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

deano2099

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Astria

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Didn't the old E7 meters change tariff based on a radio signal? Kinda surprised nobody worked out how to hack it.

Looking at the chart, it appears that Thursday evenings I need to go down the pub, but the other days I can just stay in bed until the power comes back on

[Deleted User]

Astria said:

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Didn't the old E7 meters change tariff based on a radio signal? Kinda surprised nobody worked out how to hack it.

Looking at the chart, it appears that Thursday evenings I need to go down the pub, but the other days I can just stay in bed until the power comes back on

Radio teleswitch meters did (and still do - they're not dead yet).  Others had external mechanical timers or timers integrated into the meter (which is what smart meters have).

Some are good with power cuts and time changes.  Some are terrible.

It's certainly possible for a timer to 'pause' during a power cut and then only resume when the power is back on - shifting the customer's off-peak period.  There are people whose off-peak periods have ended up in the day.

*~Zephyr~*

pete-20-11 said:

*~Zephyr~* said:

I'm in L, so the weekend will be boring, but at least hubby will only lose one afternoon of working from home a week (in level 1 at least).

Not sure what his employer is going to say if there ends up being more of them.  I can only hope that his Head Office building is on the same band so they can't insist he start commuting back to the office 

They’ll make him work a weekend day instead 😄

Haha!  If they try they will be disappointed - our block (L) has two blackouts on both saturday and sunday, both during business hours 

EssexHebridean

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Our meter is around 10 years old if I recall correctly - previous power outages don't seem to have affected it - there is already a small amount of drift but you kind expect that over 10 years, so I assume the backup battery is still functioning OK. You do seem to be thinking of E7 systems as some sort of archaic set-up from the 1950s, with meters in a similar age-bracket though Deano - it's perfectly possible to have a modern E7 Smart Meter, running modern storage heaters! 

To put your £10 extra costs analogy into perspective by the way - the programme being seemingly considered for block A would mean two days when extra peak rate heating might well be needed due to insufficient charge time for NSH's. So that's £20 a week - potentially £80 on a months bills, if we assume that the planned outages needed to continue for a period of time. That is of course on top of the additional costs already being faced by households as a result of the current escalation on energy prices generally. Now I could afford that - I wouldn't like it, but I could, and consider myself fortunate to be in that position. You clearly could as your comments make clear - again I trust you are mindful of your privilege in being in that position. Many others though couldn't - not even close, as they are already right on the limit for affordability for energy costs. 

It should be noted that at no stage have I said anything along the lines of "it's not fair" either - my original post on the subject, and immediately subsequent ones - was simply pointing out that overnight outages DO disproportionately affect NSH users over those with GSH. In part, this was because even on these boards a relatively small number of posters really understand that much about E7 and NSH's - a point which has been perfectly proved by your own posts! 

Section62

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

The old clockface timers which are separate to the meter have a spring reserve to keep them running for about 24 to 48 hours.

If it still works.

deano2099

EssexHebridean said:

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Our meter is around 10 years old if I recall correctly - previous power outages don't seem to have affected it - there is already a small amount of drift but you kind expect that over 10 years, so I assume the backup battery is still functioning OK. You do seem to be thinking of E7 systems as some sort of archaic set-up from the 1950s, with meters in a similar age-bracket though Deano - it's perfectly possible to have a modern E7 Smart Meter, running modern storage heaters! 

That's a fair point! I know there are modern systems, but are there actually modern systems that are hardwired to the E7 tarrif as you've mentioned? That's the bit I can't square in my head. The idea of a smart meter *and* the inability to run them outside of the cheap rate. It feels like that bit would have been made "smart" - and where there are smart meters, there presumably exists the ability to programme them to run on the lower rate following a power cut at energy company level? I feel like once smart meters come into the equation, there's loads of ways around this (providing the energy companies actually act in a fair way) - whereas I do see more difficult problems for those without them. By all means tell me I'm wrong! You're correct in that my only experience with E7 was on a an older analogue meter.

To put your £10 extra costs analogy into perspective by the way - the programme being seemingly considered for block A would mean two days when extra peak rate heating might well be needed due to insufficient charge time for NSH's. So that's £20 a week - potentially £80 on a months bills, if we assume that the planned outages needed to continue for a period of time. That is of course on top of the additional costs already being faced by households as a result of the current escalation on energy prices generally. Now I could afford that - I wouldn't like it, but I could, and consider myself fortunate to be in that position. You clearly could as your comments make clear - again I trust you are mindful of your privilege in being in that position. Many others though couldn't - not even close, as they are already right on the limit for affordability for energy costs. 

I feel this is where we're talking at cross-purposes. Even the news stories are talking about 3 days of power cuts in their reasonable worst-case scenarios. If it went on for a month then yes, that's a lot more problematic. But the plans being discussed are emergency plans not really designed for the long term. I think the worst we will get will be a week where there are some disconnections in peak hours. If it's bad enough we have insufficient supply in overnight hours for a month then honestly I think offset times on storage heaters will be the least of our concerns!

