Best energy tariffs

[Peteski]

not sure about that. My recollection is that they were introduced for people with electric night storage heaters. Those must take a fair wack, overnight, to store as "heat". But ... the E7 rate is (usually?) a tad more than regular tariff for the Day Peak rate, so those night storage customers lost out during the day, and particularly in summer.

I suppose that all came about because generation plants were idle overnight, and thus the need to encourage use of the Base Load overnight. I don't think the power companies will mind if folk use nighttime to charge their cars - the Nuclear doesn't stop, and the Wind still blows ... no PV though of course If power Company can sell your electricity at night, rather than pump water up hill, I guess they would prefer to do that (and use Gas for Peaker Plants ... or Tesla batteries ... instead of Pumped Hydro)

I haven't really got my head around battery storage - whether best to install in each home and zero powercuts, "just down the road" providing reduced disruption within local communities, or centrally to gain economy-of-scale, use the existing distribution network, but no improvement for consumer on disruption.

I think there is an [efficiency] case for "transit at highest power" and "store and transmit at lowest power" which favours either local or Home. Home rubs up against people doing "payback" calculations and deciding the maths is lousy.

Personally I don't want any power cuts - I work from home even a 5 second power cut [once or twice a month here] disrupts the gear here, and a power cut of several hours [couple of times a year] means no work gets done (I can get the generator out ... but only if I know it is actually going to be several hours ...). So for me Battery Decision is easy ... but I suspect not for most. But currently Tesla doesn't have Solar Store and Whole House UPS product in the UK.

if I had a smart meter (they tried to install and said mobile phone signal was too weak, HoHum) and battery I would be buying cheapest rate possible,which may well be the ones with evening-peak (although currently they aren't actually cheap enough the rest of the time, compared to general shopping-around, to make much difference). My plan is to install more Solar than I am permitted to export, but store the remainder, hopefully some time this year.

But you could have night storage heaters AND several EVs to charge. Basically if your overall electricity bill is far lower than an equivalent single rate tariff then the supplier loses profit.

 

[Mark_T]

I disagree, anyone with a smart meter is still free to choose whatever tariff they like.

For now, yes, that is true, I am not so convinced it will remain so.

Once there is a critical mass of smart meters out there I'd expect the old options to disappear...

The 'carrot' of energy savings just isn't proving to be real for a lot of people and the 'stick' of variable pricing based on ToD will I suspect prove to be a lot more real before too much longer.

As long as you can afford to take steps to optimize your choices then I have no doubt it is a good thing, most people can't though and that is where this is going to get painful eventually...

 

[mikemillar]

That's useful information, but I don't see how keeping your E7 meter is going to help if prices do go through the roof.

It won't necessarily in the long term but I've locked into 2 years fixed rate at the best price for me at the moment. If the prices soar in the next 2 years I'm protected. If they don't I haven't lost anything and retained complete flexibility on future options. I don't want to commit to a smart meter until there is more information and track record about how smart meter variable rates work out. I understand that the rate can vary every half hour if you're currently with one of two companies who do this. That may be really great, particularly if the price goes negative and you can charge your Tesla then but depending on when we need our electricity it could also be bad. For me it's also linked to my considering a Powerwall 2 and maybe extending my solar array.

 

[Peteski]

For now, yes, that is true, I am not so convinced it will remain so.

Once there is a critical mass of smart meters out there I'd expect the old options to disappear...

The 'carrot' of energy savings just isn't proving to be real for a lot of people and the 'stick' of variable pricing based on ToD will I suspect prove to be a lot more real before too much longer.

As long as you can afford to take steps to optimize your choices then I have no doubt it is a good thing, most people can't though and that is where this is going to get painful eventually...

I agree, but it's not some sort of personal choice. Avoiding a smart meter today isn't going to help you in the future relative to anyone else with a smart meter already installed. There will just become a point where literally everyone has to have a smart meter and tariffs should become more dynamic. Ultimately it should allow suppliers to offer the most competitive rates throughout the day, it's just that there will be no way of making huge savings like you can now by taking advantage of simple peak/off peak tariffs with an EV biased night usage.

 

[arg]

But you could have night storage heaters AND several EVs to charge. Basically if your overall electricity bill is far lower than an equivalent single rate tariff then the supplier loses profit.

Conversely, if they didn't offer E7 then those customers would just run their heaters and charge their cars during the daytime, adding to the peak load and costing the suppliers more.

E7 is a coarser tool than some of the smartmeter tariffs, but it gets closer to pricing consumption in proportion to the cost of supplying it than a flat-rate tariff.

Of course if a supplier can persuade their customers onto the wrong tariff for their usage then the supplier earns an extra profit, but they can't count on doing that.

