Economy 7 question.

pensionpawn

EssexHebridean said:

I’ll add to @dunstonh ‘s Eastern region E7 rates with Octopus - currently 16p night/48p day (rounded) . 

E7 is still far more economical for us - but then we are it’s intended users with an immersion and NSH’s. I’d struggle to see how anyone in that position wouldn’t still find it cheaper unless you were barely heating water and not really heating the rooms much either, or perhaps unless you had very old NSHs where the age meant they no longer really “stored” the heat at all. We load shift almost everything to overnight - we average 75% off peak  across the year and in the middle of winter we can easily hit closer to 95%. If we ran appliances, had showers etc more often on the peak rate then the difference would be less marked, but we’d still be better off on E7 because if the water and heating. 

I think we’ve been enjoying a situation where even a lot of households without the “classic” user profile for E7 have been able to benefit from it by running appliances on timers etc - but those days are now going, and where folk have EVs etc the suppliers really want to get them onto specific EV tariffs like “Go” etc, rather than them using E7. Going back 10 years it wouldn’t have occurred to the “normal” electricity user to even look at E7 but as prices have increased it’s become more of a popular thing again perhaps? 

I'm not sure what you mean by NSH? I have an immersion heater and divert excess solar energy to it. I'm also on mains gas which is under half the unit price of E7 night rate which I've just migrated from (to single rate). I hardly use any gas May to August inc and a marginal amount of gas Sep / Oct and March / April for the CH, as there is still plenty of excess solar for hot water.
Out of interest what is your region's single rate?

Spoonie_Turtle

pensionpawn said:

EssexHebridean said:

I’ll add to @dunstonh ‘s Eastern region E7 rates with Octopus - currently 16p night/48p day (rounded) . 

E7 is still far more economical for us - but then we are it’s intended users with an immersion and NSH’s. I’d struggle to see how anyone in that position wouldn’t still find it cheaper unless you were barely heating water and not really heating the rooms much either, or perhaps unless you had very old NSHs where the age meant they no longer really “stored” the heat at all. We load shift almost everything to overnight - we average 75% off peak  across the year and in the middle of winter we can easily hit closer to 95%. If we ran appliances, had showers etc more often on the peak rate then the difference would be less marked, but we’d still be better off on E7 because if the water and heating. 

I think we’ve been enjoying a situation where even a lot of households without the “classic” user profile for E7 have been able to benefit from it by running appliances on timers etc - but those days are now going, and where folk have EVs etc the suppliers really want to get them onto specific EV tariffs like “Go” etc, rather than them using E7. Going back 10 years it wouldn’t have occurred to the “normal” electricity user to even look at E7 but as prices have increased it’s become more of a popular thing again perhaps? 

I'm not sure what you mean by NSH?

Night Storage Heater - charges up at night, releases heat during the day.

People with gas central heating and hot water are not the target market for Economy 7.

Scot_39

pensionpawn said:

When we moved to Wiltshire ~26 years ago the break even was down around 20%, it's been hovering around 30% for a while and it's now over 40% I don't see how E7 (in my region) now appeals to anyone now besides EV / battery owners.

Night storage heaters / water immersion heaters

There are still millions of homes who do not have gas or oil fired heating systems.

SmithyST170

Gerry1 said:

Yes, I've just done this because BG's new E7 rates are significantly more expensive.  It doesn't need a meter change.

To make sure, just find out the annual electricity consumption (derived from actual meter readings) and then compare the costs of E7 and single rate.

Make sure the immersion heaters are permanently switched off !

EssexHebridean said:

If they are only using electricity for lighting and appliances, and they majority of that use is during normal waking hours, almost certainly they would be better on single rate, as Gerry says though, it’s an easy one to check on. 

Many thanks everyone for your replies 👍🏻

Gerry1 so my parents should look at their bills from 2022 and add all the usage up for the year? 

Gerry1

SmithyST170 said:

Gerry1 so my parents should look at their bills from 2022 and add all the usage up for the year? 

