E7 E10 off-peak hours nightmare

saqqar

In January I received the keys for my new flat, the flat was single fule energy and fitted with storage heaters which are connected to Secure Liberty 100 smart meter with two rates.

I contacted the current supplier at that time which was GreenEnergy, they said the timing clock had to be reset as I am a new customer and I have to pick a plan and new tariff, which I did. 

After the first very high bill, I discovered that the off-peak hours are not only at night time but three times a day! After personal observation and a customer support ticket, I have been told that my current off-peak hours are: 00:30-04:30, 07:30-13:00, 16:00-20:30 which is not accurate at all. 

Anyway, after few weeks of ping-pong emails, they said they cannot change that timing for me. So, I decided, to change supplier, and who is better than the one who installed the meter for the property? that's what I was thinking of. Because I found the E.ON logo on the meter and other electrical equipment around it, I got a quote and then switched to them in May 2021. I switched off the heaters during the summertime. 

In September, back to the movie. Three times a day off-peak periods with the storage heaters on means too much spending. So, again after few weeks of complaints and so many calls and emails, they gave me a date for an engineer visit at the end of November to set the faulty time switch for me, they said.

Meanwhile, I got in touch with Octopus Energy customer service to see if they can help on switching to them and fix the hours in one go, also no luck, they said they cannot help, I need to contact my current supplier and sort it out prior to change supplier.

I have few questions here;

• Is that legal for a supplier to refuse to fix a timing switch for a customer? I guess they are making good money from that )
• Since the meter is smart; Why can't they communicate with the meter directly and fix that timing remotely? can't they take the meter readings remotely at least?
• I am looking to have the off-peak hours to come in one shift like 00:00 to 07:00 or similar, so my storage heaters will operate once a day rather than three times a day at the moment.
• What type of meters do I have? because if we calculate the off-peak hours they are 14, not 7 nor 10!
• The E7 & E10 are those meter types or just naming for setup/timing methods? In other words, will the engineer be able to switch between E7 and E10 or that will require replacing the meter entirely? otherwise, I will end up with another "Sorry, we cannot change the timing" after waiting for all that time.

Thanks & sorry for the long story!

QrizB

Your storage heaters should only be coming on during off-peak hours. Having too many off-peak hours is a bonus, not a problem.

Can you give details of your tariff, your monthly meter readings since you moved in in January, and (if possible) a photo of your meter and the associated wiring?

Swipe

My E7 hours are set on my smart meter so I don't see why this is such a problem for them (assuming you are already on an E7 tariff) unless it's SMETS1 meter which they can't communicate with.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

check your bills to see if you are on E7 or E10.

If you were getting 'my current off-peak hours are: 00:30-04:30, 07:30-13:00, 16:00-20:30' then that would be 14 hours.

The advantage of an afternoon charging period or early evening charging period is that the heaters get a boost, when the would be getting cooler, still at the cheaper rate.

MWT

Swipe said:

My E7 hours are set on my smart meter so I don't see why this is such a problem for them (assuming you are already on an E7 tariff) unless it's SMETS1 meter which they can't communicate with.

saqqar said:

In January I received the keys for my new flat, the flat was single fule energy and fitted with storage heaters which are connected to Secure Liberty 100 smart meter with two rates.

The Secure Liberty 100 is indeed a SMETS1 meter...

... but, as per QrizB, it is not clear why 'too many' hours at low rate is a problem, unless it is just that you feel your storage heaters are on for too much time each day for your needs... ?

Also, for the OP, what do you actually think your low rate periods are, as that list you were given is clearly wrong.

In an ideal world, are you asking to be changed to E7?

saqqar

Thank you guys for your replies.

QrizB said:

Having too many off-peak hours is a bonus, not a problem.

MWT said:

not clear why 'too many' hours at low rate is a problem, unless it is just that you feel your storage heaters are on for too much time each day for your needs... ?

Too many hours at a low rate is a big problem because the storage heaters will go on for long hours, day and night, cold and hot, while we are in and out of the flat. And this is obviously redundant energy that has caused us a lot of money.
There is no controller unit attached to the heaters and we cannot set them on a lower degree because they will heat nothing then. 
Check out the consumed energy during January on the attached table. 

QrizB said:

Can you give details of your tariff, your monthly meter readings since you moved in in January, and (if possible) a photo of your meter and the associated wiring?

I am on a "Fix 1 Year v6" tariff with EON, see below the wiring setup that I have.

[Deleted User] said:

check your bills to see if you are on E7 or E10.

The advantage of an afternoon charging period or early evening charging period is that the heaters get a boost, when the would be getting cooler, still at the cheaper rate.

I have already, no helpful information in that regard.

I agree but that cost me £ 367.26 in my first month!

MWT said:

what do you actually think your low rate periods are, as that list you were given is clearly wrong.

In an ideal world, are you asking to be changed to E7?

The actual low rate periods are mutable, the latest pattern (last week and today) is: 0100->0600, 1400->1700, 2100->?  (still need to figure out).

In an ideal world, I wanted the off-peak to be in one shift at night time only (no matter what that is called E7 etc), where the heaters can store some heat for the next morning (as they are supposed to work I believe). 

[Deleted User]

saqqar said:

There is no controller unit attached to the heaters and we cannot set them on a lower degree because they will heat nothing then. 

Hi,

what kinda heaters have you got, seems odd to have no input/output controls?

Can you stick up a couple of photies, please?

shinytop

How many heaters do you have?  Just to give you an idea, our consumption last year was slightly over double yours for eight of them on E7. I had a much cheaper rate though. 

MWT

saqqar said:

MWT said:

what do you actually think your low rate periods are, as that list you were given is clearly wrong.

In an ideal world, are you asking to be changed to E7?

The actual low rate periods are mutable, the latest pattern (last week and today) is: 0100->0600, 1400->1700, 2100->?  (still need to figure out).

In an ideal world, I wanted the off-peak to be in one shift at night time only (no matter what that is called E7 etc), where the heaters can store some heat for the next morning (as they are supposed to work I believe). 

E10 can be in different forms, but one of them is 'Afternoon/evening/overnight', which is what you seem to have. Those times will move by an hour when the clocks go back of course.

Even if you get it changed to E7 you are only going to be saving 3 hours a day and will not have the boost to the heating in the afternoon or evening so you may find things getting a bit cold later on in the day.

The usual problem is that if the system was installed as E10 then the storage heaters have been sized for that as well, so will not be able to keep the place warm if you you switch to E7...

Your bills are high in general, not just in winter with the heating on, I'd want to understand how you are using so much power in July and August for example?

stewie_griffin

The E.ON E10 times are 00:00 - 05:00, 13:00 - 16:00 and 20:00 to 22:00. These are GMT so likely to be an hour later at the moment.

saqqar

frugalmacdugal said:

what kinda heaters have you got, seems odd to have no input/output controls?

Can you stick up a couple of photies, please?

What I meant by saying no controller earlier, is that no central controller to set the temperature on the whole system, but of course, each radiator has its own control panel that has been set to the lowest efficient possible setting that I can set.

shinytop said:

How many heaters do you have?

We have six Dimplex DuoHeat radiator units. With different sizes and outputs. For a 3 bedrooms 45 years old 95sqm flat.