 

[Peteski]

It won't necessarily in the long term but I've locked into 2 years fixed rate at the best price for me at the moment. If the prices soar in the next 2 years I'm protected. If they don't I haven't lost anything and retained complete flexibility on future options. I don't want to commit to a smart meter until there is more information and track record about how smart meter variable rates work out. I understand that the rate can vary every half hour if you're currently with one of two companies who do this. That may be really great, particularly if the price goes negative and you can charge your Tesla then but depending on when we need our electricity it could also be bad. For me it's also linked to my considering a Powerwall 2 and maybe extending my solar array.

So it's really the fixed rate E7 tariff that you wanted to retain for as long as you can and I don't blame you as some of those tariffs are really cheap with heavy EV charging. But it makes no odds whether or not you have a smart meter as they can easily be set up on an E7 tariff too and if your particular supplier can't read it then they will just replace it with one that they can. Ultimately we are all still free to choose whatever tariffs are on the market, regardless of what meter we happen to have installed at the current time. In the worst case I might have to pay a small charge fit a new meter, but it's usually free. I've had about 4 or 5 different smart meters fitted in the last 10 years and not once been charged.

 

[Peteski]

Conversely, if they didn't offer E7 then those customers would just run their heaters and charge their cars during the daytime, adding to the peak load and costing the suppliers more.

E7 is a coarser tool than some of the smartmeter tariffs, but it gets closer to pricing consumption in proportion to the cost of supplying it than a flat-rate tariff.

Of course if a supplier can persuade their customers onto the wrong tariff for their usage then the supplier earns an extra profit, but they can't count on doing that.

But it works both ways. The coarse E7 tariffs are just calculated to marginally benefit users with a typical E7 night usage and attract their business. The supplier buys its energy on the wholesale market anyway, regardless of the tariff they choose to retail it on. The retail rates are just calculated to maximise profit while remaining competitive in the retail market. If your personal usage profile happens to be very heavily biased toward the off-peak rate then you win out compared to other customers with a less biased usage profile. That's why in the large scale business market, the supplier won't even quote until they see 12 months worth of half-hourly data for the site.

 

[Mark_T]

There will just become a point where literally everyone has to have a smart meter and tariffs should become more dynamic.

I don't disagree with that either, it is the way that both government and the suppliers are going about it that I find both at least misleading and potentially downright deceptive in some cases.

Despite the advertising, this has little to do with helping people save money and a lot more to do with enabling suppliers to charge their less agile customers more than they can currently achieve with the old meters.

I'm also expecting the smart meters to enable differential taxation for power used to charge EV's as the government is not going to let the income from fuel duty decline...

 

[mikemillar]

So it's really the fixed rate E7 tariff that you wanted to retain for as long as you can and I don't blame you as some of those tariffs are really cheap with heavy EV charging. But it makes no odds whether or not you have a smart meter as they can easily be set up on an E7 tariff too and if your particular supplier can't read it then they will just replace it with one that they can. Ultimately we are all still free to choose whatever tariffs are on the market, regardless of what meter we happen to have installed at the current time. In the worst case I might have to pay a small charge fit a new meter, but it's usually free. I've had about 4 or 5 different smart meters fitted in the last 10 years and not once been charged.

In principle I'm actually quite keen on the idea of smart meters, but don't forget I'm going to loose some solar export payments with a smart meter. I export 20% and am paid for the assumed 50%. If I fit Powerwalls I hope it will drop to nearly zero%. OK, it's not a huge amount, I get about £100 a year from the export payments, so at present I'd loose £60 - not really a big deal in the overall scheme of things. But, for example, the EDF Easy Online E7 deal, which is even better than the Blue+ E7 deal, specifically requires you to agree to have a A Smart meter fitted, thus offsetting most of the better rate (for me). Under present law, I don't think it will ever be obligatory to have a smart meter if you don't want one - I suspect the government back-pedalled on the compulsion bit when the new data protection laws came in - you can opt out of letting anyone see your personal data. But in practice all the power companies have to do is offer good tariffs with smart meters and one very expensive non-smart meter tariff.

In any case, we are the enlightened. Most people who have them don't understand how they work and currently just see a display showing how much it's costing them - can't even read in kWh. My Owl Intuition shows me much more than that, including solar export and historical data. A lot of people may not have either have the knowledge or the time to mess around with changing their power use profile to make the best of the variable rates, which are also going to be much more complicated to understand and predict. They may be the ones to suffer when smart meters become more universal. It will need linked intelligent consumer devices to make the best of that - what's the current state on that? Are there any? The Model S can ,in theory at least, communicate with the Powerwall 2, it would just need a software update I presume. But receiving data from a Smart meter? Not yet I think.

