Comparing costs: standard electricity on cheap tariff v. Economy 10 on expensive one

gterr

Hi there,

Being unable to find an alternative to Scottish Hydro's (expensive) Economy 10 electricity I am thinking of swapping out the meter to a standard one so that I can switch suppliers.

Scottish Hydro told me that if more than 40% of my elec usage was off-peak I would be better staying on Economy 10. In the last 12 months 45% of my usage was off-peak. (One single meter and one MPAN)

However, I have my precise usage for the last 12 months. Surely it's better to look at actual total kWh used, what I paid Scottish Hydro for it, and see what this would cost if I bought the same kWh from another supplier on a standard tariff?

Even disregarding Scottish Hydro's planned 9% increases in prices this shows I could save up to 19% by switching to a variable tariff, or about 10% if I went for a long fix.

Is my logic sound? Because if so I should obviously swap out the meter and switch. I would then be able to use the same amount of elec but not be restricted to using specific hours to make use of the off-peak rates. I might even be able to reduce my annual usage since I could programme timers to give heating/hot water when actually needed, not at strange times of day to suit the off-peak hours.

Comments welcome!

Richie-from-the-Boro

gterr wrote: »

Hi there,

Being unable to find an alternative to Scottish Hydro's (expensive) Economy 10 electricity I am thinking of swapping out the meter to a standard one so that I can switch suppliers.

Scottish Hydro told me that if more than 40% of my elec usage was off-peak I would be better staying on Economy 10. In the last 12 months 45% of my usage was off-peak. (One single meter and one MPAN)

However, I have my precise usage for the last 12 months. Surely it's better to look at actual total kWh used, what I paid Scottish Hydro for it, and see what this would cost if I bought the same kWh from another supplier on a standard tariff?

Even disregarding Scottish Hydro's planned 9% increases in prices this shows I could save up to 19% by switching to a variable tariff, or about 10% if I went for a long fix.

Is my logic sound? Because if so I should obviously swap out the meter and switch. I would then be able to use the same amount of elec but not be restricted to using specific hours to make use of the off-peak rates. I might even be able to reduce my annual usage since I could programme timers to give heating/hot water when actually needed, not at strange times of day to suit the off-peak hours.

Comments welcome!

You are right to use kWh rather than £sd when making any calcs. Your premise may turn out to be built on shaky foundations however. With a wet system on holiday let you may lose because as you know the tenant for the week period will just turn on every available fire in the place to warm it up day & night for the whole week anyway. Additionally the real cost may turn out to be that your parsimony means most of your 'return business' disappears over a very short few years, and your 'empty weeks loss rate' skyrockets.

NOTE: E7 is out of the question with a wet [non-storage system] if you did have night-storage you would have had the opportunity to go E7 and this would have made other (1) suppliers available and (2) compression sites available to you.

Terrylw1

The best way to compare the difference between multi rate metering and standard is to put the full kwh value into a comparison site. You can do this for your current supplier as well to test their logic.

It would also be easy to work out if such as E7 would be cheaper as you can remove 3 hrs worth from one register to the other. However, in shifting to E7 its also about whether this type of meter is sufficient for your heating needs. You also need to consider how many meter tails you have because if you have a 3+ reading E10 type meter it will have Day, Night & Heat tails so would you need to rewire your consumer unit first.

I think you also need to do more ringing around first. I know some suppliers are billing all types if E10 meters but they don't publicise them on comparison sites or their websites.

You need to understand your E10 first as well. Did you know that a single MPAN E10 meter was available in every region from deregulation? So, from then on, every ex regional supplier had tariffs for them. Its only the specific regional metering dual MPAN types that cause suppliers issues as they didn't know about them until after deregulation.

gterr

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

You are right to use kWh rather than £sd when making any calcs. Your premise may turn out to be built on shaky foundations however. With a wet system on holiday let you may lose because as you know the tenant for the week period will just turn on every available fire in the place to warm it up day & night for the whole week anyway. Additionally the real cost may turn out to be that your parsimony means most of your 'return business' disappears over a very short few years, and your 'empty weeks loss rate' skyrockets.

.

Eh???

Don't understand you at all here. Yes, holiday guests can turn on all appliances 24/7. I have run the business for two full years on Economy 10 but with no restrictions on use by the guests, so I already know the average usage. Why would that change if I changed tarrif, and why might my return business be affected? I will not be changing anything from the customer's point of view. They won't notice any difference.

As you say, comparing kWh usage is the way to do it, and I have.

gterr

Terrylw1 wrote: »

The best way to compare the difference between multi rate metering and standard is to put the full kwh value into a comparison site. You can do this for your current supplier as well to test their logic.

Yes, this is what I have already done.

Terrylw1 wrote: »

You also need to consider how many meter tails you have because if you have a 3+ reading E10 type meter it will have Day, Night & Heat tails so would you need to rewire your consumer unit first.

Nope. A simple swap out is all that is required (have already established this. The house had a 'standard' meter when I bought it 3 years ago. I asked for the change to E10 meter. Was there when electrician changed it: simple 3 minute job inside the external meter box).

Terrylw1 wrote: »

I think you also need to do more ringing around first. I know some suppliers are billing all types if E10 meters but they don't publicise them on comparison sites or their websites. .

