Economy 10 Tariff

kpm

I assist my elderly brother-in-law with his finances. OVO provides him with an Economy 10 tariff. Until about a year ago the Off-peak price was about 34% less than the Peak rate. It is now only a 20% saving between the Off-peak and Peak rates. Have customers of other energy companies seen a similar stealth increase?

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

Without full tariff details, your post is meaningless. Your brother-in-law's bills might even fall on the new tariff.

What were the rates, and what are they now? How much electricity per year does he typically use on each rate?

dunstonh

Have customers of other energy companies seen a similar stealth increase?

Its not an increase as such and its not stealth.

Think of a see saw.   Single rate tariffs are a level see saw.
Multi-rate tariffs like economy 7 or economy 10 have a cheap rate and a high risk.    Its like pushing down on one side of the see way and watching the other side go up.
However, the centre of the see saw will balance out to the price cap.

So, if a supplier pushes the off peak rate lower, then the peak rate goes up or vice versa.

What they have done is increase the off peak rate but lower the peak rate.  There was pressure put on suppliers to get closer to the average user and that means that high off peak users  (such as myself at 79% off peak) would lose out but lower off peak users will benefit.

WIthout knowing what your ratio of peak to off peak is, we cannot tell if its a net increase or decrease.   If you don't know your ratio, then you don't know if its an increase or decrease either.

WiseDad

We have this problem too on a 3-rate tariff with OVO.  The peak rate has gone down 16%, the night rate has gone up by 10% and the heating rate has gone up by 24.6% (!) and is now higher (somewhat illogically) than the off-peak rate.  As our peak rate consumption is less than 10% of our whole year consumption, our charges will rise significantly.  This penalises those of us using storage heaters and those of us able to shift most of our load away from the peak rate.  We cannot change tariff as no-one else is offering a multi-rate tariff (that we are allowed to switch to) which includes an off-peak rate during the afternoon to boost the storage heaters (and the immersion heater).  Plain Economy 7 would be much less effective.  We also cannot use a smart meter as they don't yet cope with such a tariff.

JSHarris

WiseDad said:

We have this problem too on a 3-rate tariff with OVO.  The peak rate has gone down 16%, the night rate has gone up by 10% and the heating rate has gone up by 24.6% (!) and is now higher (somewhat illogically) than the off-peak rate.  As our peak rate consumption is less than 10% of our whole year consumption, our charges will rise significantly.  This penalises those of us using storage heaters and those of us able to shift most of our load away from the peak rate.  We cannot change tariff as no-one else is offering a multi-rate tariff (that we are allowed to switch to) which includes an off-peak rate during the afternoon to boost the storage heaters (and the immersion heater).  Plain Economy 7 would be much less effective.  We also cannot use a smart meter as they don't yet cope with such a tariff.

There's been a clear pattern over the past two winters that very strongly suggests that some suppliers are choosing to disproportionately increase off-peak rates in winter, knowing that a lot of off-peak users will use a great deal more electricity in winter than in summer.  This is not directly related to wholesale pricing, I've checked, and the ratio between peak and off-peak doesn't change enough to account for the big (around 20% to 30%) hike in off-peak rates each winter.  Also, not every supplier does this, some maintain a much lower off-peak price throughout the year.  Clearly none of them would do this if they lost money.  My view (perhaps a little cynical) is that this loading of off-peak customers in winter is a ploy to allow peak rates to be reduced for other customers, effectively it's a cross-subsidy, as the suppliers know they have Economy 10 and Economy 7 customers over a barrel in winter, especially given the issues a year or so ago with switching not being generally recommended.

One (sadly quite costly) way to enable E10 users with storage heaters to switch to the sometimes better rates offered with Economy 7 is to replace older storage heaters with newer models that don't need the afternoon boost.  For example, the Dimplex Quantum heaters are exceptionally good at retaining heat for longer than older storage heaters, to the extent that they can almost be turned off when charged and barely give off any heat at all.

With regard to smart meters, you are right in that they cannot normally handle E10 (although there is no technical reason why not), but they can handle E7.  Five wire smart meters have been available for a couple of years now, and whilst they are mostly used to switch storage heaters etc on and off for E7 tariffs there's no reason (other than recalcitrance from suppliers) why they shouldn't work in exactly the same way as a dumb E10 meter.  They have the switching hardware built-in and the means to control switching times, just like any other off-peak capable meter.

QrizB

WiseDad said:

We have this problem too on a 3-rate tariff with OVO.  The peak rate has gone down 16%, the night rate has gone up by 10% and the heating rate has gone up by 24.6% (!) and is now higher (somewhat illogically) than the off-peak rate.

What is the name of your tariff, and what are the rates you're being offered? % changes aren't particularly helpful to the other forum users.

WiseDad said:

Plain Economy 7 would be much less effective.

Maybe, maybe not. The devil's always in the detail.

