Economy 7 or Economy 10

davidego

I've just read through this thread and am surprised it doesn't cover my case. I have Economy 7, but with 10 hours at cheap rate, in a single switching, currently 9pm to 7am. My meter was changed from an old dial unit to a new digital one in April 2007. The old meter also gave 10 hours. I was with NPower when the meter was changed, then had a few months with Atlantic, always on their cheapest sign-on-line Economy 7 tariffs. I went back to NPower last June with a SOL 11 contract. British Gas and Scottish Power had refused to take me on because of my meter type. After a couple of months NPower tried to put me on a standard Economy 7 tariff, at a huge cost increase. I have never accepted this and we are still in dispute. They think I have E10 and can't understand why I haven't got the third , boost, reading. I've had numerous visits, letters, telephone calls to confirm the situation, and a letter saying I am confirmed as on SOL 11. Still they bill me at the standard rate and I believe they can't agree between the various departments as to what tariff I should be on. Make no mistake, I will take this to the highest level to get it resolved. I will not pay the standard tariff. I have a contract for SOL 11, that's all.
Can anybody shed any light on the Economy 7 with 10 hours single period meter type? I'm in the EDF area, formerly Eastern Electricity.

markowen58

Economy 10 is now available in all regions, since late 2007 early 2008.

Economy 10 in the PES 10 area is the only area with 3 registers as it requires 2 MPAN's and is in effect two meters. the heating circuit is a dedicated circuit that you cannot run appliances, etc on.

Economy 10 in the 16 region is a little tricky. NORWEB started installing Economy 10 meters in the region without the correct Standard Settlement Configuration (SSC) code in place for settlements purposes, they now have that code in place and from the sound of the two suppliers rejecting you (which I'll go into later) it appears you have the correct code assigned. this code forms part of the top line of you MPAN/Supply number.

The E10 in all PES areas other than 10, so your area (16) are infact reprogrammed economy 7 meters. the advantage to them is that the boosts in the afternoon are not just for heating as the meter cannot differentiate between heating and appliances so watching Tv or letting the dishwasher run during this period is off peak and charged at that rate. The downside is that you cannot get E7 tariffs only E10 tariffs which charge at different rates and take this usage into account.

I suspect the reason that those two suppliers rejected you is that the SSC code doesnt match the tariff that you signed up with them for.

Now that E10 meters are available in all regions, I presume due to OFGEM, should mean that all suppliers have an E10 tariff available and subsequently I suspect that they should start incorporating them into the online, capped, fixed, etc tariffs for competition purposes. At present they arent and as i've said the reason those two suppliers rejected you. As all price comparison sites only compare UR(unrestricted/single rate) and E7 meters.

Your supplier should be able to determine what hours the meter runs for from the SSC code or Meter Timeswitch Code (MTC), although this is specialist knowledge and either on a webpage in front of them or you'll need to drill down to the correct department for answers.

Modern Meters however should have some means of indicating that they are running off peak to gauge the hours yourself. mainly the register that is recording is show, or one of the registers is flashing, or it can even say 'low', etc.

honestly though the sheer complexity and variety of meters available in all regions you could write a book on. a not particularly interesting book...

to end as a rule if you've got anything other than E7 or UR, then contact the incumbent supplier for your PES area, they should have all the information required simply through legacy support for those meters.

As I mentioned in my other post. I used to work for E.ON in there Electric Meter Exchange and Tariffs department and still work for them in a different capacity. This post is my own personal opinion and not that of E.ON, however it's a topic I spent a great deal of time resolving for them and now have an inbuilt need to share this information becuase of the headaches they cause