Will my economy 10 tariff work?

[Sillychuckie]

I had an electrician in last month to replace a really old electrics setup.
They put in a consumer unit (none before), an earth bar (no earth before), and we have now have RCD protection etc. It fell short of a 'full rewire' of the property, but all appliances are now wired into the new CU.

Their first attempt was not without its problems. During the day, the power to the appliances feeding from the new CU would sometimes cut off, then come on again hours later.

It turns out that the property has an Economy 10 meter, with 2 live cables coming in. One cable is 'live' 24x7, whereas the other stops providing power during Economy 10 hours (10 each day, including 2 in the afternoon and evening).
They had fed the new CU with the E10 live which switches on/off.

They fixed the problem by connecting it instead to the other live (which provides power throughout the day), but I'm now concerned that the property will not benefit from the 'low' rate economy 10 tariff.

Is anyone able to answer these questions?:

"Will my E10 meter charge the low rate, only when appliances are fed from the E10 live power cable (with periodic on/off times), or, is that cable only used as some sort of 'trigger' to tell the meter to change tarrifs?.
Now 100% of the house appliances are powered from the live cable which is on 24 x 7, will this mean I wont get any power charged at the lower rate?"

I have probably completely misunderstood the electricians explanation, so forgive me if any of this is incorrect.
Obviously I could also just watch the meter and see how it charges, but for reasons I wont go into, I don't have easy access to the property just now.

Thanks.
SC.

 

[Iggifer]

if you have two live cables from the meter and you're only using the 24/7 peak supply then no you will not benefit

if there is only one set of cables (doesn't sound like this is the case) and the switching is done in the meter then you will benefit

you can get dual tariff consumer units that would allow you to benefit from the E10 but it sounds a bit late for this

 

[plugwash]

AIUI with modern off peak tarrifs like economy 10 during the off peak periods all electricity is at the lower rate regardless of whether you take it from the main supply or the switched supply. You should be able to confirm this with your supplier.

However you really do want to have your storage and immersion heater hooked up to the off peak supply so they switch on only when it's off peak. Otherwise you are unlikely to get much benefit. You could use your own timers but doing so risks them getting out of step with the electricity supplier's timer.

It also sounds like you may need a new electrician.

 

[bernardgreen]

It also sounds like you may need a new electrician.

I am not so sure he had an electrician. Few if any electricians would mix up the tails from a multi-tariff meter.

whereas the other stops providing power during Economy 10 hours (10 each day, including 2 in the afternoon and evening).

That sounds like the control wire from a TeleSwitch that tells the meter which rate is to be used. If the "electrician" meddled with that wire then he may be putting the owner at risk of fraudulent use of power ( metering at the low rate when it should be high rate ).

 

[Sillychuckie]

I don't have a clue about this stuff, so most certainly got an electrician to do the job (but clearly you are better, older, and have more experience).
I found a picture of what the meter looks like (if that helps anyone). You can see it here: http://www.horstmann.co.uk/utilities.php under the section "Radio Telemeters (RTM)".

I also looked up 'dual tariff consumer units', but it sounds to me as though they just support 2 lines in (low rate and high rate), and you therefore wire in things like storage heaters on one side (low rate items), and normal appliances on the other.
This property doesn't actually have storage heaters, and all the heaters (oil filled), can be used 24/7, so my guess is that they are just wired into the peak supply.
What I really need is a consumer unit which can 'switch' between off-peak and peak supply, using the 'off-peak' as a preferred supply when it is available.
i.e I get everything in the property charged at low rate (when low rate applies), else it is charged at high rate (but without restriction of when I can turn things on).

I'm familiar with an eco7 where I used to live, where switching happened within the meter (but without storage heaters, this too was pointless). I guess i'm just trying to reproduce that, so we get low cost electricity when we are supposed to (but not just for heating). With 5 'daytime' offpeak hours, this is ideal on E10.

I'm starting to think that the previous owner didn't use an E10 tariff, and just reported the 'total kwh used' when meter reading, but I might be wrong. We could do this, but it would be a shame given that E10 can be cheaper for properties without gas.

The Meter has 2 lives from it, and the electrician hooked the off-peak supply up to the CU first time, before correcting the error some days later.
It appears as though the off-peak supply isn't used by anything in the flat, and given that there are no storage heaters, this makes sense.

I doubt it was the 'control wire from a TeleSwitch'.

I think I may just have to forget about E10, and have a standard tariff and report the 'Total' figure from the meter. Since the off-peak live is no longer powering anything anyway (at any time), its value on the meter isn't going to change anyway.

I'll monitor the meter when I can next get to it and work out whether it is recording more than 1 rate any longer, or not. If (as I suspect), only the 'peak' number changes, then I'll either enquire about a multi tariff consumer unit (which works the way I desire), or see if the energy companies will take me off E10.

Thanks.
SC

 

[Sillychuckie]

Just to reply to some other points directly:

AIUI with modern off peak tarrifs like economy 10 during the off peak periods all electricity is at the lower rate regardless of whether you take it from the main supply or the switched supply.

This is precisely what I'm trying to replicate, so if my supply is like that, then I'll be getting the cheaper rate despite what my electrician has done.
I'll have to monitor this when I can get access.
If this is the case though, why do they bother having a 'switched supply'?
This was really what my question was all about.
I'll keep an eye on the meter and establish the answer. My fear was that you had to take the power from the 'switched supply', in order to have it record at low rate.

However you really do want to have your storage and immersion heater hooked up to the off peak supply so they switch on only when it's off peak. Otherwise you are unlikely to get much benefit.

I see. The benefit of the 'switched' supply, is not for meter recording, but for the on/off nature, automatically controlling the heating! Clever.
In my case, since I have no storage heaters, this doesn't matter.
Therefore, if your first point is correct, I have nothing to worry about.

I think I can only answer this beyond doubt, by monitoring the meter and seeing how it allocates the usage.

Thanks all.
SC

 

[flameport]

Without storage heaters, it is pointless having E10, E7 or any other similar tariff.

While the off peak electricity is much cheaper, the day rate is higher than normal. It only saves money if a substantial amount of your electricity use is off peak, otherwise it will cost you more than a single rate.

 

[Sillychuckie]

Hi Flameport.
Yes, the figure I am hearing is that 20% is the 'break even' point.
Since E10 provides 5 hours 'during the day', I think that it might just about be worth staying on it.

I just spoke to EON and they have said the following:
- Even if you do not make use of the 'switched supply', the meter will still charge the 2 rates (low or high), even when used from the 'always on supply' (using the 'switched supply' timings as a basis).
- An E10 tariff usually has 3 meter readings. low/high, and 'switched' (charged at same rate as low).
- On my account, the switched figure is 0 (which confirms that the property has never had storage heaters nor run anything from this 'switched' supply). The other 2 figures are non zero, meaning that it is correctly applying the low/high rates.
- My low rates will be from:
Midnight to 5am, and then approximately 1-4pm and 8-10pm.
(this adds up to 11 hours, but she said the 1-4 could be 1-3 or 2-4).

They also said that it would be no charge to change to a standard meter, but I think that we could still make the most of the off-peak hours to make it worthwhile.

I think this is all sounding positive.
Finally, I found a company who said they could apply their Eco7 tariff (cheaper), against Eco10 meters... but I'm skeptical about that (given the multiple supply numbers etc).

Thanks.
SC.

 

[phatboy]

My experience (albeit in Jersey) is with E10, the heaters get their 3 periods of heat per day, but the high and low rates are separate. Low rate is 11pm - 7am, the rest of the time is normal rate.