Yes, ideally they should find out the most recent 12 months' day and night electricity usage from actual meter readings (not estimated ones).  Then just do the sums at today's prices for E7, and again for single rate.

However, if they can't find the bills (or if it's difficult to find ones with actual meter readings) then just switch to single rate because it will almost certainly be cheaper.

From now on they should take monthly meter readings to ensure that single rate really remains cheaper and that the bills are accurate.

pensionpawn

pensionpawn said:

Yes, I've just moved off E7 to single rate for the first time in 26 years due to E7 now becoming uneconomical for me in January. No need to change the meter. Completely bonkers to heard consumers off a night time tariff in the midst of an energy crises....

The BBC have just caught up with the issue that January's changes to the E7 tariff is now pushing customers to single rate. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64332617

EssexHebridean

pensionpawn said:

EssexHebridean said:

I’ll add to @dunstonh ‘s Eastern region E7 rates with Octopus - currently 16p night/48p day (rounded) . 

E7 is still far more economical for us - but then we are it’s intended users with an immersion and NSH’s. I’d struggle to see how anyone in that position wouldn’t still find it cheaper unless you were barely heating water and not really heating the rooms much either, or perhaps unless you had very old NSHs where the age meant they no longer really “stored” the heat at all. We load shift almost everything to overnight - we average 75% off peak  across the year and in the middle of winter we can easily hit closer to 95%. If we ran appliances, had showers etc more often on the peak rate then the difference would be less marked, but we’d still be better off on E7 because if the water and heating. 

I think we’ve been enjoying a situation where even a lot of households without the “classic” user profile for E7 have been able to benefit from it by running appliances on timers etc - but those days are now going, and where folk have EVs etc the suppliers really want to get them onto specific EV tariffs like “Go” etc, rather than them using E7. Going back 10 years it wouldn’t have occurred to the “normal” electricity user to even look at E7 but as prices have increased it’s become more of a popular thing again perhaps? 

I'm not sure what you mean by NSH? I have an immersion heater and divert excess solar energy to it. I'm also on mains gas which is under half the unit price of E7 night rate which I've just migrated from (to single rate). I hardly use any gas May to August inc and a marginal amount of gas Sep / Oct and March / April for the CH, as there is still plenty of excess solar for hot water.
Out of interest what is your region's single rate?

Spoonie has already responded on the NSH question I see. I think my region’s standard EPG rate is around 35p - I’m Eastern so feel free to check! 

But yes - it sounds as though with GCH you’re not really the intended market for E7 - if you were able to make it work for you then cracking, but it always has fluctuated both  generally and between suppliers as to how it would compare for a non typical user as far as I know. We’re non typical to an extent as we actually do have gas but only for cooking. When we first moved in here we assumed we’d go with central heating eventually, but over time having learned more about how the NSH’s work we’ve realised that as well as the installation cost and huge upheaval (we’d want pipe work chasing in, and with cast concrete walls and ceilings, that would be quite unpleasant to live with!) we actually wouldn’t in real terms save any money thanks to the way we run things here at the moment, so once we were in a position to afford it we decided to stick as we were and upgrade the heaters where needed. 

EssexHebridean

pensionpawn said:

pensionpawn said:

Yes, I've just moved off E7 to single rate for the first time in 26 years due to E7 now becoming uneconomical for me in January. No need to change the meter. Completely bonkers to heard consumers off a night time tariff in the midst of an energy crises....

The BBC have just caught up with the issue that January's changes to the E7 tariff is now pushing customers to single rate. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64332617

That seems to be fairly standard lazy BBC reporting around the energy issues. If “Andrea” needed to be getting up in the middle of the night to “boost her heating” then she was almost certainly not using NSH’s - if she is, then she wasn’t using them right! So far today I’ve used 29kWh - of which at least 28 will have been overnight. This has cost me in the region of £4.60. If I used those same units during the day to power standard electric heaters, that would cost me £9.52 at current EPG rates. Overnight I also heated my hot water and ran a load of bedding through the wash, finishing with a 30 minute tumble dry - I timed the programme so that the drying portion would occur at a time close to when we were getting up anyway, before anyone delivers a fire safety lecture. 

