Which suppliers support smart meter switching TO Economy 7?

TheElectricCow

EDIT: Quick answer - Octopus are one who definitely does

Good day to all,

With the current energy climate, switching to an E7 tariff may potentially be a viable money saving opportunity for many, myself included. It's well documented that many smart meters are able to run in E7 mode, and that the supplier should be able to activate this remotely if they and the meter support it. 

However, I've noted that there seems to be very limited information on exactly which suppliers do support this remote E7 switching process, and a lot of what's easily found online either only applies to people already on E7 wanting to switch to single rate, or is related to changing tariffs with an older, non-smart, dual-rate meter.

Short of directly contacting each supplier individually, it's proven difficult to find a clear answer one way or the other on this, even the MSE article below (which does mention the point) doesn't offer anything conclusive on the matter.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/economy-7/

I'm in contact with Octopus at the moment attempting to arrange this, but so far all they've done is promise to "look into this", which isn't an outright no but also doesn't really confirm that they will be able to make the switch yet. 

For the benefit of anyone trying to find out about this in future (and myself), has anyone here had success getting an existing single rate supply, on a smart meter, switched to E7? And if so with which supplier?

[Deleted User]

All smart meters are capable of recording usage on 4 separate registers. However, many E7 homes with storage heaters have two separate heating circuits. A standard smart meter will not manage the two circuits. You would need a smart meter with an ALCS. This is what the supplier should be considering.

inspectorperez

I'm interested in this question as well and also Dolor's response which has prompted me to google on the search term "Smart Meter with ALCS".

I thought the following web page was most interesting - https://www.smartme.co.uk/load-control.html

Don't know much about the source of this information other than it is published by a group of engineers with smart meter experience.

I'm in the same boat as OP and EDF were supposed to turn up yesterday to install new meter - but that's another story as resulted in a complete wasted day for me!

[Deleted User]

It is also worth pointing out that 4 registers are not needed for time-of-use tariffs such as E7. For example, I am on a 3 price period tariff (Octopus Flux). Octopus uses a single meter register and it then uses the 30 minute usage data recovered from the meter to issue a bill.

TheElectricCow

[Deleted User] said:

All smart meters are capable of recording usage on 4 separate registers. However, many E7 homes with storage heaters have two separate heating circuits. A standard smart meter will not manage the two circuits. You would need a smart meter with an ALCS. This is what the supplier should be considering.

Yes, the meter in my case does appear to be perfectly capable of supporting the recording of use on multiple registers - it seems to be more of an issue getting a supplier who can/will tell it to use more than one register though. The only advice out there at the moment seems to be “not all suppliers will do this” even if no physical changes are needed.

As in my case the installation wasn’t E7 in the first place, there’s no circuit switching to worry about. I would hope that a supplier fitting a smart meter to a restricted circuit set up would give things the proper considerations to prevent issues there, but I believe there was a post very recently here where that hadn’t been the case and the off-peak was live all the time.

Would be nice to know if there’s one out there who will just “turn on” the E7 mode without any difficulty, as most suppliers don’t currently seem to object to taking on people with E7 tariffs once the meter is set up for it.

[Deleted User] said:

It is also worth pointing out that 4 registers are not needed for time-of-use tariffs such as E7. For example, I am on a 3 price period tariff (Octopus Flux). Octopus uses a single meter register and it then uses the 30 minute usage data recovered from the meter to issue a bill.

I was aware that’s the way they were doing it for Agile, but didn’t know they also bill that way for Flux, very interesting. At the moment I can’t see suppliers other than Octopus using that method though, with some of the big ones still hardly managing anything more complex than quarterly billing.

[Deleted User]

TheElectricCow said:

I was aware that’s the way they were doing it for Agile, but didn’t know they also bill that way for Flux, very interesting. At the moment I can’t see suppliers other than Octopus using that method though, with some of the big ones still hardly managing anything more complex than quarterly billing.

Good Energy; E.oN Next and EDF have all purchased/leased the Kraken Technology billing platform from Octopus.

Scot_39

TheElectricCow said:

Good day to all,

With the current energy climate, switching to an E7 tariff may potentially be a viable money saving opportunity for many, myself included. It's well documented that many smart meters are able to run in E7 mode, and that the supplier should be able to activate this remotely if they and the meter support it. 

However, I've noted that there seems to be very limited information on exactly which suppliers do support this remote E7 switching process, and a lot of what's easily found online either only applies to people already on E7 wanting to switch to single rate, or is related to changing tariffs with an older, non-smart, dual-rate meter.

Short of directly contacting each supplier individually, it's proven difficult to find a clear answer one way or the other on this, even the MSE article below (which does mention the point) doesn't offer anything conclusive on the matter.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/economy-7/

I'm in contact with Octopus at the moment attempting to arrange this, but so far all they've done is promise to "look into this", which isn't an outright no but also doesn't really confirm that they will be able to make the switch yet. 

For the benefit of anyone trying to find out about this in future (and myself), has anyone here had success getting an existing single rate supply, on a smart meter, switched to E7? And if so with which supplier?

E7 is at one level - simply another tariff.

Any UK smart meter should be able - I believe - to support it.  If not direct - via appropriate billing.

IIRC they ALL support 1/2 hour time slot reporting - so can actually support even more complex billing arrangements.

I think some suppliers rely on this - like Octopus time of use and wholesale rate linked flex tariffs - but I could be wrong.

ACLS meters (say 5 connection meter with on board load switching output - or 4 way with control for auxilliary load switching contactor) I suspect are only needed to replace systems where older meters did the load switching (the LS in ACLS) for high pwer drain devices (NSH, HW immersion).

To replace for instance legacy radio switched or mechanical timer switched dual meter systems where often a second meter - drove often a seperate consumer unit - to power devices like emmersion heaters and night storage heater circuits - but only have them live - during the off-peak period.

The ACLS link above - also suggests another solution - HAN to device based load switching - but that doesn't seem to have been the solution in the Ovo/Dimplex NSH proposal for variable charge time tariffs.

masonic

FWIW, I have a standard smart meter, but my meter point is profile class 2 (E7), so with Octopus I am able to choose between E7 and standard tariffs. I have been on Flexible E7 in the past. My historic readings have used two registers up to January 2022, after which only one incremented. Interestingly in February my second register was zeroed and the total reading reported in the first, this reverted back to normal in March. It does make me wonder if this could cause issues should I change suppliers in the future.

Scot_39

What is your current tariff ?

Flat, Octopus 1/2 hourly complex ToU or fixed E7 ?

Just curious - as another MSE'r who switched from E7 to single rate - has seen meter changes - to his old GMT fixed rate 1/ 2 (peak / off peak) switch times - which he thinks was new this year.

masonic

Scot_39 said:

What is your current tariff ?

Flat, Octopus 1/2 hourly complex ToU or fixed E7 ?

Just curious - as another MSE'r who switched from E7 to single rate - has seen meter changes - to his old GMT fixed rate 1/ 2 (peak / off peak) switch times - which he thinks was new this year.

I'm on Go Faster for the next few weeks, then I'll probably move to Agile, though I have questioned Octopus on E7 times and confirmed they are an hour later when we are on BST (quite tempting to have off-peak until 08:30). I don't think this was the case in 2021 when I was last on Flexible E7 (for a couple of weeks after smart meter installation before moving to ToU). Before that I had dumb meter and radio timer.

michaels

I am on an EDF TOU tariff which I think they bill just using the half hour usage info from the smart meter.

I have a year to go on my fix but when it runs out the EDF Eastern Region E7 tariff would be extremely attractive to me were I allowed to switch to it.