Meter readings for Economy 7

utility_csa

lordra wrote: »

Thank you everyone for all the feed back. I feel that, given all the discussion this has prompted, this is a very intense topic of debate.Which is a good thing! Maybe Martin needs to look into this.:money:

However, given the timings on the nPower site, I will start monitoring my meter from 2330 to 0300hrs. I will take pictures every 15 minutes with a time stamp on them and post it back here. Via imageshack. I seem to have a radio teleswitch next to my meter.
This gives me the data I will need when I contact Adam from nPower.

Another thing was, my contract says that my tariff is:
1. Upto and including 728 kWh pa: 25.14p
2. Over 728 kWh pa: 17.52p
3. Night rate : 4.97p

Now:
Q1. Does the cheaper rate of 17.52p apply ONLY to the 'normal' readings or the sum of both, the 'low' and the 'normal' as well?

Q2. Is one unit of kWh equal to one number change on my meter? eg., if my meter, at 1200hrs, reads 500 and then at 0000hrs reads 505, does that mean I've used 5kWh?

Q3. So then, can I just multiply 5 into £0.2514p ?

Thank you everyone for all the help and feedback! Much appreciated. This is definitely a grey area and I will get in touch with my supplier and post back here. :T

1) Yes PA i believe.
2) Yes, +1 on the meter = 1kwh.

Terrylw1

Your tier 1 day price is for the pro rata'd usage over the 91 day quarter, once you exceed the pro rata'd amount in the quarter you get the tier 2 price.

The night rate has no tiered structure so you can work that one out as normal.

So, remember to take your billed usage and work out tier 1 by taking the 728 and dividing by four for a quarter, then 91 days to get it into days. Remember your supplier can't see daily usage, only billed usage so they will only take the first 728 units of the total day rate usage on the bill. If they needed to create a par quarter bill e.g. for say 28 days after you started your account, they would divide the 728 into 91 and multiply by 28 days to give a pro rata'd value so your tier 1 is correct.

So doing it between the 5 unit example you have shown won't really work as it would assume the supplier knows each day as opposed yo the billed period.

1 kwh equals 1 unit on your bill. Your bill should reflect what's on your meter except the red dial which turns faster to create 1 kwh. If digital, ignore the 1 or 2 decimal places.

lordra

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Your tier 1 day price is for the pro rata'd usage over the 91 day quarter, once you exceed the pro rata'd amount in the quarter you get the tier 2 price.

The night rate has no tiered structure so you can work that one out as normal.

So, remember to take your billed usage and work out tier 1 by taking the 728 and dividing by four for a quarter, then 91 days to get it into days. Remember your supplier can't see daily usage, only billed usage so they will only take the first 728 units of the total day rate usage on the bill. If they needed to create a par quarter bill e.g. for say 28 days after you started your account, they would divide the 728 into 91 and multiply by 28 days to give a pro rata'd value so your tier 1 is correct.

So doing it between the 5 unit example you have shown won't really work as it would assume the supplier knows each day as opposed yo the billed period.

So,
1. In order to get the lower rate, I need to use at least 2 units of electricity on my 'normal' meter every day.
2. I understand why the example won't work now, but does this mean that I can use this method (the one you mentioned) to double check values to make sure that the bill is correct?
3. I don't get bills faithfully every month, unlike other things, why is this so?
4. Your explanation is extremely precise, thank you very much for the effort. :T

Terrylw1

If your bill was quarterly your supplier would have taken your overall tier 1 price and divide it into 4. This would the the tier 1 bill allowancr and any units over that would be at the tier 2 price.

So, if you are monthly billing it would just be divided by 12 to get the monthly allocation.

In terms of going over it, you don't need to do it everyday since its the total day units for the bill period that need to.

That's just for elec though, gas is very different as there is more complex seasonal weighting.

grahamc2003

lordra wrote: »

However, given the timings on the nPower site, I will start monitoring my meter from 2330 to 0300hrs. I will take pictures every 15 minutes with a time stamp on them and post it back here. Via imageshack. I seem to have a radio teleswitch next to my meter.
This gives me the data I will need when I contact Adam from nPower.

