Anyone else noticed their electric bill go up even though they've barely used the grid this winter?

Standing charges are the great British heist — mine went up again in January and my Victron system barely let the grid get a look-in all winter.

Literally paying Octopus a fiver a week just for the privilege of having a cable plugged into a wall that I'm not using. The audacity.

I've genuinely started wondering whether it's worth keeping the grid connection at all — anyone here gone full island mode and told the DNO where to stick their standing charge? I know it's a faff to disconnect properly and you lose the export tariff, but at some point the maths just tips, doesn't it?

My Fogstar batteries kept us comfortable through most of November and December, topped up by the solar and a bit of wind — grid usage was maybe 40–50 kWh for the whole two months, yet the bill still stung because of the fixed costs.

The way I see it, the standing charge is basically a tax on being responsible and generating your own power — meanwhile someone three streets away running eight electric radiators is getting relatively better value per unit. Maddening.

Would love to know what everyone else's bills looked like — are we all just quietly subsidising the grid for people who actually use it heavily? Because it's starting to feel that way.

Same boat here @TID_Electric — it's the standing charge that really stings when you're barely drawing anything. I've actually started logging my grid imports properly and last month I pulled less than 8kWh from Octopus, yet the standing charge dwarfed my actual usage charge. Feels completely backwards.

Worth looking into whether a no-standing-charge tariff might suit you — some smaller suppliers still offer them, though the unit rates are obviously higher. Depends entirely on how confident you are in your system covering you through the dark months.

I've also been considering whether it's even worth keeping grid connection at all, but the DNO disconnection process is a whole other headache. Has anyone here actually gone fully off-grid and severed the connection officially? Curious what that paperwork nightmare looks like!

Yeah it's genuinely frustrating isn't it. The standing charge is essentially a fixed tax for being connected, regardless of usage. I've been seriously looking into whether going fully off-grid and cutting the DNO connection altogether makes financial sense long-term — the £1,500-ish disconnection fee starts looking reasonable when you're haemorrhaging £200+ a year just to stay connected.

Worth checking if you're on the cheapest tariff for low users though @TID_Electric — some suppliers still offer cheaper standing charge options if you hunt around, though they're rarer than they used to be. EDF had one last time I looked.

Also worth bearing in mind that if you ever do disconnect completely, reconnecting later is eye-wateringly expensive. Keeping that connection as a backup has its value, even if the cost feels painful right now.