Octopus Energy Economy 7 and Smart meter issue

durantd65

The consumer unit is a standard one, as far as I know. The pool has it's own breaker. Originally the pool was set to heat when it needed to. That is when the thermostat dropped by 1 C. That could happen at any time during the day (and night). It was using 20kW in a 24 hour period ( the heater is 3.65kW and the swimming pumps 7kW). So to save some money, we changed it to only heat at night. That seemed to work for us.

It is not too much of a problem to move the time for the start to 2am. But, as I mentioned earlier, I was unaware that there was a 10 minute difference in the Economy 7 start time compared to the advertised time.

So my reason for posting was to ask if the time difference is "normal", and can it be changed? I also wanted to alert others who might be setting their appliances to switch on at 0130 and be losing money. In my case alone it would be about £133 a year.

Mstty

durantd65 said:

We programme most of the devices to come on during the night. Washing machine / tumble dryer, dishwasher. The high consumption item is a swim spa which uses about 20kW to heat. Before they went bust, we were with Avro Energy, which was affordable. Now we are watching the costs more closely.

I suspect the hot tubs are going to be empty this summer for most never to be refilled 

durantd65

Just to say that our pool is for swimming, for exercise and health reasons. My wife needs it for help with arthritus and I use it to keep fit. I swim about a mile every other day. An expensive choice, perhaps, but not more than joining a gym or health club (at the moment!!).

Gerry1

You might well be better off heating the pool with gas, if you have it, or oil.  The October price rise will be crippling.

Swipe

Mstty said:

durantd65 said:

We programme most of the devices to come on during the night. Washing machine / tumble dryer, dishwasher. The high consumption item is a swim spa which uses about 20kW to heat. Before they went bust, we were with Avro Energy, which was affordable. Now we are watching the costs more closely.

I suspect the hot tubs are going to be empty this summer for most never to be refilled 

I can see a lot of hot tub shops going out of business very soon.

durantd65

QrizB said:

Scrounger said:

QrizB said:

It is normal to connect high-load devices to the E7 circuits which are switched directly by the meter, rather than relying on an internal clock which may not be synchronised. This avoids this problem completely.

You would think so but sadly this is not always the case.
If the E7 smart meter billing schedule and E7 ACLS schedule are out of sync this can still result in overcharging.  :'(
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79142684#Comment_79142684
Scrounger

Agreed, but you're a special (and very rare) case :'(

durantd65 said:

The high consumption item is a swim spa which uses about 20kW to heat.

Can you get the spa heater circuit moved to your E7 consumer unit, so it's switched with the E7 ALCS? (I assume you have an E7 CU but it's possible you don't.)

AFAIK, the consumer unit is a standard one(?). There is a separate breaker for the pool. The pool was originally set to heat when it thought it needed to. That is when the thermostat dropped 1 C. That could happen at any time day or night, so was eating up money during the day when we didn't need to use it. It was using 20kW spread over 24 hours, just for heating. So we set it to heat up only at night at the cheaper rate. That seems to work better for us.

It is not too much of a problem to set the pool and other items to come on later at night. But, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't know the hours for the night rate were not as advertised by Octopus. So the reason for my posting was to ask if this 10 minute difference in the hours is "normal". Also I wanted to let others know that they might be paying more than they thought by setting things to run at 0130.

I assume that I have to accept the Economy 7 current hours of operation, and that I can't get it changed?

Gerry1

durantd65 said:

It was using 20kW spread over 24 hours, just for heating.

Nope.  It was using 20kWh spread over 24 hours.

durantd65 said:

But, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't know the hours for the night rate were not as advertised by Octopus. So the reason for my posting was to ask if this 10 minute difference in the hours is "normal". Also I wanted to let others know that they might be paying more than they thought by setting things to run at 0130.

Yes, it's normal to avoid problems if thousands of customers are all switched at exactly the same time.  My E7 Radio Teleswitch has a label stating that its accuracy is +/- 15 minutes.

durantd65 said:

I assume that I have to accept the Economy 7 current hours of operation, and that I can't get it changed?

Correct.  You need to have a circuit that's switched by the meter, or to use a local timer that allows for the potential variance.  Check that it won't be upset by GMT/BST changes.

lebipvid

It is normal to connect high-load devices to the E7 circuits which are switched directly by the meter, rather than relying on an internal clock which may not be synchronised. This avoids this problem completely.

durantd65

OK, I stand corrected 20kWh in 24 hours.

The entire consumer unit is wired to the Smart meter with the E7 tariff, so the whole house gets the lower rate at night, not just the one circuit.

I have just had an email from Octopus Energy to say that they have sent a new ACL (whatever that is?) to the meter and asked me to report back. They say they have put it to be 0030-0730 fot the E7 hours.