If on Economy 7 does daytime electricity cost more?

cal97

I have been trying to find out the answer to this question for some time! We have Economy 7 but the storage heaters we used packed up one by one some time ago. We now only heat water overnight. Are we being charged more than the standard rate for daytime electricity? If so, what is the best way to deal with this. I have trawled the electricity company sites but no luck with answers to this.

Anniek1969

I have the same problem as you, storage heaters packed up and only use economy 7 for heating water and using washing machine. I'm with Scottish Power and their charges are
Electricity Domestic - Daily Service Charge 11.27 All/Day Units 9.075
Electricity Economy 7 Daily Service Charge 16.27 Day Units 9.319 Night Units 4.02.

So you pay more for your daily service charge and day units, there is a link in a post of mine yesterday called Arrears that takes you to a post about this, apparently if you use less than 20% of your usage at night time then you are better on the normal domestic tarriff. I think I'll have to work mine out but like you I don't use that much at night so might be better to switch, either that or see about replacing my storage heaters but I never really liked them.

Hope this helps you, if you go to whoever supplies you electricity there should be a list of charges on their website.

paul_h

Yes it does cost a little more, but the difference varies quite a bit depending on your supply area and supply company - the best thing to do it check the tariffs available from your own supplier.

It can be anywhere between a fraction of a penny per unit, up to a few pence per unit, so there's no hard and fast rule for everyone - the break even point can be as low as 5% usage at night, but can be as high as 30%. The only way to be sure if it works for you is to work out the cost of your annual usage on the two different tariffs.

Xbigman

How do you heat your homes now? The answer was probably to have the existing storage heaters fixed or replaced as they packed up. The newer ones would pay for themselves as they are more efficient.
Regards



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