Economy 7 percentage?

WorkFromHome

I use Cheap Energy Club to find better deals and my fixed term with First Utilty ends on 31 Dec. I moved house this year and now have an Economy 7 meter which confuses me so much. On the Club I need to enter my usage percentage for this type of meter, how do I do that?

Last readings -
Night 04417
Day 21673

notbritishgas

WorkFromHome wrote: »

I use Cheap Energy Club to find better deals and my fixed term with First Utilty ends on 31 Dec. I moved house this year and now have an Economy 7 meter which confuses me so much. On the Club I need to enter my usage percentage for this type of meter, how do I do that?

Last readings -
Night 04417
Day 21673

Tell us some previous readings so we can work it out. Hopefully a year apart.

CashStrapped

Very Easy.

As you know, with E7 there are two periods of electricity charge.

The more expensive day rate and a much cheaper night rate.

To measure these two uses, you have two meter readings. This is so the energy company can see what you use in each charging period.

The first thing you need to do is calculate your annual use for each charging period. You need to find two (not estimated ones) meter readings 1 year apart (look on old bills). Subtract the oldest reading from the most recent and you have your annual use. Do this for both rate periods.

So you will end up with two annual usage figures.

For example:

Day rate: 3000kwh
Night rate: 2500kwh

So the total annual use (combining both) will be 5500kwh.

To get the night use percentage, we need to find out what percentage of that total is night use. So you divide the night rate by the total amount.

2500/5500 = 0.45 which is 45%.

So the night use is 45% of the total use.

The more electricity use that can be shifted to night use, the more you will save. A good amount of night use is in the 65%+ range. That is what you should aim for.

To get the best out of an e7 set-up, ensure you are using the storage heaters (I assume you have them) controls properly. Many people use these incorrectly.

WorkFromHome

We're only lived in this house since July and we don't have storage heaters, we have radiators

CashStrapped

OK, then you do not have enough data for annual use.

However, we can look at what you have used to-date and estimate.

Look at your earliest meter reading(s) and take one today. That will still give an indication as to your night use percentage thus far using the same calculation method above.

If you do not have storage heaters, then it [e7] may be the worst type of tariff you could be on. Standard panel heaters do not benefit from E7 night rates. They will use the expensive day rate.

I suspect your night use will be very low, which defeats the point of being on an E7 tariff.

But, we should do the calculations first, just to check.

WorkFromHome

OK July reading was -
04265 night
21041 Day

Oct reading -
04417 Night
21673 Day

victor2

That works out at about 19% night usage.
Rough rule of thumb is that you want to be using around 1/3 during the night period to benefit on an E7 tariff.
Worth checking when the charging periods are on your meter. Older meters rely on an internal clock, and this can be out significantly. Unfortunately, to find out you have to watch your meter just before and after the supposed switching times and see which register records usage. If it is out and/or you can time your higher usage items (such as electric showers) to operate in the cheaper period, you may benefit.

CashStrapped

Indeed, 19% is very low. Even taking into account some of those months being summer.

Personally, the big red flag is that you do not have storage heaters.

I would expect that 19% to reduce very quickly once you start using the heaters during the day.

The e7 set-up may have been left over from when the property had storage heaters, which were probably ripped out under the false assumption they were expensive to run.

So, I would look to switch to the cheapest single rate tariff. You do not always have to change the meter to do this. Many suppliers can combine the two meter readings. But before you switch, ring the supplier to check. If a meter change is required, ask the landlord for permission.

When switching, I would compare using average figures for an all electric property. These are between 5000 - 7000kwh. Use both of those figures and see what comes up. Do this asap as temperatures are dropping so you heating bills will start to go up a lot.

Compare that with an E7 tariff with a best case scenario of 25% night use and a worse case of 10%.

You should see a decent difference.

The only thing that may benefit from your E7 tariff at the moment is the hot water tank. But, it is not enough to make it worth it.

cranford

I have E7 and my usage for Immersion heater, washing machine and tumble dryer was about 30% but for safety reasons I stopped using the tumble dryer at night.
So when I last switched I found Avro Energy that lets you keep your E7 meter and combines the 2 readings on to a single rate and going from a big 6 supplier fix rate to another fix my electricity bill fell from about £50 a month to £40.

Pagett

WorkFromHome wrote: »

I use Cheap Energy Club to find better deals and my fixed term with First Utilty ends on 31 Dec. I moved house this year and now have an Economy 7 meter which confuses me so much. On the Club I need to enter my usage percentage for this type of meter, how do I do that?

Last readings -
Night 04417
Day 21673

Low rate percentage = (Low rate annual consumption / (low + day rate annual consumption)) x 100

e.g
Say your day rate annual consumption was 3000kWh
Say your low rate annual consumption was 5000kWh

Low rate percentage = (5000/8000) x 100 = 62.5%

cranford

In my case when a new electricity meter was installed about five years go both the day and night readings were set to zero so over the last five years I know the exact percentage of night use.
In your case if you assume that the meter was installed at zero for both readings then the total units used was 26090 and this would give a night percentage of 16.9% for the 4417 use.

Using your july/oct readings gives a day units of 632 and night units of 152. So with total of 784 it gives as a previous poster has said a night percentage of 19% but as these are summer months I would expect day time consumption to go up and the night use to stay about the same and thus the night percentage would go down which would confirm the overall percentage that the meter has used in its life.
Some of the switch site uses an average annual electricity figure of 3100 kwh for a medium size huse so depending on when your readings where taken in July and October your annual consumption could be similar if not less.