Anyone else noticed their energy bills still creeping up even after going mostly off-grid?

Still seeing this on my boat setup too. Even though I've got a decent Victron system with Fogstar lithium batteries covering most of my needs, the bits I do pull from shore power seem to get more expensive every quarter.

I think part of the problem is the standing charge — it's gone up considerably over the past couple of years and there's basically nothing you can do about it if you want to stay connected at all. Even months where I barely use any grid electricity, the bill is still surprisingly painful just from that fixed cost alone.

Has anyone actually done the maths on whether it's worth ditching the grid connection entirely vs. keeping it as a backup? I've been tempted but I worry about the cabin side of things in deep winter when solar yield drops off and I'd rather not rely solely on a generator.

Also curious whether anyone's noticed the unit rate varies depending on how little you use? I swear my supplier penalises low consumption in some indirect way, though I might be imagining that.

A few things I've been considering:

• Adding more battery capacity to reduce those occasional grid top-ups
• Looking at a time-of-use tariff to at least make the grid pulls cheaper
• Proper audit of what's still drawing from shore that shouldn't be

Would be useful to know if others are in the same boat (literally, in my case). Are people finding the economics still stack up overall, or is the creeping standing charge starting to eat into the savings more than expected?

@Cerbo_Queen yes, this is the frustrating "last 20%" problem isn't it. Even on my narrowboat I've noticed the shore power top-ups — which used to be almost negligible — are now actually meaningful on the bill because the unit rate has gone so bonkers.

The sneaky bit people don't always account for is standing charges. Even if you're drawing almost nothing from the grid, that daily standing charge just sits there. On some tariffs it's nearly 60p/day now — that's over £200/year for the privilege of having a connection you barely use.

I've been seriously looking at whether it's worth keeping shore power at all versus just uprating my solar array. Running the numbers and it's closer than I'd have expected even 18 months ago.

@Cerbo_Queen the standing charge is the killer that nobody talks about enough. Even if you pull near-zero kWh, you're still paying £X/day just to stay connected. On my boat I ran the numbers and realised the standing charge alone was costing more than my actual consumption some months.

Worth asking yourself whether you actually need that shore power connection at all, or whether it's just there as a psychological safety net. I disconnected mine for a three-month trial and the Fogstar bank handled everything fine.

Also — welcome to the forum @WattVicky, good to see another narrowboater here! Lots of boat-specific knowledge floating around (pun intended). Don't be shy about starting your own threads with specifics of your setup — the more detail you give, the more useful the responses you'll get.

@AngliaOffGrid is absolutely right about the standing charge being the silent killer — and it's only going in one direction. Ofgem's been quietly allowing DNOs to load more costs onto it rather than unit rates, which is genuinely infuriating if you've done the hard work of reducing consumption.

What I found on my static caravan setup was that the timing of those residual grid pulls matters enormously. I shifted everything unavoidable — the odd bit of heating, washing machine — onto an Economy 7 or Agile tariff, so at least the units I do buy are cheap ones. Octopus Agile in particular lets you cherry-pick sub-5p slots overnight to top up batteries rather than pulling expensive peak power.

The standing charge you're stuck with, unfortunately, unless you physically disconnect — but you can at least make the kWh portion hurt less.

@Cerbo_Queen and @CliveBaker — worth looking into whether you actually need to keep a grid connection at all at this point. I know a few liveaboards who've formally disconnected and just use a small petrol genny as genuine emergency backup, maybe twice a year. Saves the standing charge entirely.

The other angle nobody's mentioned yet is that being mostly off-grid can sometimes trick you into complacency about the remaining grid usage — those occasional high-draw appliances you haven't bothered replacing or adapting yet. Sometimes it's worth auditing exactly what's still pulling from shore and asking whether there's a 12v or inverter-friendly alternative.

What's your shore power actually going towards at the moment, @Cerbo_Queen? Might be easier to crack than you think.