Day/Night times change on smart meter

Whizzimama

As Freeholder/Leaseholders in a small block of flats, we have responsibility for electricity costs for stairway lighting and magnetic door locks. The lighting is on a sensor to switch on at night.

In Oct 2021, we signed up with a supplier & provided day and night time usage meter readings since April 2020.

Our original meter was a standard meter with Day (07:31 – 20:30) and Night settings (20:31 – 07:30) already set up on it i.e. it was not a ‘Smart’ meter.

The contract new supplier required that we move over to a ‘Smart’ meter and this was finally done on 22/11/22.

Since having the smart meter installed, the Night rate now doesn't start until 00:30. 

Nowhere in their terms and Conditions does it say that the day & night start and end times will be adjusted once we have a smart meter installed. If they had, we would have looked elsewhere. To me, this is gross misrepresentation on their part, in contractual terms. What do you think & is there anything we can do about this? 

dunstonh

Traditional economy 7 is seven hours off peak.  The times vary across the regions but 00.30 to 07.30 is a very common one.   There was a less common variant called economy 10 but that was usually two blocks of 3+5 or 4+4 hours at different points in the day.

20:30 - 07.30 is 11 hours.   So, it doesnt fit with either economy 7 or economy 10.     If the hours were exactly what you said they were there was either a fault on the meter or it was an unusual bespoke commercial arrangement.

Nowhere in their terms and Conditions does it say that the day & night start and end times will be adjusted once we have a smart meter installed. 

What is the name of the tariff?   i.e. does it mention economy 7.   Or does the contract mention economy 7?

To me, this is gross misrepresentation on their part, in contractual terms.

Or it could be an error by the leaseholders in not realising what they had and selecting economy 7 to replace it.

Whizzimama

Thanks - it probably was the Economy 10. When we took over the service management we received nothing from the (very peeved) previous service management company and we have been feeling our way ever since. No, we definitely did not know what we had and I posted what I thought were the timings. They night rate timings were definitely longer than they are now; as the usage has totally flipped from average of 0.36kWh/day to 0.75kWh/day (Day) and 0.75kWh/day to 0.48kWh/day (Night) based on previous winter usage

Scot_39

Whizzimama said:

Thanks - it probably was the Economy 10. When we took over the service management we received nothing from the (very peeved) previous service management company and we have been feeling our way ever since. No, we definitely did not know what we had and I posted what I thought were the timings. They night rate timings were definitely longer than they are now; as the usage has totally flipped from average of 0.36kWh/day to 0.75kWh/day (Day) and 0.75kWh/day to 0.48kWh/day (Night) based on previous winter usage

Legacy E10 for me (I know of no one supplying it to new domestic customers) - is only 5 hours overnight, 3 hours mid afternoon and 2 hours late evening - so currently in winter 12-5am, 1-4pm and 8-10pm.

That was the same 5,3,2 hr split as my old Heatwise radio switched timings - which at least stayed the same.  But other multi-rate timings do exist with other suppliers.

If a solid band - sounds much more like maybe a non domestic / business tariff before.

Your 0.75 kWh / 0.48 kWh night new use - is now a lower - but still high 39% night rate - borderline for many old - at least domestic - E7 tariffs (breakeven c42% night was guideline). 

But bear in mind this may be unrepresentative of annual use - if based only on Nov 22 to Dec since had the smart meter readings at new timings - basically the month ahead of the winter solstice / shortest days etc. for the lighting component.

And as I say - at least for many domestic tariffs already not far from the old breakeven split.

[Deleted User]

Whizzimama said:

As Freeholder/Leaseholders in a small block of flats, we have responsibility for electricity costs for stairway lighting and magnetic door locks. The lighting is on a sensor to switch on at night.

In Oct 2021, we signed up with a supplier & provided day and night time usage meter readings since April 2020.

Our original meter was a standard meter with Day (07:31 – 20:30) and Night settings (20:31 – 07:30) already set up on it i.e. it was not a ‘Smart’ meter.

The contract new supplier required that we move over to a ‘Smart’ meter and this was finally done on 22/11/22.

Since having the smart meter installed, the Night rate now doesn't start until 00:30. 

Nowhere in their terms and Conditions does it say that the day & night start and end times will be adjusted once we have a smart meter installed. If they had, we would have looked elsewhere. To me, this is gross misrepresentation on their part, in contractual terms. What do you think & is there anything we can do about this? 

You need to speak to your supplier. That said, it has long been the practice not to switch on/off high demands all the same time. Have you checked the clock/time on the actual smart meter? 

Whizzimama

• Scot 39 said - If a solid band - sounds much more like maybe a non domestic / business tariff before.

Yes when we started self managing we had to find out who our supplier was and we found we were classed as a 'micro' business but before then it has been on a larger business tariff through the previous service management company/freeholder. As far as we were aware the meters were never read because the fact that our MPAN did not match our address only came to light when we started the process of changing the meter to a Smart meter.
I am getting the feeling that we are going to have to accept this tariff and just be thankful we fixed up until 2024   

Whizzimama

• Dolor said - You need to speak to your supplier. That said, it has long been the practice not to switch on/off high demands all the same time. Have you checked the clock/time on the actual smart meter? 

Thanks - yes I have taken it up with the supplier but they have not responded as yet wrt to different switching times. We shall wait and see but not holding out a great deal of hope. Having fixed until 2024 I am thinking its not so bad now anyway