Another thing was, my contract says that my tariff is:
1. Upto and including 728 kWh pa: 25.14p
2. Over 728 kWh pa: 17.52p
3. Night rate : 4.97p

. :T

At 15 minute intervals you may miss some of the switching (i.e. you'd possibly be below the Nyquist frequency where your sampling rate is greater than the switching rate of what you're observing). If you have a camera which could take a frame every second, you could play it back at 60 times speed (i.e. 12 hours would take 12 minutes to play back).

You're teir 2 day rate at 17.52p/kWh seems very high to me, and your night rate good. Maybe you could get better rates by switching (I have a 5 year fix at 12p (inc vat) day and 6p night.

An easy way of calculating you bill quite accurately is to get rid of the tier 1 element of your bill, and relace it with the equivalent daily rate - makes the maths much easier. You have to make the assumption that you'll always use your tier 1 units, which is almost certain anyhow. Then to convert the tier one units to a daily (or standing charge), look at the extra cost of those units over a year - which is 728*(25.14-17.52) which makes £55.47. Divide that by 365.25 and you get the equivalent daily standing charge, being 15.19p, or divide by 12 to get the approx monthly standing charge, being £4.62.

So if you want to calculate your daytime bill over say 20 days, and you've used 150 daytime units, you multiply the 150 by your tier 2 day rate, then add on 20 days of standing charge. Much easier than trying to deal with tier1 and 2 rates each time imo.

lordra

grahamc2003 wrote: »

You're teir 2 day rate at 17.52p/kWh seems very high to me, and your night rate good. Maybe you could get better rates by switching (I have a 5 year fix at 12p (inc vat) day and 6p night.

Its fixed until july 2012. So I have to wait. Energy bonus customers. Your rate is amazing! Who are you with?

grahamc2003 wrote: »

You have to make the assumption that you'll always use your tier 1 units, which is almost certain anyhow. Then to convert the tier one units to a daily (or standing charge), look at the extra cost of those units over a year - which is 728*(25.14-17.52) which makes £55.47. Divide that by 365.25 and you get the equivalent daily standing charge, being 15.19p, or divide by 12 to get the approx monthly standing charge, being £4.62.

I'm loving the simplicity of the math here!

grahamc2003 wrote: »

So if you want to calculate your daytime bill over say 20 days, and you've used 150 daytime units, you multiply the 150 by your tier 2 day rate, then add on 20 days of standing charge.

103 units on average monthly for a two bed room, one bathroom, open plan apartment. One television, washing machine, two laptops and a desktop, microwave, no kids, two adults. Is that a lot?

So calculating my daytime bill over say 30 days, I've used 103 daytime units:
1. 103 x 17.52p (tier 2 day rate) =1804.56 -(A)
2. Adding on 30 days of standing charge to (A) of £4.557 -(15.19p x 30)
3. We get £18.0456 + £4.557 = £22.6 per 30 days for electric.

Brilliant.
Thank you!:T:D:A

lordra

Terrylw1 wrote: »

If your bill was quarterly your supplier would have taken your overall tier 1 price and divide it into 4. This would the the tier 1 bill allowancr and any units over that would be at the tier 2 price.

So, if you are monthly billing it would just be divided by 12 to get the monthly allocation.

In terms of going over it, you don't need to do it everyday since its the total day units for the bill period that need to.

That's just for elec though, gas is very different as there is more complex seasonal weighting.

Thanks for the advice Terrylw1, you and grahamc2003 made everything crystal clear to me.

Premier_2

nPower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi lordra,

I'm sorry there's some confusion around the time tht you low rate kicks in.

Can you send your details to [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL] and I'll take a look at this for you and see what we can do.

Many thanks,

Adam

lordra wrote: »

...I will get in touch with my supplier and post back here. :T

Come on Adam, the ball seems to be well and truly in your court at present :cool: