Using Economy 7 meter only in winter

lstar337

Clearly the information I read about totalising was incorrect.

ChumpusRex

buglawton wrote: »

I wanted to switch from Economy 7 to a standard non E7 tariff.
EDF would only do it (March this year) if they changed the meter for free.
Inconvenient and silly - why cant electronic meters do EITHER tariff?

It's because the energy suppliers have to account for E7 Day/Night electricity separately when paying the power stations and national grid/network operators for the power.

E7 meters are accounted for differently in the "national balancing and settlement system" from normal electricity.

In other words, it is your meter that determines how your supplier must account for your energy (and buy it in from power stations).

Technically, it would be possible for suppliers to add the numbers and give you a bill - but they would still have to pay the increased day rate to the power stations (so this would end up costing the supplier money). It would also mean their IT systems having to cope with being able to combine multiple readings on some systems but not others.

As so many suppliers seem to struggle with calculating bills anyway, I can only imagine that things could get worse if using this more complicated system was mandated.

Part of the reasoning behind the smart meter roll-out is to bring the balancing system up to date, and use real-time data from the meters. Once that is done, and the suppliers systems support real-time reading, then they could set whatever type of tariff they want

buglawton

Sorry I don't follow. My meter is not a smart meter. All accounting is based on figures I supply, I can even do the adding up for EDF. Yes there's more risk of errors but they get picked up when the electricity company's meter reader visits.

stewie_griffin

I know with E.ON you can switch between Economy 7 and single rate any time using your online account as I did this for my parents. However you can only choose from the tariffs available at the time, so you run the risk of having to choose a far more expensive tariff when you want to switch on/off E7. There's no way of knowing when tariffs will change so it would be a huge gamble.

buglawton

Even that could be a good deal, you can say, flip to E7 in winter and back in Spring.

ChumpusRex

buglawton wrote: »

Sorry I don't follow. My meter is not a smart meter. All accounting is based on figures I supply, I can even do the adding up for EDF. Yes there's more risk of errors but they get picked up when the electricity company's meter reader visits.

The supplier is free to bill you however they want. However, if you have an E7 meter, they have to buy E7 electricity in, and send E7 reads up the chain.

I can imagine that some suppliers are prepared to bill you how you want, and absorb the costs and difficulties, in the interest of good customer service.

However, not all suppliers have computer systems that can cope with this type of accounting/billing/data transfer (and upgrading would cost too much money), and some may not wish to absorb the cost of buying in more expensive daytime E7 electricity to sell at normal price.

So, just because one supplier is willing to be flexible, doesn't mean that others are willing to be. Ultimately, smart meters will force all suppliers to be flexible, but that's a good few years down the line yet.

socks_uk

The only reason you would want to be on any kind of Economy 7 tariff is if you have storage heaters. Our meter is a an Economy 7 meter but Eon charge us a 'normal' rate. We use much more electricity during the day as the heating is gas and even that is turned down quite low in the winter and off in the summer. The only things running at night are the fridge & freezer.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to pay the higher rate for daytime electricity if they don't have storage heaters.

lvf

lstar337 wrote: »

... Exit fees can be avoided...

Check for the wording in your tariff terms and conditions, some suppliers only apply the exit fee if you leave to join another supplier, not change tariff. If this is the case, just switch onto the standard tariff, as all suppliers shouldn't have an exit fee on that.

leeruddecology wrote: »

I asked EoN about changing tariff, and they told me I would need to change my meter. I currently have two meters, and I am on economy 18 and if I wanted to use economy 7, a change of meter was required, so I was told.

E18 isn't exactly "standard" and would require a meter change as you have a specialised meter for that setup. Single rate and E7 are interchangeable with some suppliers, E.ON being one as mentioned before.

stewie_griffin wrote: »

I know with E.ON you can switch between Economy 7 and single rate any time using your online account as I did this for my parents. However you can only choose from the tariffs available at the time, so you run the risk of having to choose a far more expensive tariff when you want to switch on/off E7. There's no way of knowing when tariffs will change so it would be a huge gamble.

Correct. And you are free to change as frequently as you like, so this is possible for the OP. Check with EDF, maybe you can do the same.