Economy 7 or Not?

Premier_2

BexTech wrote: »

Yes, you can move over to standard tariff.

...but you might need to have the meter changed to a single rate meter ... for which some suppliers may charge. Speak to your supplier to see what their policy is.

chriskloed

I'm currently on Economy 7 and have apparently been so for 7 years without realising it. Stupid I know! I only use about 17% at night so would I be better to switch to standard tariff's? My supplier have agreed with much arm twisting to backdate this change 7 years which makes me suspicious. They normally won't offer anything to help so why now? Should I grab the offer with both hands before they change their minds. I am still waiting to see what rates they are going to change it to but surely they must have to use each rate as it came into force historically and generate all of my bills again for the last seven years. Sounds like too much work for them to do if theirs nothing in it for them. Advice please............

MothballsWallet

I was advised by my current supplier (Ebico, billing from Southern Electric) that if you use 25% or more of your electricity during the 7 off-peak hours, then you're cheaper staying with Economy 7, otherwise you're better switching to the Standard (single-rate) tarriff.

tomstickland

Your night use is 61% of the total.
Whether E7 is cheapest or not depends on the unit costs for the E7 and normal daytime rates.
Different suppliers and regions produce different results, but at 61% I'd generally expect E7 to be cheaper, but not by a massive margin.

Cardew

chriskloed wrote: »

I'm currently on Economy 7 and have apparently been so for 7 years without realising it. Stupid I know! I only use about 17% at night so would I be better to switch to standard tariff's? My supplier have agreed with much arm twisting to backdate this change 7 years which makes me suspicious. They normally won't offer anything to help so why now? Should I grab the offer with both hands before they change their minds. I am still waiting to see what rates they are going to change it to but surely they must have to use each rate as it came into force historically and generate all of my bills again for the last seven years. Sounds like too much work for them to do if theirs nothing in it for them. Advice please............

Welcome to the forum.

Well as you say it sounds too good to be true.

You don't say where you live(area) or Supplier and Tariff.

The problem is that the 'break even' point(i.e. the percentage of night units of total usage) at which E7 became viable varies tremendously by company, tariff and area.
In extreme cases there have been tariffs where E7 was always cheaper than a normal tariff - unbelievably the daytime rate on the E7 tariff is actually lower than the 24/7 rate, so any units at night were a bonus.

Generally the break even point used to be around 25%-30%. However on most tariffs night rates have increased massively* over the past 2-3 years - far more than daytime rates and the break even point can be as high as 60%.

*3 years ago most companies had night rates under 2p/kWh but now 4p to 5p is the norm.

So the answer to your question is that almost certainly you will be better off now without E7 and that will be easy to verify.

It is highly likely that with 17% usage at night you would have always been better off without E7 over the last 7 years.

I would get them to send you a provisional bill - the computer will probably cough up a 15 page bill and you will see where you stand.

If they wont send you a provisional bill, I would take the gamble and accept their offer.

In the unlikely event it is not to your advantage, you can start a fresh round of negotiations!!!

chriskloed

Thanks for that advice Cardew. I think I'll take a punt. They have offered to send a provisional bill. Let's see.
However, I also have another problem. It would appear that Eon, or the company who read the meter for them, have been taking the electric readings back to front for the last year and a half. That is they have been putting the night reading down as the day and vice versa. Of course that means we have been charged for 83% at night rates and 17% at day rates when it should be the other way around. We have not had a bill for a year due to a dispute over a false reading last year. We have resolved the dispute over last years false reading but now they obviously want to swap the readings back over to the correct way round. Confused yet? So were we. In effect it means that we could be in for an increase of around £300 when the correct figures are applied in the correct categories. My question is, how far back are they allowed to go with this. The readings have been swapped over since sometime in 2007 but we don't keep previous bills so not sure exactly when..

gbmonster

Just thought I'd drop in and let you know my experience with my supplier who's names sounds a bit like the donkey in Winnie the Pooh. ;-)

I queried whether I would be cheaper on a single tariff or the E7 on which we had been for as long as we'd lived here. The very nice lady said she'd assess it when the first quarterly bill came in (We had just switched) as long as I gave them a fresh reading at the start of January. I did and she did and the result was a saving of... drum roll... £1.53 over 12 months! According to her figures.

