Green Energy "Tide" Tariff + Storage heaters = what are the issues?

EssexHebridean

Hello all - hoping for some input on this, although I stress it's just something I'm considering at the moment. we have just instigated a switch to GE's "Sparkling" fix, and while sorting that out last night I looked, out of interest, at their "Tide" option. On the face of it, as a relatively high night use E7 customer (At least 75%, potentially a little higher with effort) it would appear that this would be by far our likely cheapest option for electricity currently. My question is that as our storage heaters and immersion are currently only fed when the gizmo on the wall tells the meter to switch to what we used to, back in the good old days, refer to as the "cheap rate" (I know, how quaint!) is a classic time of use tariff like Tide even workable for us without huge amounts of work, rewiring etc? We do have one Quantum heater which I know can be manually programmed to ensure it only charges at the "right" time (although for charging purposes, even that only takes its feed overnight currently), but the others are older box-of-bricks type with straightforward input/output dials and no other controls, and the immersion has no adjustable timer at all - the control box has three options being "boost" "Timed" (to pre-set timings) or "off" as I recall. Again - not an issue currently as without interaction from us it only has a power source overnight anyway. 

I can't think of any way that our current set up could work with a tariff like Tide, but figured it was worth asking on here as others may know differently. (I'd ask that if answering people make clear if their response is from personal experience, or theoretical, please!) 

TYIA. 

Mstty

If you can manage your energy everyday to pretty much the same levels and don't use much between 4-8pm (as in just your background electricity requirements) it could work well. 

I blew a fuse in brain cell 1 out of 2 trying to work it out if we ever went for a tariff like that but if you have the bright app etc you could statistically plot your current usage and times and then the changes to make to make it even better with tide....oops brain cell 2 popped.

EssexHebridean

Haha it was exploding my brain cells trying to work through the practicalities Mstty! And it is really the practical side that I'm still a bit flummoxed on - the financials would work - on days we're both in the office we rarely get home before 7pm anyway - so leaving only an hour at that pricey High Tide rate.  It's more the aspect of how - physically - the feed to charge the heaters and the immersion would be switched on that I'm head scratching about. 

The pure financial side of things would be easier to work out for certain if we had a smart meter which currently we don't - I know we'd need to have one for Tide tariff of course. I'm pretty confident that it could be cheaper though. 

QrizB

I've been looking at Tide on-and-off for a year or more now (almost all the search hits on this forum are my posts ).

Green Energy UK have not changed the low or standard rates on Tide all year so far as I can tell, although the peak has nudged up (see screenshot in this post from Feb).

It's the best time-of-use tariff I know of for someone who:

• doesn't qualify for an EV tariff,
• can arrange most of their loads for the cheap 7 hours, and
• can definitely avoid using anything other than base load power between 1600-2000 on weekdays.

I emailed GEUK recently with an enquiry re. Tide in case Octopus don't let me renew on Go in September. Their reply included this comment:

... it is just worth mentioning the high TIDE period as if the tariff is not used correctly then it can end up being another £200 on your bill each month, this is at the very worst but it has happened.

So yes, it could suit switched-on customers who can avoid the weekday evening peak - but, unlike Sparkling, it's definitely not for everyone!

EssexHebridean said:

Haha it was exploding my brain cells trying to work through the practicalities Mstty! And it is really the practical side that I'm still a bit flummoxed on - the financials would work - on days we're both in the office we rarely get home before 7pm anyway - so leaving only an hour at that pricey High Tide rate.  It's more the aspect of how - physically - the feed to charge the heaters and the immersion would be switched on that I'm head scratching about.

It's certainly possible with a 5-terminal smart meter, or a 4-terminal plus an ALCS relay. You'd need to speak to GEUK about how they set their smart meter switching up but I would imagine you won't be the first ex-E7 customer to ask this question.

I can describe in more detail if you wish, or if any of those words are Martian?

EssexHebridean

@QrizB thank you - not too much Martian in there I don't think! And no - logically you're right, it's a tariff that really is ideally suited to E7 customers isn't it! I'd definitely want to get the smart meter installed while we were still on Sparkling and as a 5-terminal so that if we needed to go back to ordinary E7 in the future we could do so - so it would be dependant on that setup working OK I think, and as it will be to a degree experimental I'd hate to think we could be stuck either with a time of use tariff that really didn't work for us OR, worse, on a single rate tariff in the middle of winter! 

Lots of thinking, and plotting, and planning for us over the next little while I think - first to find our way with Green once the switch happens, and then to really start noting what power we do use in those early evening peak hours to see whether it actually would be worth looking at.