The fact that hardly anyone other than EDF is offering Night rates nearly as low as them, and Affect Energy, my current supplier, has doubled their previously very good rate leads me to suspect that soon either all Night rates will be similar to the majority now or that they'll go up significantly. Hence wanting to lock in a very low rate - it only works for me because my peak usage is a third of my night rate usage.

Unless the economics are shown to be bad by consumer experience I'm sure I'll get a smart meter soon. But at the moment I want to keep my powder dry. Lord make me pure - but not yet!

 

[Peteski]

Despite the advertising, this has little to do with helping people save money and a lot more to do with enabling suppliers to charge their less agile customers more than they can currently achieve with the old meters.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean here? Most people are currently on a single rate tariff, with only a small percentage on a dual rate and only a handful on a multi-rate tariff. For those on dual or multi-rate tariffs the supplier has no idea of their customer usage profiles when buying its wholesale energy, so it has to make an educated guess at what that usage profile will be. So there will always be winners and losers on any simple passive tariff unless that tariff is tailored specifically on an individual basis, as we see in big industry.

What we are currently seeing from suppliers is a feeble attempt to actually make full use of smart metering in providing bespoke tariffs based on agile individual usage profiles. Even triple-rate tariffs are a rarity and I don't know of any domestic tariff that is priced to your actual individual usage profile. Pricing is all about averaging over the customer base. Fortunately at this time, it gives us EV users a chance to make significant savings that are effectively subsidised by their other customers using less off-peak electricity.

Mikemillar is a good example of this. His night usage is way above the average that his current supplier would have used as a benchmark for the tariff. So he wins out while the other customers on that same tariff make up the shortfall in revenue. Of course once everyone has an EV or two and the average usage profile swings toward more night usage, then the tariffs will adjust to reflect that change in the average user profile.

Considering the low cost technology now available to monitor domestic electricity consumption in detail, the tariffs on offer are ridiculously simplistic and take no account of individual usage profiles.

 

[mikemillar]

[QUOTE="Peteski, post: 3411622, member: 66251"
The reason why EV owners currently get a great deal on E7 tariffs is because those tariffs were never intended for such heavy night consumption. So ultimately the supplier ends up losing profit because the average unit cost they carefully calculated to balance out overall with a more "typical" E7 usage profile ends up heavily biased toward the lower rate. Obviously this is not sustainable for the supplier and so as EV usage becomes more common, these tariffs will either change or disappear.
[/QUOTE]

Not sure I agree with that either. I typically do 50 miles in a day and charge 25% 7kWh for 4 hours = 28kWh. That's equivalent to two 2kW storage heaters charging for 7 hours. Even if I fully charged my S85 every night it's only equivalent to four 3kW storage heaters, just about enough for a small flat.

Oddly enough my usual 4 hour nightly (well not every night, I'm retired) charge just about fits in with the Octopus and Green Energy low rate variable tariffs, but I might charge longer, which makes the variable tariff less attractive.

 

[mikemillar]

Ahah! Octopus have replied! Here's most of what the lovely Iona said:

• We’ve taken the cheapest 4 hours of the night and created a very cheap dual rate tariff

• Off-peak: 00:30 – 04:30 at 5p/kWh

• Peak: 04:30 – 00:30 at appx. 14p/kWh

• Standing charge: 25p/day

• 14p on average (peak rate varies in other GSPs)

• The tariff's unit rates and standing charges are fixed for 12 months

• The electricity on the Go tariff is 100% renewable

The best plan of action is for you to sign up to us from the link above. You’ll need to have a 'Secure' branded smart meter in 'standard' & 'credit mode' for this tariff to work (ie. not a prepayment meter, or an economy 7 meter), and we can install a smart meter for customers looking to switch to this tariff who don't have one already. Go customers are one of the few exceptions to SMETS1 installations but bare with us as we can't promise the availability of these meters will be as soon as you come to being supplied by us.

If you don’t have one, you can sign up to any of our existing tariffs which don’t require a smart meter, and get you onto the Go tariff when that’s been installed. You can sign up to any of our other tariffs here.

One of the reasons we set the limit at 1000 is because its like a special offer, much like the ones we offer through partnerships and also because its a much more manageable customer base for our smart tariff operations teams, they are always trialling new and exciting ways to get your energy so its good to start small, when we grow it might be that the number is extended to welcome more customers to special tariffs like this. I wouldn't worry too much though as currently there are just over 300 customers on this particular tariff.
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My take on that is - Yes, excellent deal at the moment, rather better than the one I've just started switching to. I could easily switch again if I wanted, and the deal doesn't look like it's going to end soon. However I have one or two reservations at the moment. The deal is fixed for 1 year - good. But I suspect that after 1 year it may go up to the industry smart tariff average or near it. As noted in a previous post, my Affect Energy 5.8p Night tariff would have been bumped up to 10p, about the same as all the other Octopus tariffs. Am I being too suspicious in noting that Octopus recently bought Affect, who say they still have their own tariffs and no other link to Octopus (at the moment). Have Octopus told them they need to increase their night tariff rate?