Anyway, I noticed the unit price for the single tariff appeared to be more than the basic rate on my previous E7 bill so I rang to find out why. Turns out the quote has VAT included the bill doesn't, so that was sort of ok. But...

And here's the crux of the matter...

I have a very complex spreadsheet that works out my annual usage based on all our historical bills. It then calculates the total cost of each fuel based on the relevant tarriffs. A little tweaking and I was easily able to compare my E7 tariff with the single tariff. I hope you're all following so far.

It turns out according to my figures that I'll be £6-7 a year worse off on the single tariff. Not a lot to get excited about, but in discussion with the poor man at e-on (damn I said it), who sounded decidedly out gunned in the calculations department, the general principle they have been told to work with is that anyone using less than 40% E7 should switch to standard tariff. I worked this out to be, for many users, utter nonsense. Maybe that is not the official training but it IS this man's understanding of it.

The break even point entirely depends not only on the percentage you use, but also the total amount you use. For E-On on the tariff I am on someone using around 4500 units per annum does indeed break even at about 40%, whereas someone using more like 7000 units pa breaks even at just 26%.

I suppose the point I am making is that with E7, as with switching (even using a comparison site) you really must work the figures out yourself using ALL the details, all the discounts, all the tariffs and MOST importantly, as good a history / forecast of your usage as you can muster. Not just an approximate monthly spend. :cool:

Oh and DO watch out for the Metric vs Imperial Gas meter thing. It caught us out last year after switching. Look for the M on a metric gas meter and beware the conversion factor which is clearly shown on your bill in tiny...tiny...tiny writing. :eek:

Maybe I should tidy up my spreadsheet and share it around. Hmmm...

chriskloed

Thanks for that. I do in fact have an average usage of around 6850 units per year so I suppose your estimate of around 26% would apply to me perhaps. Hopefully it will work out that they owe me some money over the past seven years and that might counteract the money we possibly owe them for this years mistakes when they read the meter and got the readings back to front. I cant understand how the computer didnt throw a wobbly when the day reading went from 71000 down to 4500, and the night reading went from 4500 up to 71000. Someone must be sat with a big override switch somewhere. The only excuse I could think of is that we changed suppliers for about 3 weeks last year before going back to Eon and perhaps they didnt notice the readings becoming switched around. Mind you if the readings were switched around in 2007 why did they not notice then. Problem after problem with Eon at the moment. I must say the woman on the phone has been brilliant but what a shame she is being let down so badly by the backroom staff. Nervous breakdown here we come.

Geoffo_M

chriskloed wrote: »

I'm currently on Economy 7 and have apparently been so for 7 years without realising it. Stupid I know! I only use about 17% at night so would I be better to switch to standard tariff's? My supplier have agreed with much arm twisting to backdate this change 7 years which makes me suspicious. They normally won't offer anything to help so why now? Should I grab the offer with both hands before they change their minds. I am still waiting to see what rates they are going to change it to but surely they must have to use each rate as it came into force historically and generate all of my bills again for the last seven years. Sounds like too much work for them to do if theirs nothing in it for them. Advice please............

Are you sure? I have a friend whose night usage is 20%. She is with EDF, and I recalculated her annual bill as if she wasn't on Economy 7, using the standard tariff. Economy 7 still came out £16 cheaper.

dursley.donkey

Premier wrote: »

...but you might need to have the meter changed to a single rate meter ... for which some suppliers may charge. Speak to your supplier to see what their policy is.

Again, depends on the supplier. I used to get Atlantic and EDF to bill both readings at the same rate, but when I switched to SP they wanted the meter changed. It's annoying because you can't track the usage any more. I found 16% night usage to be breakeven, but you don't save very much unless it's much higher than that. In the end I gave up and got on the single rate.