Official MSE Economy 7 Guide discussion

Susan_Crane

My figures include VAT and no daily charge and I have just checked and I cannot match these figures on the new tariffs. I always do a price comparison before changing. As you say, Ebico is only suitable for low users and is not suitable for me as I am just above the usage which makes it beneficial to change. If I was a higher user then paying a standing charge with lower p/Kwh would make sense. The figures you have given show a much higher rate for night time usage.

Oh, and when I check with my friends my monthly DD is much lower than theirs.

So, I will change when I have to and no sooner even though there are no exit fees on my tarriff.

Although you spitting tea out, I think you should consider the effect of standing charges on your bill, particularly for those with low usage where the standing charge can really push the effective price per Kwh up.

HappyMJ

Susan_Crane wrote: »

My figures include VAT and no daily charge and I have just checked and I cannot match these figures on the new tariffs. I always do a price comparison before changing. As you say, Ebico is only suitable for low users and is not suitable for me as I am just above the usage which makes it beneficial to change. If I was a higher user then paying a standing charge with lower p/Kwh would make sense. The figures you have given show a much higher rate for night time usage.

Oh, and when I check with my friends my monthly DD is much lower than theirs.

So, I will change when I have to and no sooner even though there are no exit fees on my tarriff.

Although you spitting tea out, I think you should consider the effect of standing charges on your bill, particularly for those with low usage where the standing charge can really push the effective price per Kwh up.

If you are using more than about 1,200kWh per year with 25% night usage you are paying standing charges in your primary rate and the secondary unit rate should be charged on your additional units. To use anything less than 1,200kWh per year is very low usage and Ebico's 20p/kWh rate on 900kWh and 7p/kWh on 300kWh is cheaper than 23.35p/kWh and 5.68p/kWh. If your total usage is higher than 1,200kWh then there are many tariffs with standing charges of about 20p/day that are cheaper as the unit rates are 13p and 6p. What tariff are you on and what region?

firstaff

Hi
I have checked the mse cheap energy club site but it will not give me a result (may be my computers fault ) so I am asking on here
currently with SWALEC on ecomomy 7 tarrif paying 14.09 pence day standing charge , 7.40 pence economy 7 night rate per unit and 15.89pence day rate per unit .
curently paying £77.00 per month direct debit and my usage is on my last bill , night 33481 . day 13334 , the bill before that was a estimate which would account for the ammount , we dont have gas here .
the heaters have not been on all summer and wont go on untill october at least , 3 bed house 5 heaters none of which are always on , as a rule only the living room one and our bedroom , we have a solid wood heater/cooker which we cook and it give us hot water .
thank you
Bryan

M._T._Wallitt

Hi,
I'm with EDF, and they do a tarrif that's similar to economy 7 called ECO 20:20. I was wondering if there was any way to compare this with other tarrifs?

Thanks.

HappyMJ

M._T._Wallitt wrote: »

Hi,
I'm with EDF, and they do a tarrif that's similar to economy 7 called ECO 20:20. I was wondering if there was any way to compare this with other tarrifs?

Thanks.

Eco 20:20 is similar to a standard tariff with a small 20% discount for usage on the evening and weekend.

There is no way to compare that tariff directly to other tariffs. I would compare your total usage to all other standard tariffs and if the savings are small compared to an EDF standard tariff then stay where you are. The more you move to the evening and weekend the more you will save....but it's only a 20% saving on the day unit rate...however the day unit rates are 10% more expensive than a standard tariff with a different supplier....so really the savings aren't that much at all. If you find a standard tariff which is 10% cheaper (on the electricity only tab...don't use the full dual fuel savings) then it's worth switching and you can use electricity whenever you want.

Susan_Crane

My second day rate is 11pKwh and everything after the first 900Kwh (split into 4 so 225 per quarter) is charged at this rate. My total annual usage is 2929Kwh with 25% of that figure being at the night rate (day time annual usage 2192 Kwh, night time 737).

I must admit I had not taken into account the fact that my secondary rate is 11p Kwh so I should consider more carefully the solar saving when the sun shines. I then feel I am back to the problem that I do not know what the Kwh consumption is when the washing machine/dishwasher are operating. I assume that none of them are using more than 3 Kwh at a time so if I am generating at, say, 1.6 (which it seems to do much of the time) then it is using say 1.4 Kwh at a cost of 11p = 15p. However, this amount is variable and will go up or down according to whether or not there is a cloud. But, if I do it on night time rate then 3 Kwh costs 17.04p less anything that might be generated early in the morning. But if the consumption is 2Kwh less say 1.6 then I am looking at .4 Kwh = 4.44p as against 2Kwh on economy rate = 11.36p

I have a machine which shows energy consumption but I do not feel it is very accurate as it seems to fluctuate for no reason at all. May be these fluctuations are when the fridge/freezer kicks in but other than that I can think of no reason why it should flucturate.

