I don't benefit from an Economy 10 tariff, right?

JXHogan

Hi,

I have recently (April) moved into a brand new apartment, where my electricity was set to the Standard Economy 10 tariff, provided by Southern Electric. I assume this is because I have a large modern immersion heater for hot water. There are also wall mounted electric radiators for heat. There is no gas present in the building.

I have several questions that I'd would like answered, if someone could help. And please be gentle, I'm new at this!

1. As my immersion heater will heat water up 24/7 without the aid of some kind of boost switch, or always on switch, this must mean that it is not set up to take advantage of the cheap rates, correct? I am fairly sure this is correct because my bills are broken down as thus:


Off-peak energy usage 337 @ 7.04p
Standard energy usage 542 @ 13.53p
Standard charge for 118 days @ 17.67p
(This is all less an online and DD discount)

2. Because of this I am better off changing to a normal tariff, say Southern's own Go Direct 5 than staying on this one, yeah?

3. I can't find anywhere on the net that shows these prices for Southern Electric, but then again I can't find much reference to economy 10, either, Can anyone please point me to a url for my tariff. The bill just states "standard" as tariff, yet my standing charge seems very high, relatively.

4. Should I really be changing to a fixed rate tariff? As recommended by MSE, I went to energyhelpline.com for my legwork, and their printed opinion piece is that prices will stay the same(ish) until at least NEXT (2011) winter. Who wants to join the syndicate for a crystal ball?

Thanks in advance - rookie comparitor!

Cardew

It is unlikely that anyone can give you accurate advice as there are several unknown factors.

Firstly are you sure that the heaters on the wall are not storage heaters? You have used some 38% of your electricity at cheap rate which is a very high percentage for this time of year when(presumably) heating is not being used much.

Secondly you will need to know your annual consumption and what percentage of that is off peak.

To be paying 7.04p/kWh for cheap rate electricity is extremely high as is 13.53p/kWh daytime use.

If the heaters are not storage heaters but panel heaters, then alnost certainly you will pay a lot less ditching E10 and getting a 'normal' 24/7 tariff.

Just go to a comparison website and enter say, 10,000kWh annual consumption then 12,000kWh etc and see what figure you get.

Then do the same manually with your tariff using say, 40% on E10.

t0rt0ise

On the Southern Electric website it says ...

"Economy 10 meters are ideal if you have an electrically heated wet radiator system. They’re only available in some areas of the UK.
These meters have two readings, a ‘day’ or ‘normal’ reading and a ‘night’ or ‘low’ reading. The times for the night reading depend on where you are in the country, but as a guide it runs for five hours overnight, three hours in the early afternoon and another two hours in the late evening. If you want to know the night reading times for your area, contact us and we’ll let you know."

So if you do have a wet radiator system it maybe is the right tariff for you and you could contact them to find out when the off peak periods are.

http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/GasAndElectricity/YourMeter/DifferentMeterTypes/

You should be able to open up a table of prices at http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/OurPrices/

maxmycardagain

w are running our NSRs right now, all 4, plus we have an immersion, plus we use E7 for a wash cycle plus a tumble dry, our current consumption (leccy joke there BTW) is 35kw on cheap rate, 15kw on day rate

we have 3 tarrifs

1 - 32p/unit first so many units (about 100 per quarter)
2 - 9p/unit day rate
3 - 4p/unit (01.30-08.30 till next week then 00.030-07.30)

my approx costs at the moment are therefore £3 per 24hrs on E7 (websaver tarrif)

Premier_2

Hi JXHogan, and welcome to MSE :hello:

SSE's Economy 10 tariff is not one of their common ones. It is only available in certain areas and is, according to their website, ideally suited to those with an electrically heated wet radiator system
http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/GasAndElectricity/YourMeter/DifferentMeterTypes/

It's not clear from your post whether or not your radiators are part of a wet system. My guess is that it probably is, or there is some other compelling reason why the developer/supplier thought that such an uncommon tariff would be best suited to this new build property.

SSE's E10 typically gives you 5 hours cheap rate electric overnight, 3 hours in the early afternoon and a further 2 hours in the late evening. I would be inclined to ensure an immersion heater took advantage of these cheap rate periods, but of course it's your decision if you decide to only use the boost function during the much more expensive peak periods of supply.

As the tariff is not a generally available one, you may indeed find difficulty in finding the details online, but I'm sure if you contact the supplier directly, they will be more than happy to give you full details of the tariff you are currently on

Terrylw1

E10 is available in various guises.

1. E10 3 rate
2. E10 2 rate
3. Heatwise
4. The Northern region only Supertariff shares similiarities.

These meters are very unpopular with Suppliers as they have to make some effort to get their systems to bill with them, hence more & more are opting out of supplying people with them.

However, if you have E10 with 2 sets of reads only, these are easier to handle. It's the 3 rate (day, night & heat) variants that are complicated due to the need for 2 MPAN's and 3 billable dials which not all Suppliers had systems to handle at de-reg...and some still don't.

The 2 rate E10 variant is available in most regions from what I recall. The 3 rate/5 rate types are not.

