If you're on Economy 10 or a complex tariff, now is a good time to....

Scot_39

distefano said:

WiserMiser said:

E10 and similar tariffs date back to when electricity cost peanuts and the cheap hours were genuinely off peak rather than only overnight.  The heaters were fairly wasteful because they leaked heat when it wasn't needed, e.g. overnight and during the day if you were out at work or the weather was mild.  However, people weren't too concerned because it was affordable and nice to be toasty at all times, e.g. if you had to get up in the night.

However, things are very different today and an old box of bricks with only a mechanical flap to control the output wastes a lot of money.  If your own the property and plan to stay a reasonable time it's worth considering upgrading to HHR NSHs.  They'll also make it easier to sell when the time comes: buyers didn't pay much attention to the type of heating system as long as it did the job and wasn't falling apart, but now they're much more critical.

My Economy 10 heats my whole house by underfloor heating not storage heaters. I do not understand why Smart Meters cannot be scheduled to heat up at the known off peak periods such as night time [as recommended for car charging] and afternoons - I've had Economy 10 for 50 years and want any new Smart Meter to deliver the same

There is nothing to stop the meters doing so - I have smart E10 - EDF have just configured a meter for Rosie1001 - to E10 but not problem free - other than the will of suppliers to support it - and the lack of enforcement of a requirement for them to do so - from Ofgem as the market regulator.

Ovo for instance are reportedly fitting maybe 1,000s if nt 10,000s of smart E10 to replace old RTS E10 and THTC metering.

[Ofgem to me seem to have at times a pretty poor grasp of the those with electric only systems and how they do or do not heat homes. But  it was reassuring to read of their plans  in second stage of zero SC consultation to exclude  PC2 electric due to the largely upside costs risks. Have even admitted weaknesses when it comes to the data behind their profile class 2 data set driving the corresponding TDCVs. Which seem low to me]

There are other true half hour time of use tariffs that actually in some respects do kind of mimic E10 such as Cosy and others (although you cannot access TE variants right now) that you might want to look at.

Not sure if Ovo E9 still open to newcomers etc.

Theres a thread of posts for someone at EDF - who are being told E10 is now going too.

E10 been a legacy only tariff for best part of 10 years AFAIK at EOn for instance. Was told so when lost my RTS back then in mid 2010s.  Been digital E10 and now smart E10 since c2017 since.

I have old meter switched NSH - my escape route (I'm due a smart meter upgrade in as little as 2 years when EOn Next might force me onto E7) is maybe Snug Octopus - which supports ALCS and gives 1 hr afternoon - but it isn't going to be as good as E10 - but is a lot cheaper (half my current off peak rate).  But wont do for underfloor

Yarrows

We're with OVO and have been on Economy 10 since the old THTC meters were replaced with a smart meter last December.

Today I've noticed that OVO are offering 1yr loyalty fixes for Economy 10 and Economy 9 (dated 5th June), which I hadn't seen them do before. They're lower unit prices but higher standing charge so tricky to compare, but might be of interest to some?

Scot_39

EOn have only ever offered me a variable tariff for my E10.

I've been on E10 with them for last 10 years - and no loyalty or other E10 fixes - or access to grid demand tpye savings either.

Ive been offered fixes - but these have been SR even or E7 when enquired (their E7 is cheaper off peak than E10 - but that only saves if keep the same ratio of off peak to peak - which wouldn't be easy with my old heaters).

Seems strange SC is increasing on fix - but that maybe the long term direction given the way Net Zero is driving grid spend (the move of more network fixed charges into SC - in part why electric SC had been doubling - as Ofgem moved another iirc £103 into SCs to cover fixed costs since 2022 iirc).

The new multirate cap standing charge for July is dropping another c 2.48p on average from 53.84 to 51.36p +/- regional variations (ave unit price also slightly down c.1.22p / kWh to 24.54p/kWh +/- regional variations) in July but they are increasing theirs for the fix.

But not really sure why they are now dropping so much - here in EM anyway - that will make 10p since Jan / so 6 months - as their last zero SC tariffs consultation 2nd stage report - was still expecting network costs and with it SC's to be increasing at least as share of costs).

Does your current SVT SC match the current multirate value tabled here

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/get-energy-price-cap-standing-charges-and-unit-rates-region

Do you know if Ovo actually publish their regional E10 tariff rates anywhere - like on a blog ?

I just tried to get a quote - it correctly identified my meter type not just as multirate - but E10 - but said it cannot quote me right now but working on it. 

If that does happen - and Ovo open up E10 to new customers - it could be the first open online swap option for E10 users I have seen for a long time.

But when googled - found their guide on E10 albeit from 2021 - that perhaps they really ought to think of updating - as says you cannot get a smart E10 meter (I've had one albeit smets1 since 2017 - you clearly have a smets2 variant) - and that was physically no different from the model EOn used as an E7 meter at the time (both with ALCS) - just the tables have more entries - and that they dont offer an E10 tariff.  The old guide still on their guides pages (albeit on page 8) - 

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/economy-10

Ildhund

Scot_39 said:

Do you know if Ovo actually publish their regional E10 tariff rates anywhere - like on a blog ?

They're very coy about their various tariffs. Once a quarter, they put up a completely unpredictable link to the tariff table, but in the last couple of weeks of a quarter it gives rates for the current quarter while quotes use those for the forthcoming quarter. So here's the current table: SVT - Previous Rates ( https://www.ovobyus.com/m/41926906b6a124d3/original/Previous-Rates-Direct-Debit.pdf ).