I suspect that the only way I am going to be able to work this out is to look at the base plate, not too much of a problem for the washing machine as I can pull it out and look at the back relatively easy but the fitted dishwasher?? Even the instruction books do not appear to have the information in them.

Food for thought

Susan_Crane

I do have red flashing generation and reporting meters side by side so it is easy to see if the house if running on free electricity and relatively easy to see if the electricity is (say) 80:20 generated versus imported.[/QUOTE]

I have just got solar panels installed (at the end of August) so am still working on best times. Installers supplied a generation meter which seems reliable (seems to reflect clouds as well as angle of sun as I would expect) but I have an old reporting meter which I feel is less than accurate. Ideally I would like one meter to do two jobs but I suspect that this might be physically impossible due to the different locations for the sensors. Can you recommend your reporting meter?

My installer did supply the equipment to heat the hot water through using otherwise unused generated electricity and so far I have not needed to heat my hot water from the gas boiler.

HappyMJ

Susan_Crane wrote: »

My second day rate is 11pKwh and everything after the first 900Kwh (split into 4 so 225 per quarter) is charged at this rate. My total annual usage is 2929Kwh with 25% of that figure being at the night rate (day time annual usage 2192 Kwh, night time 737).

I must admit I had not taken into account the fact that my secondary rate is 11p Kwh so I should consider more carefully the solar saving when the sun shines. I then feel I am back to the problem that I do not know what the Kwh consumption is when the washing machine/dishwasher are operating. I assume that none of them are using more than 3 Kwh at a time so if I am generating at, say, 1.6 (which it seems to do much of the time) then it is using say 1.4 Kwh at a cost of 11p = 15p. However, this amount is variable and will go up or down according to whether or not there is a cloud. But, if I do it on night time rate then 3 Kwh costs 17.04p less anything that might be generated early in the morning. But if the consumption is 2Kwh less say 1.6 then I am looking at .4 Kwh = 4.44p as against 2Kwh on economy rate = 11.36p

I have a machine which shows energy consumption but I do not feel it is very accurate as it seems to fluctuate for no reason at all. May be these fluctuations are when the fridge/freezer kicks in but other than that I can think of no reason why it should flucturate.

I suspect that the only way I am going to be able to work this out is to look at the base plate, not too much of a problem for the washing machine as I can pull it out and look at the back relatively easy but the fitted dishwasher?? Even the instruction books do not appear to have the information in them.

Food for thought

Well that makes much more sense. All dual rate "no standing charge" tariffs are being removed from the market and are no longer available to new customers so eventually you will be transferred to a standard single rate tariff so need to be thinking about 11p/kWh rather than 23p/kWh when comparing tariffs.

The washing machine and dishwasher when heating water might use 2kw for the immersion element...then use 0.1kw pumping water or turning the drum. It will vary a lot during the cycle. You need the total usage per cycle figure from the manual to figure out your savings. It might be about 1kWh. The eco cycle on the dishwasher tends to be the long one using a lower water temperature and much lower amounts of power for a longer period of time which would suit a solar panel.

Cardew

HappyMJ wrote: »

How much??? I'm spitting me tea out...23.35p/kWh is one of the worst rates I've seen. Even Ebico is pretty bad at about 20p/kWh and 7p/kWh but they have no standing charges so are good for very low users.

I'd be switching tariffs as soon as possible...there must be something much more competitive than 23.35p. The average rate is 13p/kWh and 6p/kWh plus standing charges as per the article.

I suspect that they are on the tier1/tier2 charging system and the 23.35 is the Tier1 rate.

We need the tier 2 rate.

John_Pierpoint

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I do have red flashing generation and reporting meters side by side so it is easy to see if the house if running on free electricity and relatively easy to see if the electricity is (say) 80:20 generated versus imported.

Susan_Crane wrote: »

I have just got solar panels installed (at the end of August) so am still working on best times. Installers supplied a generation meter which seems reliable (seems to reflect clouds as well as angle of sun as I would expect) but I have an old reporting meter which I feel is less than accurate. Ideally I would like one meter to do two jobs but I suspect that this might be physically impossible due to the different locations for the sensors. Can you recommend your reporting meter?

My installer did supply the equipment to heat the hot water through using otherwise unused generated electricity and so far I have not needed to heat my hot water from the gas boiler.

My economy 7 importing meter looks something like this and incorporates the time clock. [when the blue button is pressed the display cycles through the two meter readings, date and time, fraud warning etc.] The flashing red light glows constant when my system is exporting to the grid.



The old mechanical meter system, which was not the same as the picture on the left, was finally killed off soon after the PV panels were installed - the clock could not cope with its new energy supply.

The generation meter looks like this


This posting has links to other threads where the issues of PV generation have been discussed.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=62860064&highlight=#post62860064

Once you are generating your hot water with "free" electricity, further savings are likely to be considerably less than £100 a year, so not worth too much effort.

Your problem could be understanding if the gizmo is busy putting power into the water tank when you want to turn on the washing machine.