Economy 7 clock wrong

[SUNRAY]

You might find it 'incredible' but, if those (not a single source) informing us are telling the truth, that is how it appears to be.

It seems so

In any event, I personally not only find it very credible but, in fact, essential that there are 'two sets of timings' (one for metering and the other for load switching). Were that not the case (IF, as seems to be the case, the 'cheap electricity' period is the same for all E7 consumers), 'staggering' of the increase in demand would not be possible, since the 'off-peak-loads' of all E7 customers would switch on simultaneously, leading to potentially serious problems for generators and distributors.

You may be suggesting that, if the load switching is 'staggered' between customers, then the 'metering switching' should be correspondingly staggered.

And that is exactly what has happened historically, one of my rental properties is in a block and being there at that time they could all be heard clunking in possibly over a half hour period, equally where my Father In Law was in sheltered accomodation there were a number of 3ph contactors staggered by timers providing power to the second meter with the 24hr supply staying on full rate.

That would make sense (and would avoid the problem we are discussing) but, from what I understand, that's 'not how it is'. Indeed, if that were 'how it is' the problem being experienced by the OP (and apparently a fair number of other Octopus E7 customers) would presumably not exist?

I can't imagine for one minute they'd be able to include that in their contract

 

[JohnW2]

It seems so

Indeed. I've just been doing a fair bit of reading and it seems to confirm that the information I have been 'passing on' is corre t - both 'in general' (for 5-terminal 'smart' meters) and also probably specifically the OP's meter (which I think is a Toshiba SGM1415-B).

And that is exactly what has happened historically, one of my rental properties is in a block and being there at that time they could all be heard clunking in possibly over a half hour period, equally where my Father In Law was in sheltered accomodation there were a number of 3ph contactors staggered by timers providing power to the second meter with the 24hr supply staying on full rate.

In the days of ('single') time-switches or teleswitches external to the meter, there was obviously no possibility of this behaviour occurring, since there was only one 'time signal' which switched both the meter's TOU registers (for metering) and (where appropriate) the switched 'off-peak loads'. Whilst the actual timings were staggered between installations, within an individual installation the two things obviously happened simultaneously within the installation,hence ensuring that the off-peak loads (if switched by the meter) were always charged at off-peak rate.

I can't imagine for one minute they'd be able to include that in their contract

Not that many of us ever see these contracts that we are 'deemed to have signed' (by using the supplier's electricity), but I suspect that they might well be sufficiently vaguely worded that they could argue that the behaviour we're talking about was 'included'!