I have spent the last two evenings doing nothing but. I understand that there _should_ be other companies offering E10 to new customers, but I just get a definite "no" when I ask.

Terrylw1 wrote: »

You need to understand your E10 first as well. Did you know that a single MPAN E10 meter was available in every region from deregulation? So, from then on, every ex regional supplier had tariffs for them. Its only the specific regional metering dual MPAN types that cause suppliers issues as they didn't know about them until after deregulation.

Yes, well, as I say, I have the simplest single MPAN setup but nobody will offer me E10. If anybody on here can give me details of another company who will offer me E10 (rather than _should_ offer me E10, then I'll try again. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for your input, though. You are obviously very knowledgeable about such things.

Terrylw1

That's good news its a single MPAN version as you can easily swap between E7 and E10 via a simple meter change.

I know for a fact that E10 single MPAN was available from deregulation, I've seen the industry data.

I also know that Npower had these tariffs and many thousands of customers on them across all regions.

This issue is a real pain and it really needs Ofgem to step in and stop this behaviour.

Considering sales people are blocking you, its difficult to suggest anything aside from asking to speak to a manager. Its likely that they've been told not to sign up non standard customers, in other words they don't want the business. Given its a simple style E10 I don't understand this thinking.

I can understand it for suppliers who are not ex regional boards as they have to create all this but the ex regional could handle them and priced them up years ago.

I would suggest asking Ofgem about this to see if they can offer advice as this is an to competitive behaviour.

You could mail their Consumer Affairs Team.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/domestic-consumers/Pages/index.aspx

sheps

As someone who has just had new wet rad heating fitted yesterday (the kind heated with ambient air drawn from outside) i am asking this too, because they not changing our meter from e7 until 22ed and i am doubting how e10 will meet the needs of our family given due to combination of young family and heath issues which leaves us needing heating in peak times too. our usage with storage was well above the average high user on comparison site not surprising when summer is one day a year in the highlands if you lucky. .. anyway i pondering a long same lines as yourself just dont have any data to work from, also would ideally like option of keeping heating on auto and house at one temp all the time in the colder weather.. just struggling to see how e10 will suit our needs

Richie-from-the-Boro

sheps wrote: »

As someone who has just had new wet rad heating fitted yesterday (the kind heated with ambient air drawn from outside) i am asking this too, because they not changing our meter from e7 until 22ed and i am doubting how e10 will meet the needs of our family given due to combination of young family and heath issues which leaves us needing heating in peak times too. our usage with storage was well above the average high user on comparison site not surprising when summer is one day a year in the highlands if you lucky. .. anyway i pondering a long same lines as yourself just don't have any data to work from, also would ideally like option of keeping heating on auto and house at one temp all the time in the colder weather.. just struggling to see how e10 will suit our needs

Assuming a Mitsubishi type [non storage]1 or 2 units at 3.77KW an excellent choice and cheap for most of a UK year. That however doesn't go into radiators but is 'blown air'. So which air to water heat pump into wet heating system have you just had installed ?

sheps

thanks for reply. i'm waiting on manuals to be dropped off, it is a Mitsubishi air system and backed up with 2 solar panel only on water, wet rads where you can heat water only or water/heating where water boiler heats first then the heating boiler. heater in hall controls the base thermostat, was Fitted by local council.

Richie-from-the-Boro

sheps wrote: »

thanks for reply. i'm waiting on manuals to be dropped off, it is a Mitsubishi air system and backed up with 2 solar panel only on water, wet rads where you can heat water only or water/heating where water boiler heats first then the heating boiler. heater in hall controls the base thermostat, was Fitted by local council.

- we can't help till we know what you've got, and how its installed and your tariff type with your leccy supplier
- they're all generally excellent compared to standard gas / leccy systems
- underfloor is better than rads but much more expensive to install
- either way I'm envious - I'd love the system, I'm assuming is an Ecodan type [ready made] install - see here

gterr

Just reporting back as the OP:

I have now had E10 meters removed from two different properties: one heated by an air source heat pump and the other by an electric boiler (Amptec) and wet rads. I have switched both properties away from Scottish Hydro: one on to an EDF Blue+ fix (no longer available) and the other on to Scottish Power's 2-year fix. (It took me longer to get the meter exchanged on the second property by which time the previous 3 top fixes had gone).

I am expecting between 15% and 22% savings based on the same yearly kWh usage. But I also think I can achieve additional savings by no longer having the E10 tariff. In the case of the air source heat pump we were using way too many peak units because this system is basically 'on' all the time. In the case of the property heated by the Amptec boiler I had the timer set to try to make use of the off-peak hours for heating the hot water, but also needed it on a lot of peak hours to keep the house warm. I can now reduce the hours the central heating's on to suit the usage of the house (a couple of hours in the morning, and 6 or 7 hours in the evening). Time will tell, but I'm confident we'll use fewer kWh in both properties and make even bigger savings.

When I phoned Scottish Hydro to request a meter change on the second property the customer services lady said very sadly "Are you planning to switch away from us?" I then feared she might say there would be a fee for the meter swap, but she didn't. It took 10 days for the change of meter/tariff to appear on the national database, and I had an agonising wait for this before I could initiate the switch.