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

Noticed the same thing creeping up on my end. Still connected to grid as backup for the shepherd's hut and the main house, and even with minimal draw those standing charges are doing real damage — currently paying about £1.20/day before I've used a single unit.

The frustrating part is that my Victron setup with the Fogstar lithium bank covers probably 90% of my actual consumption April through September. But the bills haven't dropped 90% — nowhere near it.

A few things I've identified as the culprits:

• Standing charges — up again in October, barely any political will to restructure these
• Grid-tied export/import metering — still importing tiny amounts overnight that add up
• Legacy appliances — one old chest freezer in the outbuilding that I haven't replaced yet, running on grid

The standing charge issue particularly annoys me. You're essentially paying a subscription fee for infrastructure you're barely using. There's been talk of Ofgem reviewing the charge structure but I'll believe it when I see it.

Has anyone actually gone full islanded — completely severed the grid connection — and found it financially worthwhile after factoring in DNO disconnection admin and losing the safety net? That's the logical next step but I'm not quite ready to commit, especially heading into winter with a motorhome I occasionally need reliable hook-up for.

Would be curious whether others on Economy 7 or Agile tariffs have found a smarter way to offset this rather than just absorbing the standing charge as a sunk cost.

@CrispyTrekker yeah the standing charge is the silent killer isn't it. Even when I'm parked up and the motorhome's doing all the heavy lifting, the house meter is still ticking away at around 61p/day without a single unit drawn. Ofgem keep letting the networks sneak it upward every quarter.

Only real escape is full disconnection, which comes with its own headaches — DNO paperwork, export tariff loss if you're on SEG, the lot.

One thing that helped me was auditing what's actually still pulling from the grid versus battery. Turns out my old NAS server was the quiet culprit dragging me back to mains regularly. Killed that off and moved to a low-draw alternative.

Standing charges need serious regulatory scrutiny — they disproportionately punish people who've actually invested in reducing consumption.

@CrispyTrekker totally feel this one. We're in a similar boat — solar and battery bank handling the vast majority of our load, but that standing charge just sits there regardless. I've been seriously weighing up whether to disconnect the grid supply entirely at the main house and just have a decent generator for genuine emergencies. The maths is actually starting to favour it when you factor in what we're handing over monthly just to have the connection available.

Worth checking whether your DNO will let you temporarily de-energise rather than full disconnection — that way you're not paying reconnection fees down the line if circumstances change. Some folks have had success with that route. Anyone on here actually gone fully off-grid and cut the cord completely? Curious what the reconnection situation looks like if you ever needed to go back.

@CrispyTrekker this is exactly why I've been seriously weighing up whether to cut the cord entirely on the garden office connection. Standing charge alone is nearly £120/year before I've pulled a single watt — absolute joke.

What's your battery capacity like for the shepherd's hut? I've got a Fogstar Drift 12V 100Ah setup for my van conversion backup and honestly wonder if just beefing up storage on the main house would make a full grid disconnect viable rather than paying Octopus their daily ransom.

Has anyone actually done the maths on the break-even point for going fully off-grid vs keeping that standing charge as genuine emergency insurance? Because right now mine feels more like an expensive comfort blanket than a practical necessity. I want to ditch it but the thought of a bad January with three weeks of cloud cover still makes me nervous.

@CrispyTrekker the standing charge situation genuinely drove me mad for about two years before I finally just disconnected the barn conversion entirely. Best decision I ever made.

What finally tipped me over the edge was realising I was paying roughly £250 a year just to have the connection — before a single unit of electricity. My Victron MultiPlus and Fogstar Drift batteries handle everything now, with a small Honda generator as genuine last-resort backup.

The maths only works cleanly once your battery capacity is substantial enough to weather a proper grey British winter though — that's the bit people underestimate. I'd say don't disconnect until you've got at least two full winters of consumption data from your monitoring.

@GoldenMechanic for a garden office specifically the numbers stack up faster — loads are predictable and manageable. Definitely worth running the proper calculation before your next standing charge renewal date.