Important GOOD news if you have or had an RTS meter or E10 :-)

mmmmikey

Kudos for @Scot_39 for spotting this new tariff from Octopus, which is great news if you still have or used to have an RTS meter, or you have E10. This tariff has the potential to be a game-changer for many customers. I miss out because I have the wrong type of meter, which is a shame because if it was available to me this tariff would save me about £300 a year.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6569093/snug-octopus-new-tariff-for-older-meter-alcs-nsh-inc-1-hr-afternoon-winter-boost#latest

It's going to vary depending on your usage, but the new SNUG tariff from Octopus has the potential to (a) save you £100's a year if you are an Economy 7 customer with night storage heaters and water heating (b) make your heaters work better by giving them a top-up boost in the afternoon.

This tariff is only available to customers with an ALCS Smets2 smart meter, which is what you should get if you have your old RTS or E10 meter switched out, and chances are what you already have if your RTS or E10 meter was replaced recently. (It's also available to other Economy 7 users who have this meter type - ask if you're not sure).

Hopefully other suppliers will follow suit and offer similar tariffs, but one way or the other if you haven't switched to a smart meter yet there's probably never been a better time to do so.

Swipe

If anyone does sign up for this, I'd advise that you triple check your ALCS switch times with your tariff windows once enabled, as it could be a very expensive mistake if they become out of sync. And if they do, good luck getting them rectified swiftly. I wouldn't trust my supplier to configure an alarm clock correctly.

Scot_39

Swipe said:

If anyone does sign up for this, I'd advise that you triple check your ALCS switch times with your tariff windows once enabled, as it could be a very expensive mistake if they become out of sync.

@Swipe

I read the mix of the customer selects how long and when wants heat and the warning re15m response of meters re tariff wording as potentially a more dynamic choice of settings on ALCS.

"We use smart technology to connect to your storage heaters and control when they store energy each night. On sign up, you'll tell us how long you want the heaters to run and when you want your house to be warm, and we'll charge them at the cheapest, greenest times - giving you the hard-to-beat off-peak rate of 9p per kilowatt-hour."

Almost like if you said 2 hrs rather than 6 - they could pick the cheapest 2 hrs in the 6.  So maybe in future the 9p might be variable.

"It sometimes takes a bit of time for meters to react to smart charging, but most respond within 15 minutes. Any delay that does happen could cause some charging to happen at peak times, which means you'll be charged the day rate"

So by implication if they send a new switch on or maybe more importantly off timing your meter may not switch at the same time as tariff which I assume is dynamic based on 1/2 hourly readings not tou registers ?

Any thoughts on above Ofgem FAQ points ?


Not really sure how easy it would be to control any other device based on timers if alcs / rates are truly variable time of use.

Unless you monitored a 4 port contactor output or the actual live restricted tail  - and that still leaves the 15m issue.

Ildhund

Just bumping this thread to ask about any potential risk involved with what appears to be dynamic ALCS. I suspect that most dual-rate installations will use the meter's built-in 100A switch to control the heating circuit as opposed to an external contactor governed by the meter's 2A load control. 

I remember reading a long time ago about the reservations an electrical engineer had about trusting a switch in a little plastic box to turn a 3kW immersion heater on and off repeatedly. He always installed a robust external contactor to do the heavy lifting. This is pretty much the same situation as a smart meter's ALCS, except that the switched load could be many times greater. I suppose that the switch is guaranteed to operate safely for some number of switches, but that number could multiply with dynamic ALCS. Is there a an unacceptable risk of failure or worse if the ALCS is expected to switch large loads potentially many times a day?

Scot_39

I posted a link from a reddit post in another thread - on Snug - 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81205076/#Comment_81205076

2 users reported they were getting 5 switches per night when selected 2.5 hrs as total peak charge allowed.

I and 100,000s of others on RTS and conventional E10 - regularly switch 3 x per day - in my case upto around 10 kWh - for 3 NSH and 1 HW immersion heater in winter - 3kW for the immersion heater all year round.

Never really worried about that on a contactor rated for 100A - 23-25 kWh.

Wonder what the spec says though.

I am now on a Proteus 100A contactor - similar I guess to this revised version - but was for a couple of years on a digital 5 port.

https://proteusswitchgear.com/products/100-a-heating-contactor-single-phase/

No MTBF or switching cycles in that top level spec table.

Ildhund

Thanks, Scot. I have one of the old Horstmann E7 time switches for my immersion heaters, which I suspect has been there since the tank was installed in May 1989 according to the fitter's scrawl on what's left of the foam insulation.



Like Jesus' blood, it's never failed me yet, but I've had to turn the thing off at the breaker because the last time I fired it up, it gave me a shock when I touched the bottom element's head to see whether it was warm yet. I'm not looking forward to telling the landlady that I need a new tank ... So, it will have been through quite a few on/off cycles in its 35 years of service.

Swipe

I had that model of the Horstmann in a previous house and also got a shock off it.