There was a spurt on installing E10 from about 5 or so years ago from what I recall as developers starting fitting them on entire sites they were constructing.

JXHogan

Me again!

Having read your replies to my questions, I must confess to now being even more confused!

Sorry, that sounds ungrateful. I am indeed very grateful for your kind advice, and the time you have taken to post here.

Ok, let me try and address each and every point and/or question.

(1) The heating thingies (yes, technical term) on my wall are 1m long and 40cm high, 5 or so cm deep with vents all across the top. If you switch them on they get quickly hot, about 30 secs to hot to touch (there is a switch on the wall (directly wired into wall) and a switch on the unit with a min to max knob. There, I think, is an element in there - they are brand new, and I've just turned one on for the first time and you can smell it. If they are not turned on at the wall they remain cold, even overnight.

(2) The water heater - if I do not use the switch on the wall, the water is stone cold. I have tried, from friend's advice leaving it for a few days, but it doesn't get any hotter. Also, when fully charged (hot) it will get cold over about 60 hours, even when I have tried to use almost no hot water. Does this mean something is amiss OR is this how it is meant to be, but NOT combined with an E10 tariff?

(3) Cardew I have done the price comparison, and as I said in my OP I have found cheaper tariffs. This is not in question - I just wondered if my system was at fault somehow, or I was doing something wrong so as not to take advantage of its' features, a la the boiler "charge" issue, as above. Regarding my annual usage, I am unsure obviously, it being a brand new home. What I can say is that currently i (almost 6pm) I have the doors to the balcony open, and two windows - I don't get cold - so my heating will not form a large component of my total energy usage. The figures described above were for the 118 days up to day before yesterday. So, here goes. Usage for those four months was 879. Times this by two for the not so cold months = 1758. For the remaining four months, I will add 25% to the figure for heating (way too much for me, probably), so that it 1099. Add together, and you get total of 2857. That sound reasonable?

(4)t0rt0ise - I have consulted the figures on the SE site, and my standing charge seems to be my own - and about twice the price of all others. Am I being dumb here? Also, my times are 12am - 5am, 1pm-4pm and 8pm-10pm. I already try and "charge" my water during these periods, as you can tell from the consumption split.

(5)Premier - thanks for your welcome, most kind. As regards the radiators / heaters, see above. As for the water heating, "boost" seems to be the only option (switch with red light in it on wall next to boiler). Leave that off, and no hot water.

(6) Terrylw1 - all the site, as far as I am aware, and it is quite a large one, is on SE's E10 tariff, with the 2 readings meters.

** UPDATE ** I have just spoken to SE, and they appear as confused as I am. They believe my water, and heaters should charge up overnight, otherwise why have E10 in the first place. BTW I must state that SE were incredibly helpful and knowledgeable from the off. The lady I spoke to seemed to know all you could ask. She has offered, free of charge, to change the meter over and put me on a non E10 tariff. I can then see how it goes for a few months and if it is worse they will change the meter back to E10, again for no charge. How good is that? Also, regarding the standing charge, the lady from SE told me that was correct for E10, so it seems I am paying for something I don't benefit from!

Thanks again to one and all.

JXHogan

Further update - having spoken to a friend of mine it would seem that the power supply to the boiler should be wired in two ways. One to the E10 part of the meter - only heating during those hours - and one to the switch, which he calls an "override" switch, to heat the water when E10 is not in use. As mine ONLY works when I have the "override" switch on, the primary (or E10) circuit must either be missing, or not connected. Solution: call the house builders and get them to fix it. As regards my radiators, they appear to just be electrical elements with covering plates over that cannot take advantage of E10, and are not related to this at all.

Cheers again.

Premier_2

JXHogan wrote: »

... Solution: call the house builders and get them to fix it. ...

When you contact them, also enquire off them their rationale for going to all the trouble of getting this rather unique type of electricity tariff based on your understanding of the current electrical installation.

Would be most interested in their response, thanks

If this is your own property, then the buider should have provided you with a handover pack with all the intrsuctions on how to use and get the best out of your new home.
If it's a rental property, then the landlord should have provided you with these instructions. Also it would be for the landlord to get anything like a faulty electrical installation fixed, so contact the LL/agent.

Flibertigibit

I am in a 3 yr old shared ownership flat (but only for another 10 days as I'm moving!) which has 4 panel heaters connected to a timer control. These heaters sound like yours, and like yours use daytime rate electricity. The builders (I presume) in their wisdom decided for some reason to put all the flats onto Economy 7 meters. To my shame, it has taken me 3 winters to realise that E7 is not the best/cheapest tariff to be on, because all I actually used it for was heating water and using the washing machine overnight. And not only was my heating (the bulk of my fuel costs) being charged on the daytime rate, but with E7 the daytime rate is even higher than on a normal tariff! I have now had my meter changed to a "normal" one.
I'm not sure I understand what your problem is with the hot water. Has your tank not got a time control thingy (a bit like you get with gas central heating)? I had mine set to come on for 90 mins in the last part of the cheap rate period and that did me for the day. If however I needed more for some reason there is a "boost" button to press which brings the immersion on for an hour then turns itself off.