Economy 7 times - Sheffield. Please help!!!

stephcyl

Thanks Sacssquacco,It all makes sense now. The rate 2 is in progress during the day which confirms my suspision. I made the mistake of assuming that the higher one is the night one and the lower rate is the day one where as its the other way round. I guess I was confused by the N-power peoples last bill which apprently billed it wrongly. Am afraid I am using much more than I thought am using during the day, and the night usage is definitely not anywhere near 40%, though I only heat water during the night and use washing machine at the same time.
Usage since 11th March that I moved in:
Day: 312.
Night: 133
Day unit rate: 23.52/24.696 for first 728kWh per year; 17.62/18.501 thereafter
Night Unit rate: 4.91p/5.156p
That seems like a lot of money to me since I live alone in a 1 bed flat; I have fridge and freezer; hardly put tv on;hardly put the electric heater on (when I do, its usually the fan heater for less than an hour); wash only at night. Cooking is gas and hardly use the electric oven. I have never heat water using the electric kettle,; only use gas. I occassionally use the microwave though. And am at home only in the evenings and weekends.
I wonder how to reduce my day consumptions and increase the night ones? Or should I just switch from economy 7?
Thanks all for your advice so far

stephcyl

These are the standard prices with no economy 7:
first 728 peryear: 18.491p
thereafter: 14.847

[Deleted User]

. That model of ampy meter you ve got is one of the oldest digital meters I see and has probably gone round the clock on the day rate (100,00 units then back to zero) so appears to be less used than the night rate.All the advice I have seen on here say that you need to be using around 25% to 30 % of your night useage to make eco 7 useage pay. Unless night storage heaters are used, most will not get anywhwere near that without being very dilligent and it would be best to get billed single rate throughout. You seem to be in the range of over 30% useage. Make sure you get to know your exact switch over times of your meter, normally around 1.30 am in summer for that meter( 12.30 on the meter) electric showers use a hell of a lot of power. Maybe try a comp site with your annual kwhr use to get cheapest poss prices

stephcyl

Thank you Sacssquadco. The problem is actually getting to know the exact switch times as npower isnt helping at all. I guess I will just have to keep waking up at night to check which rate is showing on the meter

[Deleted User]

I check them if I am starting at 8 am and they are still on night rate up till around 8.30 am. I have watched them click over at approx that time in the summer. In GMT I am never too early and they will be on day rate by the time I start.Thats assuming their clocks havent drifted which a few have, but not by much, 15 mins or so is the most Ive spotted out of time.unlike the mechanical timers which can be 12 hours out (good news if people get to know their meters )

stephcyl

Thank you. That's very helpful

Terrylw1

If its a time switch meter, the timings are all held online so any supplier can easily tell you.

If its a radio teleswitch, its more complicated. Why? Sadly, the times are and have always been controlled by the local distributor so in deregulation, suppliers split from them and lost all this info. The same goes for the agents whether readers or meter operator engineers.

There is no national document about the timings of each meter tariff. So, the industry and all suppliers plus their agents have nothing o refer to.

Suppliers have had to source this info later but they don't have them all, that I know. I've even seen documentation from industry forums mid 2011 where the industry bodies documented that this was all unknown and a problem for the coming Smart meters.

The way they can check is to contact the local distributor for you. Its likely the call centre are slightly out of their depth hence raise a complaint as it will get to someone more experienced. Don't immediately take this as correct, check yourself as these suppliers often use data gathered and passed about over years, so one mistake and everyone is wrong. An example I always give is Redring boiler meters where he heat is a tariff based on 18 hours of daily heat boost to derive a united price...but sadly, if you check the daily distributor signal, its 17.5 hours. So, if you think they are incorrect, ask them to call the distributor to check it.

The signal can often be 15 mins out, up to an hour is usually the worst on the more common set ups.

Also be aware that the signal only adjusts for BST if agreed in the distributors time settings. In the regions covering Sheffield, they don't do BST switching o my knowledge.