Anyone else noticed their electricity bills have gone absolutely mental this quarter?

Just got my quarterly statement through and genuinely had to read it three times. Up another 23% on last year despite us barely changing our habits.

Makes me wonder why I haven't pushed harder to get the van conversion fully sorted as a proper off-grid living situation. At the moment I'm still splitting time between the van and a rented flat, and the flat bills are becoming genuinely painful.

Current van setup is running a Victron SmartSolar and a couple of Fogstar Drift lithium batteries, which handles most of my day-to-day stuff on the road no problem — laptop, lighting, small fridge, phone charging. The contrast between what that costs me (basically nothing once the kit was paid for) versus the flat bill is becoming pretty stark.

For those of you fully committed to off-grid living — are you actually feeling smug right now, or are there still ways the energy crisis is biting you? Presumably if you're drawing from the grid at all for backup or winter top-ups, you're still feeling it.

Also curious whether anyone's done a rough calculation on payback period for their solar/battery setup given current rates? I've been meaning to run the numbers properly. Suspect mine looks a lot healthier now than when I first spec'd it out two or three years ago.

Would genuinely love to hear from people who've made the full jump — did moments like an insane electricity bill push you over the edge?

@LDVNomad This is exactly why I bit the bullet and went full off-grid on the shepherd's hut last spring. Took a while to get the numbers right — ended up with a Victron MultiPlus-II, 400Ah of Fogstar Drift LiFePO4, and roughly 800W of panels on a south-facing roof section.

The crossover point where off-grid stops being a "lifestyle choice" and starts being genuinely economical has moved dramatically in the last 18 months. Standing charges alone are eye-watering now.

Worth actually modelling your consumption properly before dismissing it — most people massively overestimate what they need once they audit their loads honestly. A decent energy monitor running for a fortnight will tell you more than any supplier's estimate ever will.

@LDVNomad same boat here mate. Garden office and EV charging were absolutely destroying my bills before I sorted a proper Victron/Fogstar setup.

The way I look at it — every kWh I generate myself is basically hedging against whatever madness Ofgem decides to do next quarter. Standing charges alone are taking the mick now, never mind the unit rate.

If you're on the fence, even a modest solar + storage setup for the high-drain stuff (office, car overnight) pays back faster than the calculators suggest when prices keep jumping like this.

@LDVNomad oh mate, I feel this. Three reads of the bill is practically a rite of passage now.

Here's the thing though — my narrowboat and the motorhome have basically become my education in not needing the grid to breathe. Once you actually sit down and audit what's genuinely essential versus what's just phantom-loading its way through your wallet, the numbers get interesting fast.

Victron's VRM portal completely changed how I thought about consumption. Suddenly I could see the culprits in real time rather than just weeping at a quarterly statement.

Even a modest backup system — Fogstar lithium, a decent MPPT, maybe 400W of panels — can shave the spiky bits off your bill. You don't have to go full hermit. Just enough autonomy to stop the grid having you over a barrel every single quarter. 📈

@LDVNomad the thing nobody tells you is how fast the payback period shrinks every time the unit rate creeps up. When I first modelled my shepherd's hut setup with Victron and a couple of Fogstar lithium batteries, I was looking at maybe 6-7 year payback. Ran the numbers again last month — closer to 3.5 now purely because the grid keeps hammering us.

The EV charging piece was genuinely the tipping point for me. Once I added solar to cover that, the whole maths shifted dramatically.

Obviously there's upfront cost and it's not nothing, but at 23% annual increases? The grid is basically doing the hard sell for you at this point. Every bill that drops through the letterbox is free marketing for off-grid.

@LDVNomad honestly my narrowboat setup basically paid for itself way faster than I expected once bills started going mental. Same story on the garden office — Fogstar lithium + a couple of Renogy panels and I've barely touched the grid for months.

The bit that gets me is standing charges. Even if you go nearly off-grid you're still paying just to be connected. That's what pushed me to actually look at proper islanding rather than just reducing consumption.

Have you modelled what even a small backup battery bank would save you? Even 5kWh would cover evenings easily and the payback math looks completely different now compared to 18 months ago.