Comfort Plus White Meter (and similar DTS experiences)

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Does anyone else here have Scottish Power Comfort Plus White Meter (or anything similar)? I'm curious to know what other people's experiences are with it. It seems like there's very little information about these floating around, and I want to try and collate something to help people with these meters understand their options. They're a very confusing type of meter and it's taken me a long time to understand mine.

Feel free to share any experiences, but also in particular I'm curious about:

 - Is your tariff good value for you?

 - Have you tried switching suppliers? How did it go?

Here's my experience: at first I didn't realise it was an unusual meter. I thought it was just standard economy 7 so I tried to switch to other economy 7 tariffs. The new suppliers would, apparently, not realise and proceed with the switch anyway. But they'd only switch one of the two MPANs and so scottish power would reject the switch.

I tried to get it switched to an economy 7 meter - scottish power said they could do this but they'd need me to remove my electric heating first. They claimed that electric heating couldn't be used with an economy 7 meter. (????????!!!!!!!) This feels like a load of twaddle - I suspect they were trying to fob me off and prevent me from leaving them.

I've since learnt, from contacting Ofgem, that other suppliers are required to offer me single-rate tariffs without any change to my metering or any extra cost to me (although suppliers of fewer than 50k customers are exempt from this). Presumably the way that would work is that they'd sum up my 3 readings and charge me a single rate based on this. I've done the maths and, amazingly, it seems like it would work out cheaper to accept a single rate rather than staying on scottish power's very expensive tariff, despite my home being heated by storage heaters and with a water heater which mainly runs overnight. I'm now attempting a switch to green energy, although they may be too small to take me on. If that fails, even some of the bigger suppliers have better offers than I currently get with scottish power.

I'm not sure how difficult it will be to switch if I need to do so again. And I'm also not sure what's going to happen in the future, particularly with smart meters. I suspect there's some incentive to remove these meters eventually. My home could be rewired to work off just an economy 7 supply but it would require timers to be installed for the storage heaters. I suspect who is responsible for this will be a point of contention.

I've written more about this on my blog, but since my account on this forum is new, I can't add a link to it here.

burntwood

alecjw said:

Hi,

Does anyone else here have Scottish Power Comfort Plus White Meter (or anything similar)? I'm curious to know what other people's experiences are with it. It seems like there's very little information about these floating around, .....

I've written more about this on my blog, but since my account on this forum is new, I can't add a link to it here.

Plenty of posts about it on this forum.
You've read the rest, so now read the best.
Here's a link to assist you find out more:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search?adv=1

Remember, this is an open forum and anyone can post.

Ectophile

I think what Scottish Power meant was that you currently have separate supplies for heating and everything else.

If you switched to a normal E7 or single rate tarriff, then that would leave your heating disconnected.  It would then be your responsibility to find an electrician to re-connect your heating to the new single supply.  They are only responsible for the supply up to the meter tails.  Anything beyond that is your problem.

[Deleted User]

Ectophile said:

I think what Scottish Power meant was that you currently have separate supplies for heating and everything else.

If you switched to a normal E7 or single rate tarriff, then that would leave your heating disconnected.  It would then be your responsibility to find an electrician to re-connect your heating to the new single supply.  They are only responsible for the supply up to the meter tails.  Anything beyond that is your problem.

This is what I thought - my plan was (with my landlord's permission) to get the meter switched over so that only my regular fuse box is active. Then replace the fuse box for my storage heaters with some timers. I've had so much frustration trying to do this - several electricians have told me this isn't possible, and when I told scottish power they can change my meter and disconnect my storage heaters, they told me they'd be in touch to arrange the meter change within a few weeks. That was over a year ago and I haven't heard back.

Also their wording was specifically "you can't use storage heaters with economy 7", not "your storage heaters will be disconnected and it will be up to you to re-connect them". I was told this multiple times. I feel like this was a cynical attempt to scare off the less technically adept: I did a search and found another post on this forum where someone had been told the same and didn't know what their options were. Anyway, all I was wanting to do was collate this kind of information to help empower other people with these meters to make a choice!

Gerry1

There may be a grain of truth in what you were told.  If you have small storage heaters or underfloor heating, they relied on an afternoon boost from Economy 10 or whatever, otherwise the late afternoon and evenings would have been cool.  If you switch to E7 you may need to add another NSH or upgrade to Dimplex Quantum or similar.

Search this forum for Economy 10, E10, THTC, Heatwise, Redring etc.

Ectophile

Then replace the fuse box for my storage heaters with some timers. I've had so much frustration trying to do this - several electricians have told me this isn't possible

You may need to discuss with an electrician what should be done, rather than you telling them what you want, and them telling you it isn't possible.  That may be rather difficult at the moment, but then you shouldn't need much heat at the moment, either.

You would never replace a fuse with a timer. You might add a timer.  Or you may find that the new E7 meter has an output to tell your electrics that it's now night time, and the heaters should be switched on.

hozza94

On a static timeswitch (Economy 9), it would actually be quite good value if NPower's system wasn't billing me wrong way round.
The timing means that it actually will supply me with sufficient hot water in the early evening whereas I could have problems going for a shower in the evening if I have E7. 
Newer suppliers seem to be happy to take it on with an extra standing charge so switching soon to London Power to save around £100 a year. 

Talldave

This Octopus route to freedom could do with flagging to a wider audience as this is a regular topic that posters are seeking help on. How would we go about getting a dual-MPAN sticky thread created?

Fyne

Talldave said:

This Octopus route to freedom could do with flagging to a wider audience as this is a regular topic that posters are seeking help on. How would we go about getting a dual-MPAN sticky thread created?

The original post regarding Octopus seems to have disappeared, anyone know why ?

[Deleted User]

Fyne said:

Talldave said:

This Octopus route to freedom could do with flagging to a wider audience as this is a regular topic that posters are seeking help on. How would we go about getting a dual-MPAN sticky thread created?

The original post regarding Octopus seems to have disappeared, anyone know why ?

I'm not sure! I can only imagine it's because I included my referral link... I checked the forum policy before doing this though and saw that it's OK to post referral links as long as it isn't in a "spammy" way (ie guess as in, creating a thread or posting a comment on an unrelated thread just to share a referral link). I hoped that sharing my unique experience with octopus would be sufficient to justify sharing my link but maybe someone felt otherwise? I didn't even get any notification so I have no idea how to appeal the deletion of my post

Gerry1

Referral links have to be in the Referrers forum, not this one.  Just post your Octopus info again without the referral.