (including for all cooking and heating the water). I get my bills monthly and have just had the one for May, for which the consumption was 166kwh. We didn't use any electricity for heating (or cooling) that month but have done more cooking at home than usual as we weren't eating out due to the lockdown. We cook two separate main meals each day as we eat different things.
> 
> *Have you compared it to your normal consumption from past bills?*


You had the same thought as me 
That's the first thing I would've done.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

I'm going to get SWMBO to dig out previous bills. She is in the attic, teaching at the moment - just one fluorescent light + laptop.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

baldilocks said:


> I'm going to get SWMBO to dig out previous bills. She is in the attic, teaching at the moment - just one fluorescent light + laptop.


Isn't there a bar chart or graph showing past consumption somewhere on your latest bill (maybe on the back)? There always has been on mine, both with my current supplier (Naturgy) and when I was with Endesa. All my bills are online now, so I can go back as far as I want by logging into my account.


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## Beach buddy (Jul 7, 2018)

Just look at last years bill and compare or check your bank statement and see what you paid. Our bill for the month of May was considerably down on last year, despite the lockdown.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

We think that the occupant of the woodpile may be the oxygen concentrator which is on 8 hours every night. Unfortunately it doesn't have a plate saying what the consumption is.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> We think that the occupant of the woodpile may be the oxygen concentrator which is on 8 hours every night. Unfortunately it doesn't have a plate saying what the consumption is.


Had to look up what one of those was.

A quick google reveals that they are usually around 250 to 350 watts

So worst case 500 watts on for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, 8 weeks is about 224,000 watts.

I think.


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## Stevesolar (Dec 21, 2012)

Hi,
Average annual electricity consumption for a UK house is around 4000 units (kWh) per year.
So 1000 units for two months does seem high.
Did you provide the actual meter readings, did somebody come to read the meter, do you have a remote reading smart meter or is the bill an estimate?
Certainly in this country - no meters are being read at the moment!
Do you have air conditioning fitted at your place and have you been using it this year?
AC has very high electricity demand (75% of our demand where we live)
Just be thankful you don’t live where we do - our consumption is around 300 units per day this tine of the year - for a 4 bedroom villa!
Cheers
Steve


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## Phil Squares (Jan 13, 2017)

We have Cespa and you can look at current consumption as well as past billed consumption online. For the month of May and April, we used 232Kw/H. We are a family of 2 and everything is run off electricity. But, we are big users of the A/C. My wife is now teaching from home during the day in our office and needs a quiet space. That means the windows closed and within seconds, especially on a nice sunny day, the temp starts to increase and running two computers doesn't help either. So the A/C comes on around 10 am and runs till 5 pm. 

Our bill last month would have been just over 59Euros but we are on a fixed plan of 34 Euros a month. To put things in perspective our January consumption was 68 Kw/H. 

Hope that helps.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Ramalamadingdong said:


> Please explain what UK consumption has got to do with Spain?


Comparison. /SNIP/


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## Tigerlillie (Apr 7, 2015)

baldilocks said:


> Comparison. If you have anything of value to say, then say it, otherwise move elsewhere.


Well don't keep us all in suspense then  

Did you compare your bills for the same period over a couple of years or did you work out where the extra/high consumption has originated from?


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

I work with an assumption that for an all-electric apartment with two people, typical electricity bill will be around 50 euro/month, averaged over the whole year, including moderate use of AC.


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## Juan C (Sep 4, 2017)

On my bill there is a bar chart showing use over, I think, a 14 months period


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

That works out to 693w per hour every hour for the whole 2 month period which is pretty unbelievable, at least unkowingly. 

Are you not able to monitor your consumption in real time?


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

Duplicate


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

Stevesolar said:


> Just be thankful you don’t live where we do - our consumption is around 300 units per day this tine of the year - for a 4 bedroom villa!


But at what cost per unit?


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## Stevesolar (Dec 21, 2012)

MataMata said:


> But at what cost per unit?


