Mail online article about how the rolling blackouts will be planned and implemented.

molerat

Nothing on my Eon Next bill but I dug out an old Eon PDF and there is a box with H next to the address.  Went through all my other old bills - Symbio, Neon Reef, Eversmart, Iresa - and found nothing from those but Extra Energy and old EDF bills did have it.

deano2099

[Deleted User] said:

There are quite a lot of installations where the circuits to storage radiators are only supplied by the off-peak terminal of the meter, or through a contactor controlled by the meter's timer (not an external timer switch).

Making these radiators turn on outside the off-peak period would require rewiring.

Wow, did not know that. That's fascinating. It's the sort of "idiot-proofing" you'd actually expect in something designed today rather than older systems!

EssexHebridean

deano2099 said:

EssexHebridean said:

deano2099 said:

EssexHebridean said:

Trapdoor said:

EssexHebridean said:

Hmmm….under those plans we’d have a very chilly Monday and Tuesday with short charged heating overnight on both Sunday and Monday. Not exactly surprised to see that this is massively loaded towards GSH’d homes, but there you go! 

Most GSH will not work in a power cut … boiler firing, pumps and valves all need power.

Yes, I’m aware of this. With GSH though once the outage is over (and indeed if it was overnight would your heating even be on? I don’t think I know anyone with GSH that runs it 24/7 these days!) then you fire everything back up again and hey presto, house backup to temperature reasonably soon thereafter. With storage heating, if the required input has not been there - for example if three hours of the charging time is during an outage - and even more particularly if that has happened on two consecutive nights, then there IS no way of bringing the house back up to temperature the following day, the heat just isn’t there to release. 

Much less likely to require blackouts in the overnight blocks though as usage is low in those periods anyway. And there's always the option to run the storage heater at daytime rates if you really need it. Those with Gas don't have that option.

😂😂 It’s mostly only fairly modern storage heaters have the ability to run on daytime rates - and that is by them working as convention heaters. Our main heater and those that many other households rely on has no such ability - the circuit feeding it isn’t even on other than in the off peak period! It might also be remember that for those of us on E7 our day rate is substantially higher than you will be paying - mine is 44p, I believe there are some folk paying as much as 50p a unit! Hardly an affordable option for many people! 

There's no difference between daytime rate and nighttime rate electricity. It comes through the same wire, it's just the meter records it at a different time of day. If the circuit is on a timer switch as well, turn it off. I can see a potential issue if for some reason the device can't heat the store and release heat at the same time, but in that case it'll be a matter of being smart (charge it for an hour, run it for an hour, repeat) if needed.
I disagree it's not affordable. We're not talking long term here. We're talking essentially a country-wide emergency that may last a couple of days. And even if that happens, it's not likely to effect overnight electric, and even if it does, it's maybe one day. Yes, that'd be an expensive day to heat the house, but it's just one day. It won't cost anymore than buying a battery pack for your phone. 

Essentially with planned rolling blackouts the most useful thing you want are batteries. As batteries allow you to effectively time-shift around the blackouts. Battery packs let you charge your phone and tablet. Emergency batteries let you run your fishtank or router. Storage heaters are effectively very large batteries for heat energy, and will allow you to shift around the heating times.

No, you won't get value for money doing that but nothing in this discussion was about value for money. Best value for money is just shift your sleep pattern and sleep through the blackout whenever it is!

It comes into the meter through the same cable. For I suspect the majority of E7 households in the case of the storage heaters and the timed immersion element it then leaves the meter again via a cable that is ONLY live when it is switched on overnight. There IS no timer for the storage heaters in our case - they can ONLY charge when that circuit is switched on, so on older heaters without a "boost" option it is not possible to "make up" that charge by just asking the heater to charge at a different time - it will have no electricity supply, and so cannot charge.  

For those who then need to use extra heating for the evenings for days as a result of short charged heaters - that can be around £1 an hour in some cases - and no, for many people that sort of additional cost for heating is not affordable. (Remembering that the cost "saved" by less charge occuring overnight will be substantially less than this)

The advantage of buying a battery pack for your phone is that the significant part of that investment is a tangible asset that can be used again in the future - you pay £10 plus the cost of electricity for the first use, subsequently you only pay the pennies it will then take to recharge. I presume you wouldn't consider it quite so affordable if every time you needed to use a powerbank on your phone you had to purchase a brand new one?  

As for "sleeping through the blackout" - that is precisely what I would be happening if the blackout is the one that has been mentioned as adversely affecting those with E7 heating, ie midnight>3am. 

For avoidance of doubt I have lived with storage heaters for nearly 20 years, including having (I think) 4 different models and 2 different makes of heaters over that time. At this point we still have two different makes and three different models in the flat, so I do have a reasonably good understanding of how they work!  ;-) 

oldagetraveller1

"Nothing on my Eon Next bill"

Just looked at my last statement/bill and it's on the electricity statement page directly under the supply address."Postcode area alpha identifier: P"

[Deleted User]

oldagetraveller1 said:

"Nothing on my Eon Next bill"

Just looked at my last statement/bill and it's on the electricity statement page directly under the supply address."Postcode area alpha identifier: P"

Hasn't been on any of my E.ON Next bills until the most recent (18 October) when it has suddenly appeared.

molerat

Deleted_User said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

"Nothing on my Eon Next bill"

Just looked at my last statement/bill and it's on the electricity statement page directly under the supply address."Postcode area alpha identifier: P"

Hasn't been on any of my E.ON Next bills until the most recent (18 October) when it has suddenly appeared.

Nothing on my or my daughter's statements of 1st Oct.  Oooh the excitement of waiting another week to see 

The_Green_Hornet

As LilacPotato posted earlier, if you want to know your block letter then you can use this Find Your Network Operator website.

No need to wait for an updated electric bill.

Sea_Shell

[Deleted User] said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

"Nothing on my Eon Next bill"

Just looked at my last statement/bill and it's on the electricity statement page directly under the supply address."Postcode area alpha identifier: P"

Hasn't been on any of my E.ON Next bills until the most recent (18 October) when it has suddenly appeared.

Same here.

It does make you wonder that it's (blackouts) more likely, if this information is now being put in the customers domain.

Why else would we need that info?

Astria

It's strange how a few articles in the press can mean that companies that make backup batteries such as Anker actually run out of stock for the remaining of the year

So we could be using blackouts to reserve power, so people use twice as much power to charge backup batteries, which only means that the power will run out twice as fast and we'll end up with longer blackouts.

Grogsy78

Level 18 blackout is pretty spicy! At level 20 do they turn off the sun?