Snug Octopus (Economy 7) Problems

worlestone

Scot_39 said:

Swipe said:

I don't understand why they can't bill according to the rate 1 and 2 meter readings instead of the 30 min slots, just like on E7. Would this not completely solve this overlap problem?

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Suspect many users not twigged to the 10min rate issue despite FAQ.Once a day on the long charge 10min one thing, two bad, three worse.

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Thanks, and yes, I think this is the downside of having too much information (half hourly consumption data) you can see the 'warts and all'! If I didn't have that I'd be none the wiser, oh well.  Thanks for the reply

vienna28

Worlestone, did your snug timings change when the clocks recently changed with the British summer time?

I ask because since the 9th I have moved to snug.  Though until last night everything remained the same and everything was still clicking on and off between my  economy 7 times of 1:37am to 8:37am, so I had to be super careful not to let my storage heaters or hot water run past 6:30am.

My charts showed my off peak snug was operating from around 11:30pm to 6:30am and I was getting an afternoon off peak between 4pm to 5pm.

However when awaking last night I was no longer stuck in E7 timings because my hot water had been heating before 12 midnight.  And this afternoon from around 4:10pm I was able to heat my hot water.  So in the afternoons it seems I'm like you with a 10 minute over. 

So with the clocks changing I'm interested to know if your afternoon off peak are like mine and between 4pm to 5pm?

Scot_39

Traditional meter timings largely remained UTC / GMT - many digital and smart meters still do - but I believe the latter can be configured to switch - so be interesting to see what Snug's timings do.

Are you 10 mins - or are you the same 7 mins off as before.  Nice to know if it is the same offset - or some other feature that offset doesn't apply to - or solely to.

I am still completely confused as to how Octopus actually switch the ALCS times - given their talk of falling back to pre Snug times in the T&Cs.

Wonder what other Octopus TOU do - like say Cosy and its 3 rates re GMT / DST ?

vienna28

Yes I think you are right because around 5:05pm I could still heat the hot water but I tried just after 5:07pm with both hot water and storage heater and they no longer worked.  So much better for me with only 7 minutes overlap. 

Around 3 weeks ago I did try to move to snug but my non app personal Octopus page wouldn't let me.  I contacted Octopus and I got this email:

 

"I've tried activating the ALCS on your meter and I'm getting a 'null' response which indicates this isn't working as intended. I will need to raise this with our smart metering team in order to triage this issue more effectively. I will be back in touch once I receive a response"

She never did get back to me but my non app personal Octopus page did let me move to snug on the 9th but as I previously said I was trapped in E7 times, until last night.

However yesterday afternoon, in my non app profile page, I decided to change my snug settings from 6 hours to 4 hours.  So I wonder if it was that triggered my hot water and storage heaters out of its usual E7 times?

By the way in snug settings it goes in half hour increments and you can set it from 0 up to 6 hours.  Though my hot water tank is only an 100 litres and takes less than an hour to heat up, so I would do that manual anyway.  Likewise my over 30 year old living room storage heater is manual and I only need 3 hours to keep me warm to in the evening.  So I don't really need snug to control how long they are on because I switch both on and off manually. 

Scot_39

I wonder if that is the same meter offset as the default anti grid surge - on ALCS and TOU tariff timing tables (the spec only says applies to those two) - and therefore whether Octopus couldnt reduce it for those on Snug (if it's not hard set in the factory).

Seems curios to have 10m matching 10m above - and yours matching 7m on E7 with roughly 7m now on Snug at 5pm - but might just be coincidence.

vienna28

Today to the second hot water came on at 4:07pm. It would no longer come on past 5:07pm.  So the afternoon timings seem identical to the day before.

I checked my smart meter and it's still over two rates.

The 16th April just past 11pm was the first time my hot water and storage heater would work outside my former 1:37 to 8:37am E7 summer timings.  Fortunately when my hot water came on the snug off peak had come on that night at 11pm.  As you can see off peak snug wasn't the same time on the 17th.  I've looked at the bright app and the hot water didn't come on until just past 12am on the 18th.

For information the 16th included early morning Living room 3kwh storage heater and hot water, that I later turned off manually.

On the 17th it was too hot to have a storage heater on.  So just hot water.  As I said it takes around an hour to heat up (when cool) and is around 3kw an hour.

Gerry1

vienna28 said:

On the 17th it was too hot to have a storage heater on.  So just hot water.  As I said it takes around an hour to heat up (when cool) and is around 3kw an hour.

Nope, no such unit parameter, that will lead to confusion.  It's a 3kW heater, which if charging at full pelt for one hour would consume 3kWh.  Or you can think of it as 3kWh/h or 3kWh per hour.

vienna28

Thanks Gerry!  I apologise to anybody who I confused.  🥴

Worlestone, I also apologise to you for clogging up your thread.  Though of course I do have similar timing issues but I seem to use a lot less electricity than you, so any overrun into peak rate for me would only be a few pence.  Though I like to turn off manually, so unlikely to happen.

By the way my suggestion for trying to avoid any overrun into peak rate, would have been to set the snug settings on the half hour, for example 4.5 hours, 5.5 hours.  That way it will either use the last half hour slot, in which case you would overrun into peak rate (so not good) or it wouldn't use the last half hour slot, then you wouldn't go into peak rate. 

For me to learn 'snug settings' better, over this next week I will experiment on my living room storage heater.  My over 30 year old manual storage heater in the living room is called 'heatstore'.  For tonight I've set snug settings for 4.5 hours, I will let it run until the end even if it overruns by 7 minutes into peak.  Then the next two nights snug settings will be set for 3.5 hours, to see if it uses the same half hour slots over those two nights.  Then for the next two nights snug settings will be set for 2.5 hours, again to see if it uses the same half hour slots over those two nights.  Then finally I will set snug settings for the next two nights for 1.5 hours to see if it uses the same half hour slots over those two nights.

My room is presently around 20C without heating, so I don't really need a storage heater on.  But I'll try the above anyway for my interest. 

Lastly last night, no storage heater on but it all came on at 11:37pm, so it's been different the past 3 nights.  It went off this morning at 7:07am.

Gerry1

No need to apologise, mixing up kW with kWh is a very common mistake !

worlestone

Hi - apologies, I've been away looking after elderly mum... who also has just had new quantum heaters fitted by way of a grant and thoroughly confused by them (and most things!).

No need to apologies for thread hijack, as you say, the same issue, so helpful to read.  Our off peak has shifted with BST, an hour later, so the afternoon is now 4pm to 5pm, which is kind of interesting as I thought Octopus were turning that off for the summer. Likewise main off peak has also shifted, but more difficult to work out to what as it's varies between 23:30/00:00 to 06:30/07:00... it seems depending on how Octopus feel on the day/hour!

I'd not thought about changing the max hours setting, good thinking. I'm also going to play with the charge timings now as we have also had new Quantum heaters fitted (also through the Home Upgrade Grant) and can set them per heater