You get an idea of the number and complexity of wacky tariffs they inherited from SSE, and how difficult it was going to prove to be to replace them with something that a smart meter could handle.

Yarrows

I find all the OVO tariffs available for my postcode at plans dot ovoenergy dot com (I can't post links yet). It doesn't help that they quote prices without VAT. There are only 3 E10 tariffs available to me - the SVT (Simpler Energy), the Warm Home tariff, and this loyalty 1yr fix.

My current E10 SVT tariff has the same SC as the Ofgem multirate table for my area (Northern Scotland). The peak rate is about 13% higher than the multirate cap unit price this quarter, and the off-peak is about 13% lower. (After adding VAT to all OVO's prices of course.)

Comparing this E10 1yr loyalty fix they're offering to the new cap next quarter (which seems fair because the tariff is dated 5 June), the SC is 8.5% higher, the peak rate is 7% lower, and the off-peak is 23% lower.

I haven't yet found what OVO will be charging for the E10 SVT next quarter. I wonder if that plus/minus 13-ish % is standard for them or if they change it across the year?

(My attempts at working out if the fix would be better for us are even more hampered by the fact we've only been on E10 for 6 months and before that we were on a tariff that works completely differently, and the fact we had a new heat pump and radiators put in last week to replace the old storage heaters...)

Scot_39

Do you really still want e10 for a heat pump ?

Mh e10 rates are nearly 20p off peak and 32p peak right now and likely to only drop the same as Ofgem c1.2p in July based on other recent cap changes.

If you can avoid heavy use supper time peak 4-7pm  iirc  would say Cosy Octopus - thst they used to target on  ashp, but iirc now electric boilers too -  be an option. 
Or one of the othef tou tarriffs at new challengers.

Scot_39

Ildhund said:

Scot_39 said:

Do you know if Ovo actually publish their regional E10 tariff rates anywhere - like on a blog ?

They're very coy about their various tariffs. Once a quarter, they put up a completely unpredictable link to the tariff table, but in the last couple of weeks of a quarter it gives rates for the current quarter while quotes use those for the forthcoming quarter. So here's the current table: SVT - Previous Rates ( https://www.ovobyus.com/m/41926906b6a124d3/original/Previous-Rates-Direct-Debit.pdf ).

You get an idea of the number and complexity of wacky tariffs they inherited from SSE, and how difficult it was going to prove to be to replace them with something that a smart meter could handle.

Yes if I read that correctly - off peak  being almost 22p currently in region 11=  EM  - off peak for me  19.35 - over 2p more than my current EOn Next off peak rate.

But their peak rate correspondingly cheaper too - I pay 32.17 peak the right hand colum e10 - reading that as current Ovo at 28.4p.

I am typically 75% off peak annually epin recent mild winters and lower room temps with thermals these days - used to be low 80s more typically -  so overall not a big difference.

But EOn have replaced at least one forumites e10 with e7 smets2 in padt - so any e10 option might be nice (thry didn't quote me "yet") as an alternative to jumping to Snug @ Octopus if EOn repeat.

Yarrows

Scot_39 said:

Do you really still want e10 for a heat pump ?

Mh e10 rates are nearly 20p off peak and 32p peak right now and likely to only drop the same as Ofgem c1.2p in July based on other recent cap changes.

If you can avoid heavy use supper time peak 4-7pm  iirc  would say Cosy Octopus - thst they used to target on  ashp, but iirc now electric boilers too -  be an option. 
Or one of the othef tou tarriffs at new challengers.

Yes that first question is bothering me too! Without having used it for any length of time I don't really know.

A lot of my thinking about this would probably be better on the heat pump forum but basically, if we accept TOU tariffs are good for ASHPs at all, but I'm worried about our ability to shift a lot of the heating load because the ASHP may prefer to run more constantly, then my E10 is less "punishing" than Octopus Cosy when units are used at the wrong time.

At the moment there's at least 1 person at home all day on weekdays working till 6pm so shifting load out of the Octopus "ultra-peak" window might be difficult. I've already got the legionnaires cycle running weekly in the E10 afternoon slot and will probably move the DHW to the off-peak slots rather than how the installer left it, topping up all the time, and will try to figure out how to set a setback for the overnight peak hours.

I was thinking to try a year on E10 (possibly on the 1yr fix) to see how we go and use that info to decide what to do next year. We can continue to shift our non-heating usage to the off-peak slots so maybe that plus the DHW schedule and nighttime setback would be enough of a shift to make E10 viable.

Our current SVT unit rates with OVO are 29.01p and 22.28p so they're a bit closer together than yours (compare to single-rate SVT 26.99p). Also our time slots are quite useful (given we work from home a lot) at 0430-0730, 1330-1630 and 2030-0030. That probably changes the calculus a bit.

Ildhund

Yarrows said:
Our current SVT unit rates with OVO are 29.01p and 22.28p ...

Mr Holmes tells me that this puts you in the Scottish Hydro area. I found this interesting little comparison in the OVO forums:
   

 
  

Yarrows

Ildhund said:

Mr Holmes tells me that this puts you in the Scottish Hydro area. I found this interesting little comparison in the OVO forums...

We are indeed - and I should have checked those forums too (I believe you may have given me good advice there with the THTC -> Smart E10 move ).

That table is interesting. On the SVT you only need 2/3 off-peak to be better off on E10. Over winter with storage heaters (and load shifting of other energy-hungry things) we were better than 90/10 but obviously with the heat pump that will be very different. On the other hand we weren't very warm during peak periods with those old heaters

The offered fix with the higher SC does complicate matters a bit though!