Help Please With Night Storage Heaters, Related Meters And Huge Electricity Bills

macman

So, we've  established that consumption isn't high, but the bills (allegedly) are. So, either there is a billing error,  also unlikely. So what we are left with is an expensive and unsuitable metering and tariff system for the heating now installed.
OP, you need to tell us what your DD is set at and what unit rate you are paying on both day and night, and the s/c.
But the fact that no other supplier but the legacy one will support your metering is clear evidence that you have E10 or similar. You need to bite the bullet, do whatever wiring alterations are necessary, and go over to E7 on a single meter, which will let you choose from any supplier. The convectors are unsuitable, but I'd leave them for now until such time as those rooms need to be regularly heated, then swap them for NSH's.
I'm baffled as to why you spent a lot of money updating the heating systems without similarly changing the metering to something more suitable. Did someone do an overall design for this system, or did you devise it yourselves?
I think that the solar panels are just a red herring. They don't 'heat your hot water', they just provide some of the input during the daylight hours to offset against your overall electricity bill. It would be far more economic to just heat your hot water overnight on cheap rate E7.

char58

The solar panels have their own separate output meter and then we have a gadget attached to the daytime meter wiring from the solar panel wiring that is supposed to sense when the water tank needs heating and the solar energy is used to heat the water. I honestly don't know if it helps with anything else because our daytime usage is so high. The 10,592kwh is what we are being billed for so I can only assume this is our usage after the deduction of the solar generation which is every quarter.

Gerry1

macman said:

The convectors are unsuitable, but I'd leave them for now until such time as those rooms need to be regularly heated, then swap them for NSH's.

NSHs in bedrooms might not be a good idea for two reasons.

• They're likely to be hottest when you're sleeping, which may not be very comfortable.

• The convectors probably aren't used at high output for long periods.  Bedrooms are normally kept at lower temperatures than living rooms, and there may be enough background heat rising from downstairs at most times. The capital cost of installing NSHs (especially clever ones) versus the cheaper kWh usage costs may make the payback time unrealistically long.

char58

We are with NPower. Super Fix March 2021 v3 14.520p with standing charge of 15.310 for the daytime meter and the night time meter as from October 1st is on the standard rate because according to NPower a related meter can only be on a standard meter and that has now increased to 16.854p from 10.07p. They are anticipating that we will have an annual night time bill increase of £600 according to our past usage.  We have more than standard loft insulation but do not have cavity wall insulation. We have been paying £105 per month but this is likely to be increased to £150 per month. In our last property which was a 5 bedroom detached house, we paid £85 for gas and electricity and there were four of us living there. Our daytime usage just seems a lot to us when our son and his girlfriend's like for like house, apart from they've got gas central heating is literally half what ours is.

Carrot007

char58 said:

Our daytime usage just seems a lot to us when our son and his girlfriend's like for like house, apart from they've got gas central heating is literally half what ours is.

Sounds like you are doing very well for the all electric RHT meters tarrif then. I would have expected your to be more.

char58 said:

We are with NPower. Super Fix March 2021

So eon next soon and likely then tied in to them at a probbaly even worse rate (as it would have been had npower continued), all the complex ones will move last since they hope you will go e7 or something first. Which is probably a good idea. The changes on your side are fairly easy. Remove both old consumer units (or indeed however many you have, 3 right if i counted the meters right!), fit a big modern one, connect up. Accept that everything wil be 24/7 so maybe get some timeswitches to control the things that need to be off peak (assuming you go with e7), because contactors (they tell off peak things when it is of fepak and then should be on)aint gonna happen unless you are a business customer or can talk the legs of a donkey.

char58

Thank you for your comments and I think we will have to get an electrician in to change the wiring then as you say we can change to a day and night meter and swap to another supplier with a much better night time rate. When we had the solar and NSH's installed no-one mentioned the potential problems we would have in the future in changing to another supplier and only during lockdown have I had the chance to look at all our bills and try and do something about them and then come unstuck when the companies I approached weren't interested. I thought Bulb sounded promising but after initially speaking to them and they seemed keen, they said to send all my figures which I did and I've not heard from them again even though I have emailed twice since. I must admit that I didn't realise our daytime figures were considered high until different companies I spoke to said they were.

macman

char58 said:

We are with NPower. Super Fix March 2021 v3 14.520p with standing charge of 15.310 for the daytime meter and the night time meter as from October 1st is on the standard rate because according to NPower a related meter can only be on a standard meter and that has now increased to 16.854p from 10.07p. They are anticipating that we will have an annual night time bill increase of £600 according to our past usage.  We have more than standard loft insulation but do not have cavity wall insulation. We have been paying £105 per month but this is likely to be increased to £150 per month. In our last property which was a 5 bedroom detached house, we paid £85 for gas and electricity and there were four of us living there. Our daytime usage just seems a lot to us when our son and his girlfriend's like for like house, apart from they've got gas central heating is literally half what ours is.

Usage, or cost? Mains gas is about a fifth of the price per kWh of what you are paying on standard rate. You bought an all-electric property. The only way to reduce that huge differential is to use E7 with NSH's and an immersion heater to supplement the solar input to your DHW.
The average 3 b/r property uses around 12.5K kWh of gas annually, and 3.5K kWh of electricity, so your figure of 10.5K kWh combined is really very low. Your problem is the hopelessly uneconomic tariff you have locked yourself into. 

macman

Forget talking to Bulb or anyone else until you have changed the metering. Only the legacy supplier (in your case nPower) will support this, and that's only because they are required to do so by statute. No one else will touch it.

nPower

Hello char58, 
It sounds like you have what we call a complex metering site or a multi mpan site where you have two different supplies, one for your day/night rates and the other for your heating. If we installed an economy 7 meter you may lose access to your heating, this is why we recommend getting in a private electrician to ensure your heating is wired to the E7 meter. This responsibility falls with the account holder and not the supplier and does come at a cost. If you have an immersion heater this would run on the cheaper heat rates at all times. Switching to an economy 7 meter may be more costly in the long term. 

If you wish for us to look into your usage please get in touch with us using the contact details on our page and our team will be happy to assist you. 

Thanks
Steven 

macman

nPower said:

Hello char58, 
It sounds like you have what we call a complex metering site or a multi mpan site where you have two different supplies, one for your day/night rates and the other for your heating. If we installed an economy 7 meter you may lose access to your heating, this is why we recommend getting in a private electrician to ensure your heating is wired to the E7 meter. This responsibility falls with the account holder and not the supplier and does come at a cost. If you have an immersion heater this would run on the cheaper heat rates at all times. Switching to an economy 7 meter may be more costly in the long term. 

If you wish for us to look into your usage please get in touch with us using the contact details on our page and our team will be happy to assist you. 

Thanks
Steven 

Have you read the whole thread? Quite how you come to that conclusion is beyond me. The tariff increase alone is far more than the OP is likely to pay for a day's work rewiring the immersion and NSH circuits. If that increase is correct, then they'll get back the investment in one winter, even with the added bill for the new meter.
An immersion heater would run on cheap rate during the 7 off-peak hours, not 'at all times'.