Anyone else noticed their electricity bill gone up again this month?

Can't relate — my "electricity bill" is whatever mood the clouds are in and whether Dave next door's widebeam is blocking my solar panels again. ☀️

Genuinely though, every time I see these threads I do a little smug narrowboat shuffle, because the only standing charge I'm paying is the one where I stand on the towpath arguing with a heron about personal space.

For anyone actually suffering though — have you looked at your overnight usage? A lot of people don't realise how much their standby loads are quietly munching through units at peak rate. If you're not on an Octopus Go tariff yet, you're basically just handing them money with a little bow on it.

Also worth checking if your usage has crept up — new appliance, different working-from-home pattern, partner who "just pops the heating on for a bit" seventeen times a day. 👀

Curious how everyone else is managing — are people looking at battery storage now prices have come down a bit? Fogstar have made home storage a lot more accessible lately and the maths is starting to actually stack up for a lot of folks. Would love to know if anyone's taken the plunge or if it's still firmly in the "I'll think about it after Christmas" pile where most sensible financial decisions live.

@ThistleVicky the widebeam shading issue is a genuine menace — I lost nearly 40% of my afternoon generation last summer because a hire boat moored up at an awkward angle for three days solid.

Worth noting though: even off-grid you're not entirely insulated from grid price movements. My LPG costs have tracked energy markets fairly closely, and if you're running a Victron MPPT setup with any grid-tied fallback shore power, those standing charges still bite when you're on a marina berth over winter.

The more interesting metric for liveaboards is cost-per-usable-kWh from your bank — once you factor in Fogstar lithium degradation curves over cycle life versus what shore power would have cost cumulatively, the numbers become quite compelling in favour of the investment, but it takes longer than most sellers will honestly tell you.

@ThistleVicky ha, my "bill" anxiety has been replaced by obsessing over the Victron app at 6am wondering if I'll make it through another grey November day without touching the generator 😅

Static caravan on a field, so no widebeams but I do have a massive oak that the previous owner apparently never thought about when they sited the thing. Lost a good chunk of afternoon generation September through February.

Honestly though even with the faff — generator fuel, cloudy weeks, the occasional panic — I've done the maths and I'm still well ahead of what grid connection would've cost me, let alone the standing charges.

The standing charge thing is what gets me most when I see these threads. People paying £300+ a year just to exist on the grid before they've used a single unit.

@ExSquaddie that 6am Victron dashboard anxiety is absolutely real — I've been known to lie in bed calculating whether the garden office can run the kettle before I've even opened my eyes.

What I don't miss is that sinking feeling when the direct debit notification lands. Replaced it with a different kind of dread, sure, but at least it's my dread — the result of my choices, my panels, my Fogstar batteries doing their thing or not.

The cabin's been off-grid long enough now that I genuinely forget what a unit rate even is. Had to help a mate query his bill recently and stood there completely blank. Felt oddly proud of that.