Best tariff for me

Howie65

Hi
We are pay as you go on economy 7 heating as we had storage heaters we no longer have storage heaters but have electric heaters and emersion heater which would be best tariff for us as there is only two pay as you go tariffs single rate or economy 7?

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

Howie65 said:

Hi
We are pay as you go on economy 7 heating as we had storage heaters we no longer have storage heaters but have electric heaters and emersion heater ...

Did you consider the likely cost increases when you removed your storage heaters? Or was it done to you by your landlord, without any consultation?

Howie65 said:

... which would be best tariff for us as there is only two pay as you go tariffs single rate or economy 7?

When did you have your storage heaters removed?

Since you have had them removed, do you know how much peak-rate (daytime) electricity you have used and how much off-peak (nighttime)? Can you share those numbers here?

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately you've made a humongous mistake if you've switched to panel heaters or anything else that uses daytime electricity; nothing else is more expensive to run.

Apart from using High Heat Retention NSHs (which may be unrealistic it's not your forever home and you don't own it), all you can probably do is limit the damage by switching to single rate.

Howie65

Storage heaters removed by housing association replaced with kyros heaters which u can switch on/ off as required don't really know rates peak/ off peak just used to charge electricity as and when needed still have electric emersion heater which we switch on 2 hrs twice weekly just wondered best tariff from here on.

QrizB

Howie65 said:

Storage heaters removed by housing association replaced with kyros heaters which u can switch on/ off as required ...

These ones?

https://rointe.com/uk/kyros-radiators/

... still have electric emersion heater which we switch on 2 hrs twice weekly just wondered best tariff from here on.

I would guess (and it is a guess) that you will be slightly better off with the standard single-rate electricity tariff, rather than with Economy 7.

However, as Gerry1 says, this is likely to cost you rather more than you are used to. I haven't updated the thread for a while, but you can see examples of the cost of heating by gas, storage heaters and panel heaters in this post. While it talks about Fischer heaters, your Rointe Kyros panels are similar.

Edit: I have just updated the post! For an EDF customer (a particularly good E7 example) with 10MWh/yr heat demand, spending the past winter (22-23) with panel heaters rather than storage heaters might have cost an extra £2000.

Gerry1

A very unfortunate decision by the HA. They avoid the capital expenditure of installing HHR NSHs and leave you stuck with massive electricity bills.

Howie65

Yep your so right but what can we do it's there house as QrizB says single rate?

mmmmikey

Octopus Agile can be a good option with 2 important caveats:

1. You need to avoid using electricity (especially the heaters!) from 16:00 to 19:00. If you have a suitable property (i.e. well ventilated and with largr rooms) you might be able to use a gas cabinet heater during this period - the modern ones are fairly inexpensive and much safer than older ones. Although bottled gas is more expensive than Agile daytime electricity (most of the time - see next caveat) it is much cheaper than peak rate electricity.

2. As well as varying through the day, the prices also vary from one day to the next. So you need to keep an eye on what you're spending so you don't get caught out if the prices drift up.

Although your electric heaters are expensive to run in the sense that they use expensive energy, they do have the advantage of being far more controllable than the old-fashioned storage heaters they replaced. Rather than heat the whole house all day, you should aim to just heat the rooms that are being used and only at the times that they are in use, and if you do this it is perfectly possible that costs won't be significantly different than your old storage heater costs. It all depends on your circumstances. If you do switch to Agile you might even find you can save money.

Howie65

Thanks for that, because we want to stay pay as you go and there are only 2 options economy 7  or standard rate tariff I'm thinking the latter would be best option?

QrizB

Howie65 said:

Thanks for that, because we want to stay pay as you go and there are only 2 options economy 7  or standard rate tariff I'm thinking the latter would be best option?

Yes, I would expect a single-rate tariff to be slightly cheaper than an E7 one.

Which energy company are you with? Do you know your current tariff rates?

Howie65

Just been changed over to ovo from sse. And yes it's been a nightmare meter at present is set to credit mode@ a rate of 31pkwh however when they change the meter yet again to standard single rate it should be somewhere in the region of 28-32pkwh so I'm given to believe.