Anyone else noticed their electricity bill has gone up even though they're barely on the grid anymore?

Seen this come up a few times lately and it's genuinely maddening. My import units have dropped by about 70% since I expanded the array and added a second Fogstar Drift 100Ah to the bank, yet my quarterly bill barely shifted.

The culprit in my case was the standing charge. Octopus have mine sitting at around 61p/day now, which adds up to roughly £55 per quarter before I've drawn a single watt from the grid. Combine that with the supplier's various "network cost" line items and you can practically halve your consumption and still see a bill that looks depressingly familiar.

The other thing worth checking is whether your export tariff is actually offsetting correctly if you're on something like SEG. Mine wasn't being applied properly for two billing cycles — took three calls to sort out.

A few things worth auditing:

• Standing charge increases — these have crept up significantly since 2022
• Meter reading accuracy — smart meters can behave oddly alongside off-grid hybrid setups (Victron MultiPlus users especially, worth double-checking)
• VAT and levy adjustments — some of these have quietly changed

The uncomfortable truth is that the grid operators are essentially pricing in the fixed infrastructure cost regardless of usage. The less you use, the higher your effective p/kWh rate becomes on whatever you do import.

Anyone found a supplier that's actually better suited to very-low-import customers? I've been wondering whether a pay-as-you-go arrangement might make more sense at this point rather than a direct debit that feels disconnected from actual usage.

@CrafterConvert — Standing charge is almost certainly your culprit. Even at near-zero consumption, you're paying ~50-60p/day just to remain connected, which adds up to £180-220/year before a single unit is imported. That fixed cost becomes brutally visible once your actual consumption collapses.

I noticed exactly this on my shepherd's hut setup after commissioning a 400Wp array with a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 — my bills barely moved despite genuine off-grid operation most months.

Worth calculating your cost-per-actual-kWh-imported rather than just watching unit rates. Mine was approaching £1.50/kWh once standing charges were factored against minimal imports — completely distorts the economics.

Some members here have found Agile or tracker tariffs worthwhile at low-consumption levels, though the maths depends heavily on your specific usage patterns and DNO region.

@BordersExplorer is right about the standing charge. I ditched my grid connection at the cabin entirely last year — saves me about £250 a year just on that alone.

Worth running the numbers on whether full disconnection makes sense for your setup. Obviously not for everyone (especially if you're EV charging off-peak) but if your import is genuinely tiny, you're basically paying a subscription fee for a service you barely use.

One option worth looking at — Octopus Agile or similar flexible tariffs. Some people in similar situations switch to a very low standing charge tariff and accept a higher unit rate, because if you're barely importing it nets out better.

Worth adding to what @BordersExplorer and @Harry1965 have said — it's not just the standing charge itself, it's that the standing charge has been creeping up while unit rates have also risen, so even your reduced imports are costing more per kWh than they used to. You're essentially paying a higher fixed cost for a connection you're barely using, plus a higher variable rate on the little you do pull from the grid. The maths gets pretty brutal at low consumption levels.

Have you looked at whether a prepayment meter might give you more visibility on exactly where the money's going, @CrafterConvert? Or honestly, depending on your setup, it might be worth running the numbers on full disconnection like @Harry1965 did. With two Drift 100Ahs you're not a million miles away from being genuinely self-sufficient, depending on your loads.

@JimWilliams71 makes a fair point. The thing that really got me was realising the standing charge had quietly crept up without me noticing — I was so focused on watching my import units drop that I didn't clock the per-day rate had jumped. Worth pulling out last year's bills and actually comparing the daily charge line, not just the unit cost.

I'm in a similar boat — expanded my array last spring and added a Victron Multiplus, imports are minimal now, but the quarterly bill barely moved initially. Once I ran the actual numbers it was almost entirely standing charges.

If you're grid-tied purely as a backup, it might be worth looking at whether Octopus or one of the smaller suppliers offers a lower standing charge tariff in your area. Some do vary quite a bit regionally.