economy 10, best tariff?

boatman

I transferred my electric supply to the EDF blue tariff online via uswitch, they started supplying me on the 24th of May. Today i have received a letter saying they could not put me on that tariff as it is 'not compatible with my meter' but they would be putting me on the standard tariff.
I have spoken to edf and found out that it is an economy 10 meter, never heard of it! Only moved in 2 months ago... What are the choices please?
So you always get 10 hours of cheap electric but are they at standard times or does it change?

Terrylw1

There are various E10 meters out there and some are called Heatwise.

They break down into 2 categories:

1 - 2 rate single MPAN 10 hour burst that works like E7 as its wired to the day and night circuits of your fuse box. The difference from E7 aside from 3 extra hours is that the burst can occur up to 3 times during the day and night...but single its a single MPAN meter, any standard usage during a daytime heat burst will be on your cheap rate.

There are various times for these.

2 - 3 rate dual MPAN where the day and night are wired as above, but your heat circuit is wired to a heat meter (seperate unit if time switch meters or the same unit for the day & night if a radio teleswitch meter) so a 3rd price comes into play for the heat...sometimes the heat even has 2 prices due to having a 2 tiered pricing strategy.

These meters tend to have a reduced night hours of 5 hours which can kick in around 2am but without checking them all, I couldn't say for sure. The heat however bursts in anything up to 3 bursts through the day and night.

Again, there are various ones so you would need all the times.

With radio teleswitch metering, they can also change due to BST/GMT changes.

You need more info if you need the times,. This is simple for time switch metering as all the times are held on the Elexon site, but you need a code called Standard Settlement Code (SSC) and combine it with your region code to find the times. The region can be worked out from your post code, so if you get the SSC, I can post you the link and tell you how to filter the .csv file to find the times for your meter.

If you have a radio teleswitch, its become difficult since there is no national recording of how they are supposed to work...thank such as Ofgem for this! They can also be changed to BST or even "reverse BST" in one silly region! Your supplier will struggle with this as they have to research them, but I don't believe any supplier understands this enough from work I have done in this area. If EDF are the old elec board, they will have the recordings from years ago though as they used to be the same company as the distributor. Now, the local distributor owns the signalling rights so can tell you the times, again though its a nightly signal and sometimes they can be out by 15mins commonly but sometimes an hour or more. Its sometimes easier to just monitor your meter over the day and night tyo get the times but it can be through the day and night. Also, if you have a meter like Warmwise...be aware it has different times for weekend, bank holidays, etc.

If t does turn out to be Warmwise though, repost as I have a copy of the researched times for this complex meter.

macman

E10 is not very common and does limit your switching options-you might want to consider a meter change to conventional E7, if appropriate.

Terrylw1

macman wrote: »

E10 is not very common and does limit your switching options-you might want to consider a meter change to conventional E7, if appropriate.

If its a dual MPAN set up, internal rewiring to return it to night heat will be required.

Richie-from-the-Boro

E7 comes on after midnight and goes off in the morning - it does not come on at other times.,

E10 does the same as the above but gives you extra during the day and evening.

E10 is the luxury end and higher cost of night store heating, if you are retired and home during the day in particular, you may consider it a good thing and a worthwhile extra cost. If you are not at home during the day perhaps E7 is a better and cheaper tariff. Just confirm for the group boatman that you have night storage for both heat and water !

Terrylw1

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

E7 comes on after midnight and goes off in the morning - it does not come on at other times.,

E10 does the same as the above but gives you extra during the day and evening.

E10 is the luxury end and higher cost of night store heating, if you are retired and home during the day in particular, you may consider it a good thing and a worthwhile extra cost. If you are not at home during the day perhaps E7 is a better and cheaper tariff. Just confirm for the group boatman that you have night storage for both heat and water !

There are lots of different E7's including split differentials which trigger in 2 bursts (2hrs from 10-10:30pm and then the remaining 5hrs come on 2-2:30am) so without knowing the Standard Settlement Code (SSC) its not possible to check what it should be set to.

boatman

Hi thanks for your replies. The system uses a single electronic meter that from what i can tell supplies heat, water and general electric. I'll stick with the E10 system because of the shift system i work. EDF told me 0000-0500, 13-1600 and 20-2200 for cheap electric although reading the pricing pdf those time seem to vary, so how are you supposed to set timers if you don't know for certain that you will get cheap electric? The daily rate is 18.9p, high 16.05p, low 5.49p +6% direct debit.

Terrylw1

Sounds like you've got a radio teleswitch meter.

Are you in EDF's old electricity board region? If not, I would be dubious of those timings.

If its radio teleswitch, suppliers don't really understand how they are working unless they research them...which they tend not to do.

Call centre staff won't understand this side, its likely most metering experts won't either as these meter timings out of of sight of the industry.

You can find out though. What you need is a code called Standard Settlement Code (SSC) which is attached to your meter details in a data flow the supplier has. Using this code, you can contact the distributor and they can tell you since they still have responsibility for the signalling via the BBC.

If you can tell me 1st 2 digits of your MPAN, I might be able to tell you. I have the timings for all the radio teleswitch meters in 5 regions so could post the ones for your region with the SSC code. You could then ask your supplier to tell you the SSC and you would know.

If you're not in the 5 regions I have researched, go the distributor route. I can tell you that is exactly what a metering expert will do if the are unsure with radio teleswitch. Its more work, but I've got to say that from my experience, suppliers don't really understand how radio teleswitch works since it predates privatisation and in those days, the supplier side if the business wouldn't get involved in this type of query.

If your SSC says you are time switch instead, that's simple since they are stored online and can show you how to check it.

boatman

Hi, not really many numbers but its a 'type S123B03', fitted Nov 2010, the same as the second one on this page
http://www.horstmann.co.uk/utilities.php
Its fitted by SSE metering Ltd, i'm in the southern region.

baldelectrician

I have the same meter

My switching times are

04.30-07.30
13.30-16.30
20.30-00.30

All other times are peak

The meter does not switch a load on in my instance- it just changes the whole house to a different charging rate

If you look at the meter display it will display rate 'now' and either show 1 or 2

Hope this helps

Terrylw1

baldelectrician wrote: »

I have the same meter

My switching times are

04.30-07.30
13.30-16.30
20.30-00.30

All other times are peak

The meter does not switch a load on in my instance- it just changes the whole house to a different charging rate

If you look at the meter display it will display rate 'now' and either show 1 or 2

Hope this helps

If it doesn't switch a load on, someone has rewired your house away from having off peak circuits e.g. removed your storage heating.

If you only have 2 rates, you have a 1 MPAN E10 which are like common E7's.

The meter is 1 element, however there are multiple settings for off peak burst meters all over the country and a region can have half a dozen types of settings hence you can't tell from the meter model, you have to check the setting code as per my earlier post.