RetireJapan

Hi, hope you guys are all doing well…
…and coping with your electricity bills!

Currently, I’m a very worried man. Worried that my family’s power bills would explode towards the end of the year, I searched for information on conventional energy companies and new energy companies, and came across the following article:

Weak Yen Threatens Runaway Power Bills for Japanese Households

Essentially, it reinforced my concerns about the following:
1) Power charges being exacerbated by the weak yen, with power generators needing to import coal, whose price is dollar-denominated
2)Conventional power companies pressuring the government to lift or abolish an existing cap on the amount of cost increases that can be passed on to the consumer
3) Some new-energy companies like Looop switching to a charging system based more on real-time market-based costs

A couple of years back, we switched from using Tepco to Looop, an alternative energy company, which until now has reduced our bills dramatically.
But now I’m thinking about whether to switch back to Tepco, thinking that maybe it will have less reason to raise prices given it has its own generation facilities.
I really don’t want to do this, given that they are expensive (maybe around 5% more than Tokyo Gas?) and misgivings about their role in the Fukushima disaster and the prospect of having to support over-paid, over-pampered permanent employees who work there (apparently they have around 30 directors, though my information may be old, and God knows what they do…)

So I’d like to ask everyone…what do you plan to do about the expected increase in your power charges? Are you currently shopping around? Will you go for a conventional power company, or a new alternative power company? Do you have recommendations what company to use?

Thank you very much!

It's a good question and seems to be a real problem in other countries (the UK!).

I'm not too worried right now. Japan seems to have a more responsive government and our power bills are a tiny part of our budget, so they could double and not be affect us too much.

We were switched to Octopus energy earlier in the year when GreenA were taken over by then, and I've been surprised how low our bills have been this summer.

Having new appliances (AC, fridge) really helps.

Anyone else?

Hi RetireJapam, thanks for your comment.

Have you received any notification from Octopus that they may change their pricing policies going forward, the way that Looop has? From December, Looop will switch over to a market-based pricing policy which could raise bills considerably (several fold, potentially). That’s why I am scrambling to find an alternative.

Received a letter form Osaka Gas about 3 weeks ago stating that the prices my fluctuate from now onwards.
Apparently, they are going to use more real-time actual cost-based pricing from December, albeit based on the cost of 2 months prior from the billed month.

https://www.osakagas.co.jp/company/pres ... 220920.pdf

IloveJapan wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 3:58 pm Have you received any notification from Octopus that they may change their pricing policies going forward, the way that Looop has?

Don't remember seeing anything about that, but it is very possible that I just missed it

We are putting in a solar system next year, with a battery. That should more than cover 100% of our electricity needs. Should break even in 10-15yrs.

The best you can do as an individual is sign up with the former utility of your area (TEPCO, in your case)
The price they charge households is regulated by the government and cannot be increased without its blessing.
Other providers are free to do as they want.

I would refrain from signing a contract based on market prices, except if you know exactly what you are doing.

Tepco's aqua energy 100 is actually purely renewable* and isn't involved in 燃料費調 which has been the main electricity cost increase this year (from what I can tell, at least). I switched out to octopus recently but after doing more accurate calculation I realized I made the switch at the worst time

The cost itself hasn't been changed much (apart of tiny change of 再エネ発電賦課金) the entire time I used them including this year. Note that it's usually quite a bit more expensive compared to others.

*as opposed to being "green" by buying what essentially is carbon offset

”What are you doing about your electricity bills???!!!”

Nothing. (Nothing is also what you'll gain from reading beyond this point).

And I mean quite literally nothing. You see, I've not had an electriciry bill for at least 5 years. I don't recall exactly when but we just simply stopped receiving them. No idea why. I only used to catch the occasional glimpse of one as it flew from post box to trash can.
Obviously I can see the amount if I look at a bank statement and let's face it. I'm as likely to control the tides as I am to affect the consumption of kilowatts by the people I presently co-habit with.

However, newly bouyed by this thread, I decided to just log in to Tepco and see what I'm paying for!
Well. That was a few hours ago and I'm in rather a dark place right now.
It's only the risk of being misbranded as a eco-terrorist that's preventing me flinging mashed potatoes at the local Tepco office. (That and the waste of mash!)

The stubling block was entering my name to gather my contract details.
The Chat bot was useless until it finally linked me with a real live person. I was able to use the home phone to verify I'm at least occupying the premises to retreive my Customer Number. Then under some duress they even provided me with the name the contract is registed under in all it's Full Width glory!
I recognised this name. It's my name. It's on my passport. It's on my resident card. It's sewn into my, well you catch the drift...

Wanna know who doesn't recognise that name? Tepco.
"Wait, 'wha?!" I hear you shout en mass "But MM. They just gave you the darn name". And you'd be right. They did.

Then you'd try to enter that in the Contract information registration page and it's like "Nope, never heard of you. Next!".

So I went back to Chat bot for the nth time. Played along until they called the human out again.
Asked them exactly how the name needs to be entered in the web form, if spaces are allowed, any total character length restrictions, should I be seated or standing whilst typing, the usual things we deal with...

It got aweful quiet real quickly. The Customer Service person on Chat then said I need to contact Customer Service by phone (If you think it's remiss of me not to ask why on earth the Customer Service person I was conversing with couldn't profer this information then you must be new around these parts...).

So after cleaning up the spilt coffee and pieces of broken mug, I called Customer Service as instructed and a recorded message from the network carrier informed me that, to paraphrase, "due to the overwhelming popularity of Tepco Customer Service (and clearly no indication of how problematic they are to deal with) they aren't taking any more calls at this time."
I assume this is akin to a pie shop closing early once they've sold all the pies.

So here I am. Exact same place I started from. And so are you.

＜＜ＰＯＳＴ　ＳＣＲＩＰＴ＞＞

So I finally got them on the phone. Fought my way to a fast talking end of level boss, who it was clear was doing something real fun before I interrupted his day!
After much time they did speculate maybe my name was in the order. I'm not sure if they meant in their systems or more a general comment about western naming conventions...Anyway. They promised to look into it and call me back...

After a few hours of not being called back I took another look. In tiny font I saw this...
"ご案内に二段で記載されている場合は、会社・店舗ボタンを押下し、入力してください。"
So yeah. It seems I'm registed across two lines.. And if you have a foreign name you might also need to go here and click the business/shop link.
At least it worked for me!
I entered my ＦＩＲＳＴ　ＭＩＤＤＬＥ　ＬＡＳＴ names on the first line in full width romaji.
then フアスト　ミドル　ラスト in full width katakana on the second line. So ジョbecomes ジヨ for example.

Now I need to know what to use this informaiton for..
It's interesting, and horrific, to see our consumption over time and even year on year comparisons. 1,122Kwh in Aug. Maybe we can trim some of that next year...

To slightly jump on this theme of utility bills, I was just wondering if anyone had switched from a gas stove to an electric stove (or vice versa) and seen any difference in their monthly bills? I was thinking that when we remodel our kitchen in the future it might make financial and environmental sense to switch from gas to electricity. Any thoughts?