EDF Essentials 1Yr Mar25

masonic

Swipe said:

I definitely won't be upgrading my storage heaters then

I'd guess it would be valuable to upgrade to a model that has smart controls if you do. If they can charge on cheap rates at periods other than the conventional 7 hour block, then that could make the proposition more attractive. Though this needs to be weighed against the heat pump option if viable for you.

masonic

vienna28 said:

Masonic i've read on a few website "Go" is for Electric vehicles.

I was on a flavour of Go for nearly 3 years, and I've never had an EV. I would refer you to this post on your other thread where I discussed this a bit more:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80604722/#Comment_80604722

The trouble with cross-posting the same comments to so many different threads is that it is easy for discussion to be lost between them and a lot of repetition.

vienna28 said:

Also i hope E7 doesn't get phased out because although at the moment i'm trying out Agile i would eventually like to return to a static priced E7 tariff.  As you know agile is more for those who are willing to take risks with pricing.

If you have a smart meter then you should be ok whatever happens. But the cheapest wholesale rates tend to occur both overnight and in the early afternoon, so tariffs that take advantage of the changing market are likely to spring up, as has been the case already, and the trend towards the early morning not being quite so low demand may also be accounted for. The people who will be impacted most are those who can't or won't get a smart meter. But for others, the industry requirement for a Profile 1 or Profile 2 association with your MPAN that prevents you freely moving to some tariffs will hopefully end at some point. This only exists to support non-smart metered E7 customers.

I misunderstood your previous posts and thought you'd signed up for an EDF 1 year fix on E7. If you are currently on Agile, I'd encourage you to look into Go and see if you can sweet talk Octopus into letting you on it if you think it would work for you (see link above).

vienna28 said:

Many people with storage heaters often complain that they are expensive to run.  So many will limit there use and instead use alternative electric heating.  They may for example buy a cheap halogen heater which has 3 × 400 watt bars and use that for their heating throughout the day.  So for those E7 users they may decide that Octopus tracker at that time is a more suitable tariff.

Of course at a later date they may decide to switch back to E7.

I guess the advantage of living in 2024 is we can try out different tariffs to decide which works best for us.

Electric heaters are 100% efficient, so the notion of something being "expensive to run" is just the product of the amount of heat that is being generated. If the heat is being utilised rather than wasted then the heater that runs at the lower rate is the better option. Old NSH that leak the heat into the house when it is not needed are a problem, and it is probably better not to run these, and so someone in the situation you describe may either rip them out (many properties have done this, including the one I live in) and never return to E7, or upgrade them to modern HHR versions like Swipe is considering doing, in which case they could go back. If doing the latter, it is an expensive job and best to try to futureproof the upgrade as much as possible to ensure you can take advantage of the best options which may include some of the emergent smart tariffs.

spot1034

As I have always understood it, E7 was introduced to encourage greater use at night when power was predominantly generated from coal and it was more efficient to keep the stations running as constantly as possible rather than ramping them up to cater for the evening peak then running down when usage dropped overnight, only to boost up again a few hours later. With renewables, principally wind, periods where there might be a surplus available could occur at any time so the logic of the night hours always being the time to offer bargain basement prices no longer applies.  

dunstonh

E7 wont be phased out any time soon.  Far too many devices rely on the 7 hours off peak.   And as time goes on, off peak charging is going to get even more important.   

vienna28

Masonic, i don't believe the GO tariff would appeal to many E7 users because Storage heaters could only be used for 4 hours until 4.30am.  I've used E7 on/off for over 25 years and that GO tariff offers no appeal to me.

And this may surprise you but in the "Octopus Watch app" it always compares my Agile use against the Octopus Go tariff and over this past 14 days i would have saved £20.28 with my Agile use compared to if i had used Octopus Go.   So as you can see Octopus Go would not be suitable for me.

 

masonic

vienna28 said:

Masonic, i don't believe the GO tariff would appeal to many E7 users because Storage heaters could only be used for 4 hours until 4.30am.  I've used E7 on/off for over 25 years and that GO tariff offers no appeal to me.

