Does economy 7 mean EVERY bit of electric is cheap during off peak?

PaschalFun

dogshome wrote: »

Hmmm - Mother-in Law lived in a bungalow that had old style ECO7

Her meter set-up had a Black standard meter for all power, other than that supplied to S/Rads and the hot water tank



The power for these was by seperate cables from the main supply box, which ran through a time clock, then on to a White meter and fuse box that fed a dedicated circuit for only the S/Rads & water tank

Early in my working career I was the bag carrier for a senior manager of a firm supplying the Eastern Electricity Board.
EB's head office had a large showroom dedicated to ECO7 sales, with a 'Come-on' to developers in that if they installed ECO7 and no Gas in a property, EB would install the Electric supply to the development for FREE.

The whole point was to create a market for Elec that power stations, because they could not simply shut down, were producing overnight and was cheap

EB certainly didn't want customers to have the ability to move their Elec consumption from Expensive Day to Cheap night, so hence the dedicated ECO7 circuits with hard wired outlets for S/Rads & Hot Water tanks

The Eastern Electricity Board was essentially gone by 1990

By 1995, the Eastern Electricity plc was which had acquired the assets of the EEB had been privatised was effectively taken over by Hanson plc.

In 1998, Texas Utilities took over, trading as TXU Energi.

It was not until 1998, that anyone could apply to switch electricity supplier in the UK.

(Since that time, Powergen acquired the UK operations of Texas Utilities. In turn, Eon then bought Powergen and so are the effective legacy supplier for the Eastern Supply region today)

Anyone in the Eastern Supply region, or indeed anywhere in GB, on an Economy 7 tariff can switch supplier.

However, if you are on a legacy tariff where you do not receive 7 hours of cheap rate electricity every day, where all electricity consumed in that 7 hours is not charged at that cheap rate, please do not attempt to switch supplier with that type of complex metering arrangement still in place.

I do think taking this thread off topic in relation to comparatively rare legacy tariffs is unhelpful to the OP.
The OP asked specifically about Economy 7 and whether or not "EVERY bit of electric is cheap during off peak" - the answer has been provided already, i.e. it is.
(and always has been)

GibbsRule_No3

I had this question today as my immersion E7 water heater feed needs changing, on the tank I have the “booster” switch that I can have heat my water at anytime of the day, for instance if I’ve been on holiday and come home after E7 times are finished. I asked the electrician if the non E7 switch was used during the E7 times, luckily it does not go off until 8.43 am so I can get up at say 6am and turn it on physically, unlike the known E7 switch that comes on the timer, would I be charged at E7 rate he said No. So now I’m confused, might have to try the trick of seeing what meter 1 or 2 spins round tomorrow morning. I know that when I have been awake late at night when the E7 switches on my living room lights dim down. So I just thought it automatically switched everything to E7 rate hence my question to the electrician, I wanted to check.