WiseDad said:

We also cannot use a smart meter as they don't yet cope with such a tariff.

Smart meters can definitely cope with such a tariff, the problem is no supplier offers one.

You need to decide for yourself whether you stick with an obsolete tariff or switch to one that is more widely supported.

dunstonh

There's been a clear pattern over the past two winters that very strongly suggests that some suppliers are choosing to disproportionately increase off-peak rates in winter, knowing that a lot of off-peak users will use a great deal more electricity in winter than in summer.  This is not directly related to wholesale pricing, I've checked, and the ratio between peak and off-peak doesn't change enough to account for the big (around 20% to 30%) hike in off-peak rates each winter.  Also, not every supplier does this, some maintain a much lower off-peak price throughout the year.  Clearly none of them would do this if they lost money.  My view (perhaps a little cynical) is that this loading of off-peak customers in winter is a ploy to allow peak rates to be reduced for other customers, effectively it's a cross-subsidy, as the suppliers know they have Economy 10 and Economy 7 customers over a barrel in winter, especially given the issues a year or so ago with switching not being generally recommended.

Sadly, the dirt cheap off-peak rates that benefitted so many Economy 7 users are now few and far between after the suppliers were encouraged to price on the average.

QrizB

JSHarris said:

There's been a clear pattern over the past two winters that very strongly suggests that some suppliers are choosing to disproportionately increase off-peak rates in winter,

You've claimed this a few times in various threads, but (for example) EDF's SVT tariffs over the past winters don't bear it out. EDF's E7 off-peak rate in January 2023 was lower than it had been in April 2022.

Compare for example (rates are for DD payment in southern region):

• April 2021 - day 21.53, night 11.63 - night is 54% of day
• October 2021 - day 23.90, night 12.91 - night is 54% of day
  
• April 2022 - day 33.20, night 17.93 - night is 54% of day
• October 2022 - day 43.16, night 15.11 - night is 35% of day
• January 2023 - day 48.55, night 13.76 - night is 28% of day
  
• April 2023 - day 45.15, night 15.36 - night is 34% of day
  
• July 2023
  
• October 2023 - day 36.54, night 12.43 - night is 34% of day
  
• January 2024 - day 36.00, night 16.44 - night is 46% of day
  

I'll fill in the gap for July 2023 once I can find a rate card.

JSHarris

QrizB said:

JSHarris said:

There's been a clear pattern over the past two winters that very strongly suggests that some suppliers are choosing to disproportionately increase off-peak rates in winter,

You've claimed this a few times in various threads, but (for example) EDF's SVT tariffs over the past winters don't bear it out. EDF's E7 off-peak rate in January 2023 was lower than it had been in April 2022.

EDF's E7 off-peak price for last quarter 2023 = 12.43p/kWh

EDF's E7 off-peak price for first quarter 2024 = 16.433p/kWh

First quarter 2024 price is 1.32 times last quarter 2023 price.

Utility Warehouse E7 off-peak price for last quarter 2023 = 11.199p/kwh

Utility Warehouse E7 off-peak price for first quarter 2024 =11.199p/kWh

QED

QrizB

JSHarris said:

QrizB said:

JSHarris said:

There's been a clear pattern over the past two winters that very strongly suggests that some suppliers are choosing to disproportionately increase off-peak rates in winter,

You've claimed this a few times in various threads, but (for example) EDF's SVT tariffs over the past winters don't bear it out. EDF's E7 off-peak rate in January 2023 was lower than it had been in April 2022.

EDF's E7 off-peak price for last quarter 2023 = 12.43p/kWh

EDF's E7 off-peak price for first quarter 2024 = 16.433p/kWh

First quarter 2024 price is 1.32 times last quarter 2023 price.

QED

You've failed your logic check there.

Your claim is for "a clear pattern over the past two winters". You've only quoted one winter.

EDF's E7 off-peak price for last quarter 2022 = ??.??p/kWh <-- I can't find this number but I'm sure you have it?

EDF's E7 off-peak price for first quarter 2023 = 13.76p/kWh

WiseDad

Our tariff is Superdeal (which OVO inherited from SSE).  Many of our storage heaters are well insulated (with a fan to extract additional heat), albeit now 25 years old, they were the best that were available at the time and the system was designed with the assistance of SSE to work with the Superdeal tariff.  Yes, new ones may be a bit better but why should I spend a fortune (we have 10 storage heaters) on new ones when the current ones still work well so long as we are able to access some off-peak rate for a couple of hours during the afternoon to top them up?

Our off-peak rate is now 22.64p/kWh (+ VAT) and our heating rate 24.47p/kWh (+ VAT).  This is the first time ever that the heating rate has been higher than the off-peak rate which seems completely illogical.

It does look like OVO may be under pressure to reduce the peak rate and is making up for this by loading the off-peak rates so as to greatly reduce the saving that can be made by using these rates.