UK sites with metered electricity

You can certainly charge different pitch rates with or without electric hookup. You can't meter and make a per unit profit unless you are an approved supplier.

I made a facetious comment that anyone can become an electricity supplier because that's what happened with all the dodgy energy companies who bought a pre-packed licence for a few thousand quid!

Given most pitches have a bollard, enabling folks to rent a pitch without allowing them to hook-up would be a challenge.

Only one site we have stayed at in Spain was un-metered. The rest charged about double the cost (more in Germany). Safefill works out about 0.15 EU per unit. We were burning through a bottle in less than 7 days in cooler weather. 10kgs is 150 units over say 5 or 6 days so we were certainly fairly high usage..

Having said that, our bungalow uses 130 to 150 kWh a day when weather is cold so by heating the van and maybe even the awning as opposed to the house we are still saving the planet!!!!!

this is interesting as from my own experience on metered sites (albeit abroad) and TG's earlier posting, we have no trouble at all in operating inside the usual 'free' 4 kWh per day.

This is true but it was hot so no heating on and no hot water either as we use the block. If it was in the UK and middle of winter then I think its fair to say that you could double or triple what we used. Again that doesn't worry me to much because if I was at home I'd be using it anyway. 

It depends on where you live in the UK as well, here in Scotland you can require heating on for 8 or 9 months a year, so the clubs costs for electricity on sites up here will be considerably greater than the South of England. 

I'm still for a restriction on usage though. I hate waste.

That's a lot of usage, we have a 3 bed bungalow and our electric consumption is around 15kwh per day.

That's with underfloor heating in the bathroom.

We have an LPG tank for the heating, hot water and cooking on the hob, oven is electric. Heating thermostat set to 22c

We do have 10 SPs so tend to most things like washing machine, dishwasher and tumbler during daylight hours (when/if its sunny)

There has just been a huge (almost)-world-wide conference in Glasgow about reducing the rise in global warming.  One of the main contributing factors is the emission of carbon dioxide, and burning gas is a great contributer to that. 

So surely if The Caravan Club is being a responsible organisation it should be encouraging the use of electricity, which is increasingly sourced from renewables, and trying to reduce the use of gas on sites, if not actually banning it completely.  Perhaps we will soon see a ban on gas installations in new build caravans as there is on new build homes?

By the way, my 15 year old caravan has a timer for the main electric heating. I know because I fitted it myself.  

Solar is not such a good deal when considering finance alone.  According to the government's own calculator if I were to install "solar" panels now I would not be in profit for the first 28 years.   Accountants would be aghast at a payback period of over four years.

We have had a few threads about metering in the past. In 2017 the Club did respond to one of them and I kept this response and reproduce it here:

Thank you to everyone for contributing to this discussion. I have spoken to colleagues regarding this thread and have a comprehensive response from Estates who share your concerns regarding electricity usage on site.

As you are aware, The Club doesn’t charge for its individual electrical usage but within pitch fees supplies use the following:

* Drinking water

* Waste disposal including motor van discharge points and caravan chemical toilet disposal

* Facilities (where included on site) hot and cold running water, heated, shower and wash facilities disabled amenities etc.

Our pitch fees are set according to cost to supply pitches on that site (including rates, maintenance, wardens and security, cleaning and grounds maintenance, etc.)

We have no written policy to reduce our energy and utility costs but on redevelopment of our facilities we ensure they meet current regulations regarding energy efficiency and being well insulated as part of our building regulations approval. We are changing lamps to LEDs and water heaters to the most efficient on the market but as it stands are unable to “manage” individual member usage at their pitch.

Without individual meters on each outlet it would be very difficult to measure each individual usage and charge accordingly. Unfortunately there are some that do leave heaters on maximum all day and night including their awning which inflates the average usage which is why a SMART metering system would be the fairest and would undoubtedly reduce our site wide electrical usage and cost to members. The Club has as part of its environmental considerations considered “SMART” metering so that each individual pays for the energy used but it was considered cost prohibitive at this current time as SMART metering requires replacing every bollard on site with individual SMART meters, a method of cashless payment and investment in software and a network of IT systems to record, charge, store and manage individual usage. This has been looked into and would cost several million pounds to install nationally.

In contrast we are frequently asked to increase our electrical capacity to each pitch to prevent constant overloading, but our 16amp supply is our only method to restrict excessive freely supplied electrical usage.

As with all electrical systems they have to be maintained and tested periodically and as a Club we test our site wide systems every year to ensure site safety, we do this very efficiently and economically and considering the vast network and usage by members it remains incredibly reliable regardless of the environment and conditions our external electrical systems operate in.

As far as we know nothing has changed since in spite of the members and Club's concerns!.

peedee