What's the opinions on Economy 7 tariffs?

GS..

What's the opinions on Economy 7 tariffs?
Freezer is supposed to be your biggest electricity consumer. I have 3. We've always had economy seven tariff but just moved into a new build on a default (dunno) British  Gas tarrif and looking to switch

Robin9

Read your meter late at night and first thing at the morning for a week and do some sums to see what % of your use is at night. If 30/35% + then E7 may be beneficial. 
What is your heating ?

matelodave

Do what Robin suggests but also work it out.yourself, generally if you've got storage heaters it's a no brainer to go E7 but with gas, oil or even electric heating it's not so clear. How it your hot water and home heated.

The freezers run all the time so they'll use energy for 7 hours off peak and 17 hour peak rates which is an approx 30/70 split but what about everything else? Can you benefit from off-peak by running the washing machine, dryer, dishwasher etc. Check also that there's a enough differential between the peak and off peak pricing.and compare with a single rate tariff which is usually a decent bit cheaper than E7 peak rates although more expensive than off-peak. Use the comparison sites to test them out.

If you dont yet have an idea of what your annual energy consumption is and you don't have electric heating or hot water then try 3500kwh and test it with different E7 peak/off-peak % splits  

Example (you can use your own numbers) dont forget to add standing charges
single tariff at 13p  = 3500 x 13p = £455
E7 tariff 10p/16p with 30/70% split.  E7 = 1050 at 10p and 2450 at 16p = £105 + £392 = £497

GS..

Wow I'm a long way out of date if E7 is only 10/16, it used to be LESS than a 1/3 of day time units. Used to be a no brainer but now I can see why it's now quite a brainer 😁 Bit more maths me thinks

matelodave

I'm all electric heating which runs most of the day but not much during the night so E7 doesn't suit me, but the 10/16p figures are close to some that I've seen (I've also seen even worse up to 19p for peak).

Obviously there are plenty of tariffs around with different costs, you've just to to do some research using the comparison sites - I get through about 7200kwh a year and I'm on a single rate with Symbio at 11.5p/kwh

(there's no way I could persuade my wife to use the washing machine, dryer or dishwasher over night)

Gerry1

Some tariffs (e.g. with Avro) can still be competitive even with night usage as low as 15 - 20%, so just do the sums.  Remember that some areas have E7 with two hours at peak rate from 0030 - 0230 GMT, so check the times in your area.

Going the other way, there's often no need to change away from an E7 meter if you want a singe rate, many suppliers will just bill day and night at the same rate (but not Bulb).