E7 with afternoon boost help

mattressback

hi

can someone explain how the billing works for E7 with afternoon boost? let me explain.

i have 3 readings on my meter, they are

day @ 21.6p per unit
night @ 4.21p per unit
heat @ 5.07p per unit

now npower customer services have told me on 3 occasions and also after the customer services rep consulted with their "specialist team" on two occasions all say that:-

my heat at night should go on my night tariff and only my heat for afternoon boost should go on my heat tariff.

however

as my meter stands all my heat, both night time charge and afternoon boost go on my heat tariff

i use about 1000 heat units per month so obviously if the majority of those were on the cheaper night tariff i would save a few quid

Engineers have come out twice now and both said that it cant be done (neither actually opened the meter box tho), the meter is radio controlled and the call centre staff are wrong. but when you have so many people on different occasions telling you the same thing you begin to wonder who is right and who is wrong.

So can anyone tell me?

should my night time heat go on the night tariff?
and remember this is for E7 with afternoon boost

cheers
mike

Terrylw1

Hi Mike,

Trust the engineer. If the engineer was from the Meter Operator and not a clipboard agent (who can just be normal employees with little or no technical knowledge) then they are the experts.

They service, test and inspect these meters as well as investigate the timeclocks if they are suspected to be incorrect.

So, who would you believe? A call centre agent who knows nothing about the technical aspects of the meter or the highly trained engineer who knows how to test the things?

Here's what might explain what Npower have said to you. Npower have no available tariff for a lot of meters e.g. E10 hence cannot bill them. I wonder if yours falls into that category?

To understand that, does your bill have 3 readings or 2? If 2, the bills could be wrong because they don't have an available tariff on their systems.

Are you E10 or E7 though? You can have these afternoon boost meters on E7 but your bill should reflect it accurately.

One of the codes of your bill can be used to clarify that, post if you want it checking but don't detail anything on here as your supply number in it's entirety can be misused by sales agents. I can tell you whih item and tell you what you are on.

mattressback

my meter actually has 4 readings one of which is a blank

they are

day
night
blank
heat

i dont have a problem with the bill i think its billed accurately my issue is regarding heat and whether it should all go on the heat reading or if my night time heat should go on the night reading and only afternoon boost should go on the heat reading

i know what youre saying about the trusting the engineer and thats where my instincts lie, sadly tho in doing that it means im been charged fairly and have no grounds for complaint/cheaper bills lol which is what i was hoping for

but still i have no concrete answer as to how E7 with afternoon boost works regarding which reading heat is billed upon depending on wether its at night or during the afternoon

ps it was a meter operator engineer that called today

Terrylw1

Well those Meter Operators are the company that Suppliers like Npower have to call to clarify a question like this. They are the experts.

If there is a TPR available for heat/day/night, each dial records seperately and you will be billed per that. It then depends where you heating is wired to. The engineer is stating that your heating circuit is to the heating rate on the meter to allow it to switch the heating on when the timeswitch activates.

The engineer would know that.

Therw are some more technically minded people on the forum that will know about the wiring side. I'm less up on these heating element tariffs tbh.

The only reason I mentioned the billing side is I know a lot of customers are having trouble with E10/heatwise meters in that Npower can't bill them at all.

hep2o

I am on Npower Supertariff with the 2hr afternoon boost. Heat is all equipment connected to the time switch, ie storage heaters, so these have the evening charge plus afternnon. Night is anything on the normal domestic circuits during the night time offpeak period. At least that is what I have been told.

Do you have two supply numbers on your bill? I have and have been told I can't change suppliers till one number is cancelled which means changing the meter to normal e7.

Terrylw1

Hi Mike,

I have checked on this to confirm what I thought.

The heating rate has all your heating on it.

Terrylw1

hep2o wrote: »

I am on Npower Supertariff with the 2hr afternoon boost. Heat is all equipment connected to the time switch, ie storage heaters, so these have the evening charge plus afternnon. Night is anything on the normal domestic circuits during the night time offpeak period. At least that is what I have been told.

Do you have two supply numbers on your bill? I have and have been told I can't change suppliers till one number is cancelled which means changing the meter to normal e7.

Hi,

Thats a blatant lie to get you to come off Supertariff. Suppliers do struggle to bill Supertariff customers so you have ot shop around as not all may be willing to accept you.

Any Suppliers that can bill E10 (which has 2 MPAN's) will be able to bill you as long as they have created a tariff on their systems.

If you current Supplier told you this, they are talking garbage - they can only block a switch due to debt reasons.

Garz

Hi I work for Meter Operative company, we do data collection and I have been working for electric boards for circa 4 years so I will try help you to the best of my knowlege. Any technical info that surpasses my knowlege shouldnt be hard to get through my job.

Economy seven basically bills you on two rates, Low (L) and Normal (N). I dont know what type of meter you have or make as you havnt mentioned. From your post it sounds like you have a Radio teleswitch doing the tariff switching which from what I hear uses Radio 4 to broadcast the signals.

So unless you have a modern or technical meter I cannot see how the meter can differentiate the 'top-up' or boosting heat your paying for.

Terrylw1

Hi Garz,

Since meters can be available in certain regions only, you may not come across them working for a NHHMO. I'm sure a lot of people on the forum will be happy to have some advice from you though.

The type of meter in question here is E7 3 rate or E10. So, you get day/night/heating registers each with their own TPR. So, the Supplier bills all 3 and provides an EAC on each when fitting to the Data Collector.

You get the timeswitch click over when hitting night, but there is also a heating register connected to the heating circuit.

Garz

Hi terry, thanks for your informative response. As I predominantly work in the NORWEB,MANWEB areas all the pre-digital meters I come accross display two rates. The newer digital ones can display upto six rates which I do see depending on what area of the country I happen to be working in. Domestics are a rarety now as we mainly operate on business customer equiment so I apologise if my knowlege is a little patchy on this.

The kind matress did not specify which region he is in but from what you are saying there clearly must be strange setups on these economy packages. Going back on topic, yes the night rate or off peak heating should go on the low rate reading. What type of meter have you got and is it a seperate timeswitch near the meter?

Terrylw1

Hi Garz,

These types of meters are like E10. In the case of E10, a Supplier will receive 3 readings as the meter has 3 read dials. So, the consumer gets billed on 3 rates which will differ.

These types of meters have an off peak nighttime boost but also have an afternoon boost which is registered against the heating dial.

The Supplier cannot add the off peak and heating together as that would require adding the unit advance together which would cause problems for the consumer when reading the bill.

It's just a 3 rate tariff and meter. A bit like Supertariff in the NEDL region, if you've come across them with 2 MPAN's.

You may not have come across them. I never did for years until the Supplier I worked for started selling to certain regions where the NHHMO has these types of metering in place.