Smart meters are not so smart after all FYI

Jingles20

Economy 7 times with EDF are set to GMT
We use EDF for electricity supply with day and night rates. The night rate at our address is applicable 1230 - 0730 hrs. This is all excellent BUT no one mentioned that these hours are GMT only taking no account of daylight saving hours. We have been setting charge times to commence at 1230 am during summer months and been confused at our increased peak rate usage. Now we have amended to 0130 charging start time, peak rate has dropped sharply.

I am posting this for the attention of other users who may not be aware of this detail ….. Suppliers must be made to add GMT or UTC with their tariff times, for transparency..

Swipe

This has always been the case for anyone on E7. Everyone should routinely manually check their meter for the peak/off-peak switchover times and should never rely on any E7 timing info given by their supplier as fact.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

Economy 7 times with EDF are set to GMT

Yes, it's fairly well-known that E7 timings don't change with BST and remain on their GMT "winter" hours all year round.

Some smart tariffs (eg. Octopus Go) do change their hours, meaning you get a short off-peak period one night in March and a long one in September.

mta999

Yes and this fully explained on their Economy 7 webpage

By the way we use British Summer Time in this country not daylight saving time

https://www.edfenergy.com/energywise/all-you-need-know-about-economy-7

EssexHebridean

I think everyone newly on E7 has been caught by this at some stage - the good thing is that smart meters and half hourly readings can make it substantially easier to pick up on what is going on! We did 20 years on E7 on old style non-smart meters and had to make the summer/winter adjustments accordingly.

squirrelpie

I still have to adjust my EV car's charge control every summer because it runs on BST. Why car manufacturers can't realise that what they display on the dashboard may or may not be what I want on their charge control timer … Duh. (and yes, I don't have a 'smart' EVSE, so I use the car's system)

Qyburn

It's nothing to do with smart meters, it's always been this way.

Netexporter

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82113315#Comment_82113315

The first clock change after I got my EV it changed a week (or was it two) early. No idea whose time zone it was in. Seems to know where it lives now.

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6680780/smart-meters-are-not-so-smart-after-all-fyi

You may also need to be aware that smart meters can have a so called randomised offset (actually iirc Ildhunds post the multiple of two settings) that in theory can be upto 30min, but normally syb 10.

If your meter has one set to say 10min and your supplier sets 0030 0730 nominal your tariff and alcs (its common to both on e7 register based billing) won't actually switch to 0040 and 0740.

Swipe

A 30 minute delayed random offset could be benefical on E7 but could prove expensive if you went on Snug. Has there ever been a case of anyone on Snug successfully getting their offset changed?

Scot_39

I did suggest one of the folk on Snug who was suffering from a just sub 10m "overrun" asked if possible - as seemed unhappy about it - but I dont remember any feedback either way.

And it's only to be fair my own speculation that that is what is causing the "Snug" delay.

I dont remember any real noticeable offset on any of my 3 meters in last 10 years - Heatwise RTS, digital E10 and smets1 smart.

But their are others who have posted likes of 7m,9m - think highest I can remeber around 11/12 min - never anywhere near 30m - and Ildhund who quoted me the deriviation of the final time used many moons ago suspects in reality no one would get over 15m.