I’m afraid I still maintain that although the rises do seem unfairly targeted at E7 and similar tariff users, for those using those tariffs as intended, they will still be paying less than they would on single rate. If the tariffs are being used to try to save money by people who are not the target users, then those people probably need to be aware that like many “money saving ideas” - you do need to keep a regular eye on things to ensure that they are still “money saving”. 

I can’t help but feel that often the people like those referred to in these sorts of articles are probably also those who still have any savings they possess in old accounts earning 0.1% interest, too. 

pensionpawn

EssexHebridean said:

pensionpawn said:

pensionpawn said:

Yes, I've just moved off E7 to single rate for the first time in 26 years due to E7 now becoming uneconomical for me in January. No need to change the meter. Completely bonkers to heard consumers off a night time tariff in the midst of an energy crises....

The BBC have just caught up with the issue that January's changes to the E7 tariff is now pushing customers to single rate. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64332617

That seems to be fairly standard lazy BBC reporting around the energy issues. If “Andrea” needed to be getting up in the middle of the night to “boost her heating” then she was almost certainly not using NSH’s - if she is, then she wasn’t using them right! So far today I’ve used 29kWh - of which at least 28 will have been overnight. This has cost me in the region of £4.60. If I used those same units during the day to power standard electric heaters, that would cost me £9.52 at current EPG rates. Overnight I also heated my hot water and ran a load of bedding through the wash, finishing with a 30 minute tumble dry - I timed the programme so that the drying portion would occur at a time close to when we were getting up anyway, before anyone delivers a fire safety lecture. 

I’m afraid I still maintain that although the rises do seem unfairly targeted at E7 and similar tariff users, for those using those tariffs as intended, they will still be paying less than they would on single rate. If the tariffs are being used to try to save money by people who are not the target users, then those people probably need to be aware that like many “money saving ideas” - you do need to keep a regular eye on things to ensure that they are still “money saving”. 

I can’t help but feel that often the people like those referred to in these sorts of articles are probably also those who still have any savings they possess in old accounts earning 0.1% interest, too. 

I agree that I'm not the prime target customer of the E7 tariff, at <30% night time use. However there's no getting away from the fact that pushing the break even E7 utilisation threshold up from ~20% -> ~30% -> 40% will shift more demand into the daytime. I'll add some context. I have solar panels however they're no use at night. So if i'm going to run the dishwasher, washing machine / dryer etc when on E7 I used to make a judgement call based on the weather forecast for the next day. If it's forecast to be a sunny day I'll run the high usage appliances in sequence during the day, running the risk that if clouds appear I'll end up part paying day rate. If the forecast is no sun they run at night with the knowledge that I'll be paying a certain cost, which will be lower than day rate though higher than free (e.g. the sun is shining though it wasn't forecasted to). So now, on single rate, which is cheaper than day rate, I just put everything on during the day and if the sun reduces my electrical import, that's a bonus. I'm sure that I'm not the only person in the UK who'll be doing that now.

dunstonh

I'm loving the new E7 tariffs and seeing a drop in my bills because of them.   The BBC article makes no reference to the winners with the new pricings or how those that are worse off can improve the situation.   Its really poor quality reporting as the one reference to change is someone saying they have gone to single rate and that probably isn't the best option for that person.

However there's no getting away from the fact that pushing the break even E7 utilisation threshold up from ~20% -> ~30% -> 40% will shift more demand into the daytime.

Some suppliers E7 pricing means you only need around 10% of your use to be off peak to be better off.  Others need 40% to be off peak to be better off.

If you are with a supplier that is targeting higher off peak ratios whilst you have a lower off peak ratio then you are with the wrong supplier and should switch.