Economy 7 advice please

queencookie

Apologies if this has already been asked.

Hub came home today, said someone at work had got a lot of money back from energy company when they changed from using economy 7 to just a basic daily rate. Their reason being that, although the night rate is low for economy 7 users, the day rate is higher than the rate for those not on economy 7.

I have been staring at figures all evening but as the energy companies don't like to make their costings easy to understand, I've given up, though to me it looks like having economy 7 still works out cheaper even if the daily rate is higher.

Anyone got any advice on this.

Thank you

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

The break-even point to make Economy 7(E7) viable varies from under 20%(of total electricity consumption) used during the 7 hours of off-peak electricity with some tariffs, to 40% on other tariffs.

If you go to www.energyhelpline.com and enter in the kWh you use, there is a facility to put down a percentage of E7 and you can see the best tariffs - Scottish Power seem to have the best E7 tariffs.

Obviously on E7 you will want to use as much electricity overnight as possible - appliances on timers etc. It also helps if you get up early as you can still use off-peak.

queencookie

Our usage on economy 7 is about 48% (higher than I expected it would be), off to check tariffs now!

Cardew

Certainly with 48% on off-peak rates you should remain on an E7 tariff.

macman

queencookie wrote: »

Apologies if this has already been asked.

Hub came home today, said someone at work had got a lot of money back from energy company when they changed from using economy 7 to just a basic daily rate. Their reason being that, although the night rate is low for economy 7 users, the day rate is higher than the rate for those not on economy 7.

I have been staring at figures all evening but as the energy companies don't like to make their costings easy to understand, I've given up, though to me it looks like having economy 7 still works out cheaper even if the daily rate is higher.

Anyone got any advice on this.

Thank you

It would help if you told us if you have (and use) night storage heaters and an immersion heater? If you do, then E7 is a no-brainer, especially at 48% usage on cheap rate.
Then you need to do the maths as explained above, by putting the same data into any comp site twice, once for E7 and once for single rate. 2 minutes work. However in your case, the result is not in question.
Given that the bulk of any domestic consumption is for heating and hot water, 48% is not really unusual.

grahamc2003

queencookie wrote: »

Apologies if this has already been asked.

Hub came home today, said someone at work had got a lot of money back from energy company when they changed from using economy 7 to just a basic daily rate. Their reason being that, although the night rate is low for economy 7 users, the day rate is higher than the rate for those not on economy 7.

I have been staring at figures all evening but as the energy companies don't like to make their costings easy to understand, I've given up, though to me it looks like having economy 7 still works out cheaper even if the daily rate is higher.

Anyone got any advice on this.



Thank you

Depends on the ratio of night to day usage, and also the charging structure and how much of a premium the day rate is.


Last week, my average unit cost (including vat/standing charge) was 6.63p - and this will lower further as I turn my night storage heaters up more. Unless I can get a single rate less than 6.63p, then it would be more expensive for me (substantially so).

If you don't have storage heaters it could be marginal - why not keep some meter readings, and work out the cost on your e7 tariff, and see what the average costs is for you?