Off-Peak Smart metering

Starbuckle

Many of us have watched the TV commercial featuring a character resembling Albert Einstein alongside Angela Ripon, which highlights how smart meters can help save money when using electrical appliances during off-peak hours.  My question is whether this only applies if you're 'not on a fixed tariff', or does it also apply if you are on one of the many standard tariffs ? (excluding special tariffs like Octopus' Agile)

QrizB

Starbuckle said:

Many of us have watched the TV commercial featuring a character resembling Albert Einstein alongside Angela Ripon, which highlights how smart meters can help save money when using electrical appliances during off-peak hours.  My question is whether this only applies if you're 'not on a fixed tariff', or does it also apply if you are on one of the many standard tariffs ?

To get the biggest benefit, you generally need to be on a time-of-use tariff where the price changes during the day rather than one where the price is the same all the time.

There are fixed time-of-use tariffs, and there are variable ones.

There are also free energy sessions, like those offered by EDF and Octopus, that are open to anyone regardless of whether they have a time-of-use tariff or not.

What tariff are you on, and which supplier?

Newbie_John

Sessions are quite unreliable, you can't predict when is a next one and they work both ways - use more for free or use less for money back. It's more/less than your typical usage so again hard to predict.

Let's look at simple ToU tarriffs Octopus Cosy (prices vary little bit by location):

Electricity

• Day rate: 25.13 p/kWh (Normal price)
• Peak rate (16:00 - 19:00): 37.69 p/kWh (1.5x as expensive)
• Cosy rate (04:00 - 07:00, 13:00 - 16:00 and 22:00 - 00:00): 12.32 p/kWh (half price)
• Standing charge:42.49 p/day

So if you managed to only use electricity between 4-7, 13-16, 22-0 then your bill will be half the price.

If you only use electricity between 16-19 then your bill will be 50% more expensive.

So it's about shifting, doing more at cheaper periods and doing less between 16-19.

It's really predictable, you know exactly when, it remains the same through the year.. and yes, you can use sessions as well

There's many more but they often require EV etc, the "Cosy" one used to require Heat Pump but a lot of people use it without.

Starbuckle

I'm on an Octopus 12 month fix.  I am a single fuel customer (electricity only).  Personally, I think the said advert is misleading because it seems to suggest off-peak lower rates are available to anyone with a smart meter, regardless of whether you are on a fix or not!

I have a thermal battery not hot water system, do could make good use of lower Off-Peak rates.  Although, by day, normal rate,  I use infrared heaters.  What time-of-use fixed  tariffs are available?  The ones that are intended for EV users don't quite meet my needs.

Starbuckle

Please excuse the poor grammar.  

'I have a thermal battery hot water system, so could make good use of lower off-peak rates.  Is it best to fix?

Peter999_2

I've not seen the advert as I don't watch any adverts on TV.

However, having a smart meter would not help you if you are on a fix.   It comes into it's own when you sign up to a time of day tariff.    For example my parents and I have electric cars and using a smart meter enables them to be on intelligent octopus go.     This means, when they plug in the car and tell the app when it needs to be charged by (and how much charge to add) then when it is charging it only costs 7p per kWh instead of the well over 20p per kWh of the standard tariffs.   It means that the whole house also gets 7p per kWh whenever the car is charging so it is useful and you can save a lot of money.

I have Octopus Agile which charges a different amount for every 30 minute slot during the day.   When the sun is shining and it's very windy then the cost per kWh can be very low (sometimes, like today, they actually pay you to use electricity so it's good to get the washing/cooking or anything else that uses a lot of electricity done.

I pay about £38 a month for electricity using Agile (the bill tells you how much on average you have paid per kWh during the month and for the last few months it's cost me about 11p per kWh which is quite a saving.

Spoonie_Turtle

Starbuckle said:

I'm on an Octopus 12 month fix.  I am a single fuel customer (electricity only).  Personally, I think the said advert is misleading because it seems to suggest off-peak lower rates are available to anyone with a smart meter, regardless of whether you are on a fix or not!

I have a thermal battery not hot water system, do could make good use of lower Off-Peak rates.  Although, by day, normal rate,  I use infrared heaters.  What time-of-use fixed  tariffs are available?  The ones that are intended for EV users don't quite meet my needs.

They are available to anyone with a communicating smart meter, but you have to choose to go onto the relevant tariff.

For off-peak rates during the day there's Octopus Cosy and Agile, and any equivalents from other suppliers. 

As you're already an Octopus customer you can compare what different tariffs would have cost you by using the Octopus Compare app, or octopriceuk.app which is a webpage.

Newbie_John

For octopus you can check all tarriffs here:
https://octopus.energy/tariffs/

Unselect the business ones and review others.

More or less they all follow similar pattern - more expensive 16-19 times and cheaper other periods.

Bigphil1474

I'm with British Gas, which has been surprisingly okay - they have half price electric on Sunday afternoons (11am til 4pm),. They also have occasional ad-hoc sessions which you can sign up to, last one was Thursday afternoon for a couple of hours. You don't need to be on a special tariff to get it. 

QrizB

Starbuckle said:

I'm on an Octopus 12 month fix.  I am a single fuel customer (electricity only).  Personally, I think the said advert is misleading because it seems to suggest off-peak lower rates are available to anyone with a smart meter, regardless of whether you are on a fix or not!

You are still confusing your terminology.

- There are fixed rates (where the tariff remains the same for months or years) and there are variable rates (where the tariff can be changed by the supplier essentially at will).

- There are single-rate tariffs (where the price of energy is the same all day) and there are multi-rate time-of-use tariffs (where the price of energy changes during the day).

The two are different. A supplier might offer, for example, a variable single-rate tariff or a fixed multi-rate time-of-use tariff.

Starbuckle said:

I have a thermal battery not hot water system, do could make good use of lower Off-Peak rates.  Although, by day, normal rate,  I use infrared heaters.  What time-of-use fixed  tariffs are available?  The ones that are intended for EV users don't quite meet my needs.

You're in an awkward position as you have stored heat for hot water but instantaneous heat for space heating. Did you choose this or was your property like this when you moved in? Do you own or rent?

Normally, an all-electric property would use storage heaters for space heating and a HW tank or thermal store for water heating. This combination works well with Economy 7 (E7), a time-of-use tariff that's been around for 40+ years. E7 is available as a variable tariff from every supplier, and as a fixed tariff from most of them.

Such a property would also be suitable for some of the smarert tariffs, typically cheaper than E7.

But, with direct electric space heating (infrared heaters), E7 is less likely to work for you.

Starbuckle

Thanks for all the replies.
I find infrared heaters to be very efficient, although they work best in well insulated homes and it's a different kind of heat.  I decided to ditch my old gas combi-boiler and go all electric.  For hot water I now have a thermal battery, which is super efficient.  Additionally, it does not require yearly servicing, which is recommended for gas boilers. Another plus is I no longer have a standard charge for gas.  If you factor all these things in, I'm already better off.  Now, it's just a matter of fine tuning things with the best tariff.