eCONomy 7

Tezzer

Apologies if, as a newbie, I've missed a similar thread in the past, but I've just discovered that I've been a victim of a very clever ruse involving Economy 7.

I had always been led to understand that for seven hours overnight the electric switched to the low rate. In my part of south London I knew that the meter flicked over at 10.30. So for years I'd wait till any time after that to turn on washing machine, dishwasher etc as I assumed it just stayed at the low rate for seven consecutive hours.

But I've just discovered that the electricity switches back to full rate at 00.30 for two hours, then low rate again for five hours. So switching on round about midnight before bed meant I was regularly paying full whack.

And the truth took some finding: it has never been on bills and I couldn't find details on my current supplier, Powergen's, site. It took a phone call to customer services to get an answer. I have to say I feel completely cheated over many years by all my suppliers.

Anyone know if this is common (sharp) practice?

tripled

Economy 7 times were set by the old monopoly distributors many years ago and vary around the country. You will not find them on the suppliers websites or your bills because of the number of factors that can affect the timings you receive - variation in timings between the old board areas, variations within the same region (some of networks had two, three or even more settings), some regions have different times in summer and winter due to BST and there is the possibility of the old mechanical timers going out of synch. So I don't think Powergen have been deliberately scamming you, in many cases the suppliers won't know what time your meter will go on or off, just remember in future if you move to a different region or even to another property in the same region to check what your E7 settings are.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with Tripled on this.

Indeed I am surprised that Powergen had any idea what your timings for E7 were.

If you changed to another supplier all they would be interested in is what your meter meadings were.

Some people on this forum have the settings on their mechanical E7 meter slipped so badly that they get all their 7 hours at cheap rates during the day and the supply company have no way of picking this up.(it should be checked by the meter reader)