UK sites with metered electricity

Re Colsey Grange I would expect unmetered electric for £20 per night.

10000 pitches at £500 per pitch meter install is a huge 5 million investment before allowing for the admin. Even with automatic readings integrated with the billing system there will be queries when someone uses the wrong socket and a final bill to settle on departure. A large transactional cost.

My view is that pitch prices are already at the limit of what members will pay. The club can't make a profit out of the metered leccie so it's a real problem.

24 hours @ 2kw is 50 units or £10. It's very hard to use even a fraction of this even heating the awning do I guess no change in the short term...

Where do you get the £500 per meter install? Just interested as I've posted before it might be perhaps £50 to £100, but even that will be high

For us, even in the coldest of winters (where the water taps froze up) once we're warmed up we can be toasty warm on the 900W setting in the caravan with the inside temp about 20C during the day and evening and 18C for sleeping. 

As I mentioned up thread if the club went meters I'd be in favour of that, I think in some cases it would cut down on excessive use.

On one site we were on recently we got a 4 kw per day usage. At the end of our stay the meter was read and we had used exactly our allowance over a 9 day stay. During that time we had used the fridge, kettle, electric hob and tv every day. We didn't heat water or have heating on as it was hot weather. 

On a CL we regularly use they have increased their price over the winter months, I don't blame them. I'm sure when they have folk staying in winter they make very little profit out of their £14 a night fee. 

Something has to be done to cut down on excessive usage, be it meters or lower amps, either wouldn't bother me but I think meters would be more effective. With 10 or 6 amps folk would go out and leave the heating and hot water on. If it was metered, I think that would change.

If we are all going to 'do a bit' to reduce power usage then solar will certainly help. Folk have it on their houses to provide their own power and then any spare can also be sold to the grid...good idea...

now, when on a campsite, I can generate my own power but the site can't let me have the pitch cheaper even if I don't want to plug in.

they could meter the pitch so that 'my charges' would be smaller than someone more profligate, but the 'investment' in managing and recording an overall reduction would push prices UP...work that one out...

Our Spanish winter site has the latest remotely metered leccy boxes...you can get a reading anytime to check levels, the cost is added to the bill when you leave...again, this can't be done with the 'normal' CC practice of paying on arrival...

this one site seems to be able to fund the cost of these meters, perhaps over a period of time, by the overall reduction in their leccy costs...if they don't, what's the point?

customers get a fairer deal, the site reduces its overheads, the planet is saved!

we always seem to highlight the cost to the club by throwing out huge numbers based on multiple sites, but surely, each site has to run its own budget (just as in my example) and relative costs then seem far lower and 'less sensational'.

 

The problem is with metering, members are going to expect a reduction in site fees. I cant see these are going to be as large as folk hope. In the summer months when most holiday, electricity usage is minimal. Anything more than a  £2 a night reduction would probably see the CAMC loosing money overall, as folk wouldn’t have consumed more than that.
In the winter there would clearly be more scope for reductions. Although metering could lead to increased use and therefore cost of the facilities, rather than heating water in the van on the meter, or with their gas.

I think technology might come to our rescue on the subject of metering. I have used two types of metering aboard. One was were you fed coins into the electric bollard, always a risk of either running out in the middle of the night or over paying! The other type is where you are locked into the bollard and a reading is done on the morning of leaving and the bill worked out. Best not to be in a rush with this method! I am not sure I would want the Club to go down either route. However I am sure some cleaver person will invent a Smart Phone App which you log onto the bollard when you arrive and log off when you leave and any charge is debited to your chosen payment method. Perhaps rather than an App it could be a credit card type tap on bollard method. I think we would have to have that sort of technology in place before the Club went down the route of metering. Imagine the queues at reception on leaving day if they tried the old fashioned method?

David

PS how do people pay to charge an EV? All the charging stations are remote so there must be some method that could also be used on site?

About your last paragraph, I learnt very early on that there is nothing worse (OK there probably is but you get the idea) than coming back in winter to a freezing cold caravan and having to sit with your coat on waiting for it to warm up. So yes I do leave the heating on during such times, perhaps set at 18C and the 900W setting. No doubt when I get my next caravan and it has one of these apps to switch the heating from a hour or so before getting back I would use that or if there were some other way (why don't caravans have timers) but at present there isn't.

I don't apologise for doing that and I personally don't see it as wasted heat. We would expect the same in a hotel/B&B and will do the same in our forthcoming cottage in December (unless there are timers). Also there is the point of view that one wastes more energy in letting a caravan cool down then reheat it than keeping it at an even temperature? And of course the heating isn't on all the time, the thermostat will cycle on and off.

And yes I would do the same if it was metered but the cost of running 900W (call it 1Kw) for one hour is about 20p so six hours while we're out would cost £1.20.Really not worth worrying about, a coffee/tea... anywhere will cost more than that. 

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Exactly my opinion. Spanish sites can do it, so why can't ours? Inflating the imaginable cost of metering to £500 per pitch as an excuse to do nothing is just stupid. Using modern methods (like they do over there) the metered reading is permanently shown on a computer screen at the reception desk. When you check-out you settle your bill, or if you chose to, you swipe your card on checking in, it can be settled without contact at check out. Long stayers worrying about their accumulated charge can ask at reception if they wish, no problem. (We have a meter in our caravan, so we know) Ii is quite simple to include a modest amount of electricity in the pitch fee. Regarding excessive usage, we know of one Spanish site where some of their overnight motor caravan pitches were consuming 40 KWH per night, and that was the reason for introducing metered charging.  The Club should go public and tell us what the average electricity consumption is on each occupied pitch / on each site seasonally, so that awareness can at least begin.