Economy 10 Energy Usage - Help!

Reece10

Hi guys - We need help with our Economy 10 heating system - any advice would be greatly appreciated!

We're a couple living in a 2-bed flat. I believe we have an Economy 10 meter (Radio Telemeter Series K), so no gas, only electrics. We have 3 meter readings:
Rate 1. Day Rate at 22.216p - 31808 (previous month: 31664 ... up by 144kwh)
Rate 2. Night Rate at 8.755p - 4743 (previous month: 4050 ... up by 693kwh)
Rate 3. Day Rate 2 at 22.216p - 72935 (previous month: 72386 ... up by 549kwh)

We've used 1386kwh in ONE month - the average UK household uses 300kwh per month. As you can imagine our energy bills are astronomical. We use no more energy than the average household, in fact we save in every way possible, even wear 4 layers of clothes to save using heating.

Does anybody know what Day Rate 2 is? I've heard it may be for heating but the only built in heating we have is underfloor heating (via our immersion system) and we've hardly even touched that as it doesn't heat the room up enough. We have electric heaters in each room which we use a few times each month, when the indoor temperate goes below 10°C. I've heard things about storage heaters being charged overnight on Eco7 but these are just heaters that plug in to a standard socket so I assume the overnight charging isn't possible? I've also heard Day Rate 2 is an Off-Peak usage time, around 1pm-4pm, but if so shouldn't we be charged less by our energy supplier?

Our immersion heater has 2 switches - one is a booster and the other is an Eco7 supply which doesn't work - we only have hot water when using the booster, which we switch on every 2 nights.

Basically - can somebody please explain how an Economy 10 property SHOULD work? I wouldn't mind paying the high prices if the flat was warm, but the average indoor temperature is 13°C and it's only going to get colder.

Many thanks,
Reece

Robin9

Reece10 wrote: »

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We've used 1386kwh in ONE month - the average UK household uses 300kwh per month. ..................

11386 for a winters month using electric heating is possible. You are incorrect with the 300 kwh - that is the electric consumption in a gas heated house.

Frugal_Foxy

It all looks a bit strange. I'm on Economy 7 and sometimes you get 2 night rates, ie first 200 units at x pence and 200 and up you pay slightly more. But yours are the same so I wonder if there's a mistake. Although it could just be how it's set up as you get 3 batches of cheaper elec so maybe each timed period has it's own meter reading.

Re night storage heaters on E7, waste of time and huge cost, been there done that, will never have them again.

This makes interesting reading, particularly the posts lower down the page, where you can see a lot a problems and why people's bills were wrong and they in fact had a different meter to what they thought they had! There are some people who seem to have a similar problem to yourselves:
https://economy10.com/overview/

I will keep investigating and see if I can find anything else, although I bet you get some good answers on here. Who is your elec supplier?

ps: I've just had a thought about your hot water probs. I think my parents had something similar with immersion heater... do you know an electrician, he could maybe help there.

PeterGr

Are you sure ? Is this how your bill is laid out? Economy 10 is a 2 rate tariff and off your readings 549 + 144 = 693, so it could be peak, off-peak and total?


Economy 10 is a 2 rate tariff with 10 hours of off-peak supply, but those 10 hours are split into 3 periods during the day & night. (Your supplier determines what those times are). It is therefore essential that your underfloor and immersion heating operate during the off peak periods as they are 'storing' the cheaper rate energy. If parts of this aren't working then try and get them fixed.


It requires your own discipline to use your other heaters and appliances during off peak periods if it makes sense, and to minimise your peak rate consumption.


But first you need to sort out exactly what the 3 meter reads are so that you can monitor and control you consumption.

macman

Firstly, get the main element fixed on the immersion heater. At present, you are heating all your water on (boost) peak rate at 22p per kWh.
Secondly, it is crazy to use plug in heaters of any kind on E10, as they will also be on peak rate, unless you are nocturnal. The whole point of E7 or E10 is to utilise the cheap night rate, usually by the use of night storage heaters.
There are two ways to solve this: either change the heating to NSH's, or change the metering to single rate.
As pointed out above, your usage is not that high for an electric only property. The problem is that too much of it is being billed on peak rate.

PeterGr

Economy 10 differs from Economy 7 in that depending which region you live in, between 5 and 8 hours of the off peak rate occurs during the day. (some in the afternoon and some in the evening) So electric heating which is controlled to operate within these times leads to lower costs.


This is not the same operating principles behind Economy 7 and storage heaters.

macman

Correct, but in this case the OP is not utilising the off peak hours, but simply using the plug in heaters when the heat is required.
Without knowing the details of the u/f heating, it's difficult to offer much advice, but is it possible that the u/f is intended to act as a thermal store and release stored cheap rate energy during the day? This will be a third of the cost of running it during the day
I don't understand 'u/f heating via our immersion system'. This implies that it is a wet system, but it must still be controllable separately from the immersion heater, otherwise it would be on in the summer.

matelodave

Most electric underfloor systems work like storage heaters and therefore charge on the off peak supply and I guess that's what the OP is trying to say when he says it's part of the immersion system.

As they work like storage heaters it need to be left switched on all the time so that it can charge up during the off peak periods - switching it on and off when you want heat is not the way to use it - there's usually an associated room thermostat to control the temperature.

It's probably on a separately switched off-peak supply.

as said above heating the water with the top immersion and using plug in panel heaters will be costing 22.21p for each kwh thats used, whereas if the bottom heater was fixed and the underfloor heating was used properly then each kwh would only cost 8.755p, well under half the cost.

Looking at the figures it looks like the so called rate 2 is the sum of rate 1 plus rate 3 (144+549=693) so I'd suggest that the OP put a bit of effort into taking daily meter readings for a couple of weeks to try and understand what is going on, what is using all the energy (and when) and which is day, which is night and which it the total.

Sort out the immersion heater so you can heat the water during off peak times and see what happens when the u/f heating is switched on (and left on for a few days) instead of using plug-in heaters all over the place.

Do your own sums and try to realise that it costs 2.5 times more to use a kwh of leccy at the peak rate than it does at the off peak rate, so try to reduce peak rate consumption and transfer it to off peak.

Do your washing, tumble drying, dishwashing and even ironing and vacuum cleaning during off peak times, especially if you get off peak energy at convenient times of the day.

coffeehound

Yes it’s essential to find out the exact times of the off-peak rate so that other appliances can be run at the right times.

It seems the only reliable way to find this out is to watch the meter and note the switching times yourself.