Hi,
For Expats living in villas it’s 6.4 cents per kWh for first 200 kWh per day and 9.4 cents for the units consumed above 200 kWh. These are Euro cents.
Our average monthly water and electricity bills are around 750 euros per month.
During hottest months it could be above 1000 Euros per month.
We are luckily in a modern villa with latest variable frequency AC system, LED lighting, good double glazing, good insulation and solar thermal water heaters - older villas use double the above electricity!
The rates are different for apartments and there are much cheaper rates for UAE citizens.
Cheers
Steve


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## 95995 (May 16, 2010)

The very first think I would is check all fridge and freezer seals. The other appliances. Of course, it is important to check against previous bills, but it does seem this bill is far higher than usual.

Do the checks, if nothing turns up, contest the amount of the bill.


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## CltFlyboy (Feb 11, 2020)

EverHopeful said:


> The very first think I would is check all fridge and freezer seals. The other appliances. Of course, it is important to check against previous bills, but it does seem this bill is far higher than usual.
> 
> Do the checks, if nothing turns up, contest the amount of the bill.


You could always get a non-contact IR thermometer (the industrial type), they are inexpensive, and go around the home looking for temperature differentials. Do the provinces in Spain offer energy audits like we have in the US where the energy provider will assess the home with a FLIR type heat sensing camera and give you ideas for saving energy? It might be worth it.


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## paulhe (Jan 2, 2018)

baldilocks said:


> We have just received our latest electricity bill which covers two months April/May. It is for 1,015 kWh that is *1 megawatt hour*. We are a family of three, we cook by gas, we heat our water either by a solar panel or a gas boiler, most of our light bulbs are either fluorescent type or LED.
> 
> Does this bill seem excessive to you? Is our electricity supply being tapped by somebody else? Opinions please.


It could very well be a faulty meter. As suggested I would check the ratings of each appliance and do a calculation of maximum watt hours but I would expect tht that figure would come nowhere near the amount billed. Either it is an error in reading, in billing or as i suspect a faulty meter. Not sure how it is in Spain but usually, if one suspects a faulty meter, there is a charge in the event it is not faulty, hence check usage against the bill.

Paul


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

You can buy watt meters on Amazon. Plug in the suspect device and see how much it's using. But those figures are so high I doubt it's worthwhile.

I assume you have a breaker for the house after the meter. Turn it off and see if the meter is still showing current being used. If you don't have a breaker like that turn off the meter breaker and see if anybody complains


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

When I lived in Spain and had anomalous bills I read the meters (electricity and water) every day for a few months - gives some idea of what's going on.

For instance I noticed a doubling of water usage for a few days and found a huge leak in the irrigation system that I wouldn't otherwise have noticed - would have cost a fair bit if I'd left it until the next bill.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

paulhe said:


> It could very well be a faulty meter. As suggested I would check the ratings of each appliance and do a calculation of maximum watt hours but I would expect tht that figure would come nowhere near the amount billed. Either it is an error in reading, in billing or as i suspect a faulty meter. Not sure how it is in Spain but usually, if one suspects a faulty meter, there is a charge in the event it is not faulty, hence check usage against the bill.
> 
> Paul


Yes, that's certainly a possibility especially if the meter has recently been changed to a "smart" one. Immediately after the meter in our old house was upgraded, I noticed that the consumption on our bills had increased (not to anything like the same level as Baldilocks has experienced, though), and for each of the 3 bills after the change, the consumption carried on increasing by exactly the same number of kwh hours each time. I made a request to Endesa that they check the meter, and the person in their service point office who logged the complaint did agree that it seemed suspicious based on our previous consumption. They did warn me, as you say, that I would be billed for the tecnico visit to check the meter if it turned out not to be faulty. The tecnico duly came, said there wasn't anything wrong with the meter - but lo and behold, the electricity consumption stopped increasing and I never did get charged for his visit!


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