Dual rate meters (Scottish Power / Solar)

007apm

We have a solar PV system with batteries and I wanted to explore whether we could access cheap rate electricity from Scottish Power in the winter months by charging the batteries with Economy 7 over night.  Unfortunately the best tariff for this would be Octopus Go but they have a requirement for an electric vehicle which we don't have. 
Scottish Power's agent said that:

• We could move to the capped economy 7 tariff without losing the cap
• We would need a dual rate meter (We have a SMET 1 which reports every 1/2h for SEG)
• We don't currently have a 'dual rate meter'
• There are no appointments available to get one...

Has anyone ever managed to get from single rate to economy 7?  Can anyone offer any tips? Is anyone aware of a better deal for homes with battery storage that is not Tesla and doesn't have an EV?

A

Post script

If anyone does get solar (or alternative) and wants to reduce their direct debit accordingly - Keep complaining, work out your figures and eventually they will listen and set the DD to your calculations.  I had to 'chat' and insist on the change after 2 coherent complaint emails were ignored.  Their numbers are based on our historical usage which was obviously higher before solar panels were installed and their computer kept saying 'No'.
 

Alnat1

How long have you had the solar and batteries? We only had our system installed in March and have decided to wait 12 months to see how it runs before making big changes.

We did switch from Scottish Power to Octopus though, took the SVT for gas and electricity and Outgoing Agile for the solar we export. With the Octopus system, the credits for solar generation are credited on your monthly bill, so reduce the amount owed for supply. Early days yet but our account is in credit. I opted for the variable DD, pay on receipt of bill so not made a payment yet since the account was opened. 

I did some quick maths to work out expected annual costs and I'm sticking 1/12th of that figure in a savings account each month so we can cover the big winter bills. March next year we'll decide if there's a cheaper way to do it.

QrizB

007apm said:

Scottish Power's agent said that:

• We could move to the capped economy 7 tariff without losing the cap
• We would need a dual rate meter (We have a SMET 1 which reports every 1/2h for SEG)
• We don't currently have a 'dual rate meter'
• There are no appointments available to get one...

Has anyone ever managed to get from single rate to economy 7?

I would have hoped that a SMETS1 meter that's enrolled with the DCC, like yours, could be switched to dual-rate remotely without any need for a replacement.

Are you on a cap-beating fixed tariff with SP? If not, have you considered switching supply to Octopus and taking their 7.5p/kWh Outgoing tariff instead of SP's 5.5p/kWh SEG? Octopus seem much more switched on with smart metering than most of the other suppliers.

(And no, I'm not fishing for a referral!)

007apm

@QrizB (Firstly thankyou) Octopus have said no 3 times to their EV tariffs and would only offer Agile.  This is a gamble too far at this time because Agile is uncapped.

cornishman_2

I am with EDF.  It took me 7 months to get them to fit a SMET 2 meter.  My EV tariff was 4.5p midnight to 5 am and the rest of the day 19p.   The deal ends next week and then it's 4.5 p night and 42p day rate.   OUCH. .  I have all car charging and hot water heating at night.  In the winter I may get some panel heater and run them at 4.5 p as well... 

[Deleted User]

007apm said:

@QrizB (Firstly thankyou) Octopus have said no 3 times to their EV tariffs and would only offer Agile.  This is a gamble too far at this time because Agile is uncapped.

 Agile was /is capped to a maximum of 35p/kWh by Octopus. There is no risk as you can change to another Octopus tariff without penalty ( save for some 30 day restrictions on time-of-use) tariffs.

QrizB

007apm said:

@QrizB (Firstly thankyou) Octopus have said no 3 times to their EV tariffs and would only offer Agile.  This is a gamble too far at this time because Agile is uncapped

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

I appreciate that Octopus have said "no" to Go but you could ask to join them on Flexible. This has an E7 option which would give you the cheaper overnight period (I don'tn know how it compares to SP).

You would also benefit from their 7.5p Outgoing tariff, which is 2p/kWh more than you're getting in SEG with SP.

And as Dolor says, Agile *is* capped, albeit by Octopus rather than by Ofgem.

007apm

Thank you, SP are woeful if you ask for anything that is unusual.  Looking at the Agile data, which I presume reflects actual wholesale costs, as one would expect electricity is cheaper for SP to buy overnight than it is at peak times during the day.  Hence if SP provide an economy 7 tariff then they would pay less for energy supplied overnight and have more chance of making a profit?  For some reason SP have stopped fitting dual rate meters and advise that their SMET1 and SMET2 meters do not support Economy 7? Just humour me...  Time based tariffs need time based meter readings which is exactly what they get every half hour from my meter?  Unfortunately they can't provide a dual rate service because they don't supply dual rate meters any more.  I've raised a complaint because it is madness on their part and it would surely be greener to supply off peak energy?  I look forward to SP's 'Terribly sorry' and good will gesture of '50p' when frankly they need to do better.

Thank you for the correction - Agile is capped at 35p which is say 20% more expensive than SP's cap. Agile SEG prices this week have been ~13p which is more than double the SP rate.  As a rough estimate we expect to use 600KWh/year from the grid (as yet unproven) and contribute 1800KWh/year as export. (Saving = 600(3X - G) where X is the import tariff and G the Grid tariff.

With SP (3X-G) = (16.5-28.5) = -12p, to beat this with Agile we need:

X > 23/3 (7.67p) to be better value if all of our electricity is at the Agile cap 35p
X> 13/3 (4.33p) to be better value if electricity is bought at the average cheapest 4h over the past year from Agile.

Scanning the export tariff graph I only saw the minimum rate drop below to 4p on the odd occasion and was usually well over 5p

Octopus Flex currently offers night rate at ~20p and export rate at 7.5p which suggests an electricity net bill of  £31per year on a more detailed spreadsheet.  Good call @QrizB!  

The elephant in the room might be gas rates but these are virtually the same as SP. This appears to be on the OFGEM cap?

Flex could over £100 per year.  There always has to be an exception to prove @MartinLewisMoneyShowitv1 can be wrong but ours is very much an edge case and the exception validates the rule.