1) Historical data

OfGem’s TDCV report shows a significant decrease in the mean domestic energy consumption
in recent years.

They say this drop of the nearly 15% for electricity and 18% for gas over 7 years “may be

partly explained by energy efficiency initiatives, and increased use of renewables on a localised
scale”.

Not only is energy consumption dropping but renewable energy is also getting cheaper:

Renewable energy set to be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020 ...

15 Jan 2018

Renewable Energy Will Be Consistently Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels ...

13 Jan 2018

CCC: UK wind and solar will be cheaper than gas by 2020 | Carbon Brief

22 Oct 2015

This is also what I found in my own analysis of renewable energy providers (attached excel
spread sheet). I compared SSE (red line on graph), which still generates the majority of its
energy by non-renewable means, with several renewable providers. All but one, was cheaper
than SSE other than at the low energy usage levels.

Smart home features are becoming more commonplace and can result in lower energy use.
Even 5 years ago, smart homes were really for only for the very well off but this is no longer the
case. Some smart features are becoming affordable. I moved into my flat here in the
Salisbury estate in Sep 2016. A year later I changed the light bulbs in the rooms I use most
often to smart light bulbs. That is the only change I have made and my electricity
consumption has reduced 38% (note: I am a very low energy user so any reduction is
significant).

My conclusion from all this is that we are in a unique period when it comes to energy production
and use - typical usage behaviours are changing, technologies that have been in development
for decades are becoming cost-effective, incentives are driving cheaper sustainable energy
alternatives, and regulation is increasingly restricting the use of fossil fuels, meaning that
historical energy data is meaningless in indicating future costs. It makes no sense to weigh up
the historical district heating costs, with alternative historic costs. Instead, we should
attempting to assess the future cost we can reasonably expect.

Some examples of assumptions that I think may be reasonable to expect, within the predicted
40+ years of the District Heating Life span include:

a) metering will be required by law/or regulation in all households. These anticipated costs of
installing meters should be included in the consideration of the district heating system. Costs
may also be anticipated to alter the district heating system should it be a requirement to be
charged fairly using a meter for our water usage, which I am informed by Thames Water is
currently not possible because of the district heating system. Instead I have to pay a flat rate,
which is considerably more expensive than my actual use (which I know because I used to be
metered in my previous flat).

b) renewable energy will become significantly cheaper and is anticipated to be cheaper than
fossil fuels

c) Smart home features will be common place - people will be able to automate heating and hot
water so that it is on only when they need it (not possible with the district heating system) and
at a temperature that is safe (I have measured the temperature of the hot water coming from
my bathroom tap at a very unsafe 68°C - this is 48% higher than the highest NHS
recommended safe temperature at point of use).

2) Gas vs Electricity for hot water heating

OfGem provides a table of the median gas and electricity consumption for low, medium and
high users collected from the previous 2 years. They note that there are a small number of
consumers in the high bracket - 75% of consumers are in the medium, or low bracket. They
have two electricity classes - Profile 1 and Profile 2, where Profile 2 are all users on dual tariff
electricity, such as Economy 7 or 10, and all other users are in Profile 1. OfGem make the
assumption that “Households with profile class 2 meters are more likely to use electricity to
heat their homes.” If this is the case then OfGem’s data shows that electricity-only homes, do
not use significantly more electricity than those who also have gas except in the high bracket:
In order to get some idea of costs I used uSwitch to find the cheapest possible dual fuel costs
available for my postcode for the Gas + Electricity Profile Class 1 for each bracket and
compared that with the cheapest cost my spreadsheet returned for the Electricity Profile Class 2
amounts (all shown in the table on the top right of my attached excel file). In all cases, the
electricity-only option was cheapest. The savings were: Low =£262, Medium =£343, High
=£361.

This is entirely in keeping with my own experience. Before moving here I lived in a fairly
similar type of flat nearby for the previous 6 years. It was an electricity-only home, using an
electrical immersion water heater on an Economy 7 tariff. My annual energy usage for the
final year was 2,143.01kWh, which is aligned with what OfGem states for a low energy user.
The average of my last 8 bills in that flat showed my average annual total energy cost to be
£268.88. (Compare that with the £1,018.36 that the Council has charged on average for my
flat over the last 5 years for only hot water and heating - and I only have the amount from the
estimated bill for one year so it will actually be higher).

One last thing. As I feel strongly about environmental matters could I please encourage
anyone not already using renewable energy providers to look in to switching. A note
regarding one of the suppliers I looked at, Octopus. It rates very highly in customer service,
and is recommended by a few comparison sites as it is also one of the cheapest, however, they
use nuclear energy in their mix, which, since I come from a country with a nuclear-free stance,
I will not use and would prefer others also didn’t. Obviously, we all have different values, but
I just wanted to make others aware. I ended up using Bulb as they give you £50 if you are
referred. I did nothing except fill in their form online, they did everything else so it was very
easy. If anyone wants a referral, I’d be happy to send them one (full disclosure - I will also get
£50 if I refer you).