[Deleted User]

deano2099 said:

EssexHebridean said:

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Our meter is around 10 years old if I recall correctly - previous power outages don't seem to have affected it - there is already a small amount of drift but you kind expect that over 10 years, so I assume the backup battery is still functioning OK. You do seem to be thinking of E7 systems as some sort of archaic set-up from the 1950s, with meters in a similar age-bracket though Deano - it's perfectly possible to have a modern E7 Smart Meter, running modern storage heaters! 

That's a fair point! I know there are modern systems, but are there actually modern systems that are hardwired to the E7 tarrif as you've mentioned? That's the bit I can't square in my head. The idea of a smart meter *and* the inability to run them outside of the cheap rate. It feels like that bit would have been made "smart" - and where there are smart meters, there presumably exists the ability to programme them to run on the lower rate following a power cut at energy company level? I feel like once smart meters come into the equation, there's loads of ways around this (providing the energy companies actually act in a fair way) - whereas I do see more difficult problems for those without them. By all means tell me I'm wrong! You're correct in that my only experience with E7 was on a an older analogue meter.

Yes - any system that was installed in the old way but has had the meter replaced.  You don't rewire your house when you change your meter.  The E7 timer in many smart meters is firmware - not a supplier-programmed function - so you can't just change the times like that, and even when you can, are suppliers really going to reprogramme everyone's meters one direction following a power cut and then back again straight after?

EssexHebridean

[Deleted User] said:

deano2099 said:

EssexHebridean said:

deano2099 said:

Thinking about it, if there's no power, will the timer on an old E7 meter keep ticking? I'd assume any battery backup is long dead, if it existed in the first place? So if the power went out on the evening rate, it'd come back on and think it was still evening surely?

Our meter is around 10 years old if I recall correctly - previous power outages don't seem to have affected it - there is already a small amount of drift but you kind expect that over 10 years, so I assume the backup battery is still functioning OK. You do seem to be thinking of E7 systems as some sort of archaic set-up from the 1950s, with meters in a similar age-bracket though Deano - it's perfectly possible to have a modern E7 Smart Meter, running modern storage heaters! 

That's a fair point! I know there are modern systems, but are there actually modern systems that are hardwired to the E7 tarrif as you've mentioned? That's the bit I can't square in my head. The idea of a smart meter *and* the inability to run them outside of the cheap rate. It feels like that bit would have been made "smart" - and where there are smart meters, there presumably exists the ability to programme them to run on the lower rate following a power cut at energy company level? I feel like once smart meters come into the equation, there's loads of ways around this (providing the energy companies actually act in a fair way) - whereas I do see more difficult problems for those without them. By all means tell me I'm wrong! You're correct in that my only experience with E7 was on a an older analogue meter.

Yes - any system that was installed in the old way but has had the meter replaced.  You don't rewire your house when you change your meter.  The E7 timer in many smart meters is firmware - not a supplier-programmed function - so you can't just change the times like that, and even when you can, are suppliers really going to reprogramme everyone's meters one direction following a power cut and then back again straight after?

Thanks Sparky - eloquently put. I'd not realised that there really were still some people who genuinely thought that E7 and NSH's was some sort of antiquated system that is only used by people in dusty cobwebby old houses in the back of beyond who've had their meter since it was installed back in the 1960's...! Sure, it's not AS common, but certainly TOU tariffs are still very much a thing - off the top of my head I can think of two that are largely dying out now - E10 and THTC (that one being mostly found north of the border and becoming increasingly problematic) then E7 which is gaining again in popularity where people have realised it works for battery storage, and then all the various EV tariffs of course. Then you also have things like Octopus Agile, GEUK's "Tide" etc... TOU is the future, not the past IMO.

As for Smart Meters - we only don't have them currently because until recently we've not felt the security in our provider to risk going that route for electricity and there was no point in having one installed just for gas. (Reason for the feeling of lack of security being that we have tended to be with non "big" providers due to shopping around and so the risk of the provider folding and us being SOLR'd to BG, who as we know can't manage a SM/E7 combo to save their lives, felt too significant.)  Now we're with Octopus I'll have no hesitation in getting SMs sorted at a convenient point.

To give some backup to the "modern" storage heaters point - ours range from probably 25+ years old, to the most recent having been installed under 5 years ago as far as I can think. We're considering having one of the other existing ones switched out for a modern HHR one also as it should be more energy efficient for us allowing for the times we usually require the heat. The oldest one is an elderly Creda that frankly looked to be getting on a bit when we moved in to the place - but is still going strong and was far better and more efficient than the newer heater it was shifted a few years ago to replace. 

Chrysalis

LilacPotato said:

Hello, 

I don't post much on here (but I read it a lot!) so not sure I can post links but there is a website called powercut105. com where you can enter your postcode to find both your DNO and your load block number. For anyone with extra time to spare perhaps with some time entering postcodes we can find out where we should move to to be a J!

I have checked all family and friends postcodes plus a bunch of random one's, everyone was either P or S both dumpster blocks. Looks like most of my city will be off for 15 hours over the weekend lol.

I then checked some post codes in nice village areas.  All were either D or G, it would seem these blocks are quite large.  I checked 19 post codes across 3 neighbouring villages all D, then another 21 from some villages on other side of city all G.