Old economy 7 pre payment meter- to change or not

Comstock

I've recently moved into a flat with an Economy 7 meter from southern electric. The flat no longer has storage heaters.

When I phoned up to register the key to my name, they offered to change me straight over to a pre pay meter with no economy 7 on it, saying this would be cheaper.

Thing is, will it? I hardly use any electric as my hot water and heating are gas, I don't have a fridge and my cooking skills are best described as 'limited'.


This economy 7 meter doesn't seem to have a standing charge, which is good.


Would I be better just cancelling the appointment and keeping the meter?

NB I want to stay pre-pay.

spike7451

Get the E7 meter out! I got the gas in Jan 2010 & what I didn't know is that the IS a 12p charge per day for using the E7 rate.I only found this out when I called the NIE up as my neighbor told me about the charge,seven months later! So I'd been paying around £3 a month for something I no longer had nor needed.
With the E7 meter I was using around 75p a day in electric,without the meter it dropped to around 60p.

Premier_2

Comstock wrote: »

I've recently moved into a flat with an Economy 7 meter from southern electric. The flat no longer has storage heaters.

When I phoned up to register the key to my name, they offered to change me straight over to a pre pay meter with no economy 7 on it, saying this would be cheaper.

Thing is, will it? I hardly use any electric as my hot water and heating are gas, I don't have a fridge and my cooking skills are best described as 'limited'.


This economy 7 meter doesn't seem to have a standing charge, which is good.


Would I be better just cancelling the appointment and keeping the meter?

NB I want to stay pre-pay.

Use a comparison site to discover for yourself which will be cheaper.

But you'll need to know your anticipated consumption and day/night split. Also you'll need to run the programme twice; once for E7, once for non-E7 and manually compare the annual costs it provides.

Depending on supplier and region, the breakeven point for E7 is about 25% night usage (and since 7/24 is 29%, that may well be achievable). However the numbers can vary tremendously from <0% (yes E7 can sometimes be cheaper no matter what night usage you have, although not sure if that is currently the case for any PPM tariff) to >45% night usage; hence use a comparison site

Comstock

Well I don't know if I've done the right thing or not. I've cancelled the appointment for the all encompasing 'family reasons' after looking at the meter again

It gives me the following information

Rate 1: 15.94p/kwH
Rate 2: 5.15p KwH

Crucially it says charge per week=0

Does this mean no standing charge???

At best I can't see me being anything more than marginally worse off keeping the meter. If someone comes along and tells me I've just made the biggest mistake of my life, I can always re book the appointment

Mugget

You will be paying a standingcharge whether its included in your usage payments or as a daily rate. Everyone has to pay a standingcharge no matter what tariff you are on.

mattcanary

No - your supplier do not charge standing-charge on prepayment meters.

I would suggest that if you don't have storage heaters it is best to be on a single-rate tariff. You pay the same price for every unit of electricity you use on this tariff. The alternative is a day & night (or E7 tariff). Here you pay less for electric used for 7 hours during the night (around 12.00am -7.001m although the times can vary). However, you would pay more for every unit of electricity consumed outside of these hours on the E7 tariff compared to a single rate tariff.

A few customers would benefit by having an E7 meter even if they don't have storage heaters (dependant upon what proportion of their total electricity usage is during the 7 hours of (much) cheaper electric.)

When you have a prepayment meter, I believe it can be reprogrammed by the call-centre to a single rate tariff if required. The meter does not have to be changed!

eurmalian

Comstock wrote: »

Thing is, will it? I hardly use any electric as my hot water and heating are gas, I don't have a fridge and my cooking skills are best described as 'limited'.

How about other electrical devices though? TV?, Computers?, Washing Machine? They all use a fair bit of electricity.

On the plus side, if your supplier isn't charging a standing charge for the E7 meter, the odds are that they won't charge one on single rate meters either.