Do your NSH and hot water tank need more than 4 hours to heat up enough for the next day? If so, then I agree that tariff would be unsuitable, but many would find a 4 hour period sufficient. I still think with a bit of patience you'll be able to achieve a similar off peak price as Go from a traditional E7 fix later in the year.

vienna28 said:

And this may surprise you but in the "Octopus Watch app" it always compares my Agile use against the Octopus Go tariff and over this past 14 days i would have saved £20.28 with my Agile use compared to if i had used Octopus Go.   So as you can see Octopus Go would not be suitable for me.

This is probably the result of you continuing to charge your NSH past 4:30am. It's very challenging comparing different TOU tariffs, because when you are on one tariff you are incentivised to load shift differently than another. When I was on E7 I used energy differently than when I was on Agile, and differently again on Go, and all were different to now on a single rate.

vienna28

As you will realise, if a person had a choice of heating a storage heater for just 4 hours and the choices were 0.30 to 4.30 or 3.30 to 7.30 they would choose the latter because they would have a better chance of having good heat into the evening.

And the amount of time i heat storage heaters would depend how cold it was.  In some weather 4 hours would be insufficient.  So as i said it's not a tariff that appeals to me.

And you are correct that results can be schewed trying to compare Agile to Go because as you say when Go cheap rate stops at 4.30am i may still be using 6kw per hour of storage heaters (3 storage heaters) until 7.30am.  So clearly through those 3 hours it will say i am making huge savings.

Anyway i saw that EDF 11.15p tariff too late (i don't whether i had mentioned it? 😋) and  had already paid the EDF £75 exit fee.  So i'll give Agile a try and maybe look at a E7 fix later in the year.

I've just looked and Agile is low tonight.  🙂

masonic

vienna28 said:

As you will realise, if a person had a choice of heating a storage heater for just 4 hours and the choices were 0.30 to 4.30 or 3.30 to 7.30 they would choose the latter because they would have a better chance of having good heat into the evening.

And the amount of time i heat storage heaters would depend how cold it was.  In some weather 4 hours would be insufficient.  So as i said it's not a tariff that appeals to me.

It rather depends whether you've got older low heat retention storage heaters, or modern HHR ones. The latter can actually be worthwhile to use and wouldn't suffer so much from this problem. Whereas the old style lead to a lot of heat wastage, and it may be more efficient to use conventional heating as it is needed, especially on your current tariff. It would be worth experimenting with this.

My mother has the old style ones in her house and they are rubbish. I finally convinced her to get an air to air heat pump system installed a couple of years ago, got her moved to Agile, and she's now in much better shape and has stopped using the NSH. I wish I had the option, but I made it through this winter with almost no heating, so saved money that way (used 660 kWh in Dec and Jan combined, down from 1040 kWh the previous year).

vienna28

And you do make a good point about changing the way you use your electricity depending what tariff you are on. 

For example on E7 i would use Storage heaters all the time. 

On Agile i've changed strategy and if i consider Agile too high in price i will make do with using a couple of low watt heaters.  And of course when Agile is really low in price all Storage heaters are on for maximum time.

I could even make Electric Octopus Tracker work.  Quite simply i wouldn't use storage heaters and i would instead use some other form of electric heating. Like i said earlier maybe use one of those 3x 400 watt bar Halogen heaters. 

As you say you adapt to whatever energy plan you are on.

Edit:  To your above question.  My storage heaters are manual and probably around 30 years old.

Edit:  As i said in a previous thread in December i used 685 kwh.  So you using 660 kwh combined in Dec/ Jan does not appeal to me.  I like being warm.  👍

macman

The shutdown of E7 radio teleswitching (RTS) is due to the BBC LW transmitter being obsolete and beyond economic repair and maintenance. Not part of some cunning state or industry conspiracy to phase out E7. Teleswitched customers will all be moved to smart meters, the deadline having been pushed back again to some time in 2025 (it was originally 31/3/24).
There are well over a million households using E7, and will continue to be so for many years. As more TOU tariffs become popular, and smart meters near-universal, that customer base will probably decline.