My bill was settled last August at 92 euros a month (having been 142).
I now have a bill after an estimated reading based on previous winters saying I have to pay 142.96 per month starting in April.
It mentions Regularisation tarifaire HC from 23/07/12 - 31/07/13 15kVA one amount for 6,64 and another for 32,45. Oh actually it just baffles me and I am very tired.
Can anyone tell me if there is an English helpline number please as I really do not think I will be able to cope with the dial button system and responses tomorrow.
Thank you for your help - I do my best but this has really confused me altogether. Also it is an estimated reading so I think I should ask someone to come and read this again properly.
Just as a little p.s. I literally just went out to the front door and found a letter saying I qualify for aid via the special tariff until 29 May due to my pittance of an income. A huge thank you, France, cos I earn what I can to pay the bills and I think you recognise that I'm trying and offer a helping hand. So big kiss from me because, as they say, every little helps.
So happy you received a decent answer, Patsie. Yes I too would have words about the expensive oil heater. I'm sure there must be alternative solutions as to more economical heating. I have a wide house more than huge but the cold spots during winter are ridiculous because I only have heat sources either side and not in the middle. I'll be looking into how to improve insulation and then build on it from there.
Can I just say thank you to everyone especially as you were working with less than helpful figures. I have spoken to an incredibly helpful young woman at EDF and they are right, even though they worked on an estimate this February after taking into account the bill from August and last year's winter usage it was incredibly close.
The amount for regularisation was indeed a large part of the bill for me and I have an extremely large house and use electricity a lot. I have an old night storage heater which runs during off peak hours and then cools down during the day. I have a feeling my husband has been running an old and expensive electrically powered oil heater in his den most evenings - there will be words.
Once again thank you very much. I will cut down on the food bill to pay the extra. (I think I now understand why no-one wanted to buy this house).
Patsie. Go to your mon espace client on the EDF FRANCE website (easy to create If you haven't created one yet). On here you will find all the information relevant to your Electricity account with Edf.
It provides help if you have any queries...for example, it tells you who to ring if you wish to amend your monthly payments...or who to ring if you wish to change the amount of an estimated bill by sending them the actual reading from your electric meter.
If you aren't confident in French.. you can use google translate to convert the webpage into English.
If you wish to change the amount of your monthly payments, try this EDF number 09 69 32 15 15 (cost of a local call).
Don't panic!
ps. It's hard to know whether your payments are too high or not, as you haven't told us the size of your property and if you have a large usage of electrical appliances. It does seem pretty high to me. There are many things you can look at to help reduce this bill (eg. change your tariff to use cheap night-time electricity, reduce the power supply to your property etc etc).
I'm not sure you'll get a proper answer as they seem a law unto themselves sometimes but I think this is the current number
Electricité de France – EDF, International Customers English speaking helpline
If you have questions about your electricity service, bill, problems with electricity, want to increase the tariff etc, EDF have a helpful English speaking service.
It's not obvious why the fact that there's a back payment due of potentially 39€ in total, should mean increasing the monthly payment by possibly 50€ a month, if that's what the OP is unhappy about (but I don't understand what 'My bill was settled last August at 92 euros a month (having been 142)' means - I can't figure out what's a bill and what's a monthly payment).
Between 2012 and 2014 there was an ongoing dispute between the government and EDF about the tariff. The tariff originally agreed between the government and EDF was deemed insufficient to cover national energy costs. There was a lot of argy bargy between the government , the conseil d'état and the energy company. It was finally resolved but EDF was obliged to bill retrospectively. The bill you have received represents the difference between what you were billed for and what you should have been billed for had the now agreed tariff been in force from 2012
Can't help with the figures, you haven't given nearly enough info, but if it's an estimated reading then why not just ring up and give them the actual reading. If you request an appointment for the meter to be read you will be charged for it.