The Octopus Go off peak 4 hour window is just long enough for my usual charge. Once we go onto a smart meter with full variable rate tariff I see that the Green Energy Tide rates are Low Tide 7 hrs 7.9p, Tide (most of the rest of 24 hours) 16.3p, High Tide 16.00-20.00, just when you want to cook your dinner - a whopping 32.5p! Life style change? I feel a Tesla Powerwall 2 coming on! From what I can glean Ovo have a similar profile. They also do a Smart Storage Heater plan!! (previous discussion). Ovo are still pushing the SMETS1 smart meter. Octopus is being very open about their intention to fit SMETS2 meters.

So I'm going to hold fire, at least until I've got my Powerwall 2/Solar extension sorted out and hopefully some data. For others who aren't planning any change to their home installations it may be an easier decision.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Basically if your overall electricity bill is far lower than an equivalent single rate tariff then the supplier loses profit.

You're the numbers person, rather than me, but I'm not getting my head around this I'm afraid to say.

I understand that if I had single tariff (and a car to charge overnight) that would be more profit for supplier. If I don't have EV (and no nightstore heaters) I'm probably going to seriously struggle to make E7 cost effective - my night usage will never be enough to justify paying a bit more for the day rate - so I should be on a singe-rate tariff.

If I buy EV and switch to E7 then the supplier gains a smidgen on my day use, loses out on my night use, but gains significantly from my extra night use for EV.

If I buy an EV and don't change to E7 ... but change later ... then, yes, supplier loses out but I was nuts for the first period of EV charging cost!

If I buy a static battery and reduce my day rate, and charge battery overnight, then yes supplier loses out, but I (combined with others) have smoothed their supply and reduced the need for them to build new generating capacity. They are "paying me" to subsidise that, and I am using up their surplus overnight generation.

Same thing for everyone who installed PV I suppose ... reduced the bills of those homeowners and profits of suppliers (except that I expect that most PV home owners are out to work, exporting plenty during the day, and only getting the 50% "assumed export", so being ripped off by electricity supplier - but that is hunch-only, I have no data to support that)

So I think that E7 consumers have high enough night usage to justify it, would therefore not be on a single-rate tariff anyway, and Supplier has surplus generating capacity overnight (they may sell to me at a loss, but that's better than no sale, and maybe better than "pumping water uphill"), and all the (serious) off peak users are helping smooth supply.

As long as you can afford to take steps to optimize your choices then I have no doubt it is a good thing, most people can't though and that is where this is going to get painful eventually...

That's a general problem, for which I have no answer. Me, as a rich bar$tard, has a 100K Tesla, saves 75% on fuel cost, pays no fuel duty, got 7.5K handout from government to buy the car, no congestion charge, etc etc. Someone on the breadline driving a Diesel car (that government and car companies told them was the right thing a few years back) is going to be penalised from here until the car is scrapped. I got handouts for my PV and a host of other early adopter opportunities too ...

I understand that subsidising early adopters to move a market is necessary, but the poor pay. But I reckon it's a separate conversation.

'm also expecting the smart meters to enable differential taxation for power used to charge EV's as the government is not going to let the income from fuel duty decline...

My money is on road-use-charging, at its simplest could be self-declaration with forced adjustment-payment at MOT and any car resale. More sophisticated road charging (which road, what time) would encourage freight etc. to move at off-peak and so on, which would reduce congestion and improve GDP ...Me? I'm off to feed the pigs and encourage them to fly

Trying to establish what electricity is used for car charging will be a minefield of complexity ...

I suspect the government back-pedalled on the compulsion bit when the new data protection laws came in

My recollection is that the energy companies had installed far fewer smart meters than predicted and thus government extended the timescale. GDPR gets blamed for a lot, I don't find it draconian in the way that companies seem to react : "Fill in this lengthy "opt-out choices" form before you can just read a simple article on our website" ... crazy.

A lot of people may not have either have the knowledge or the time to mess around with changing their power use profile to make the best of the variable rates

I think it might encourage people to be more careful in their usage, I guess some people might choose to cook evening meal outside the Evening Peak period ... but i doubt it will be many. But folk who can't afford to change to LED bulbs / add insulation / fit a timer / etc. then "be more careful" looks like the only option.

my usual 4 hour nightly charge just about fits in with the Octopus and Green Energy low rate variable tariffs, but I might charge longer, which makes the variable tariff less attractive.

I have a corollary to that: On the days you would need to charge longer [than 4 hours] how often would you actually need that extra charge, the following day? I have my charge stop at end of E7 regardless. If I come home "empty" then I won't get a full charge overnight, but tomorrow night will take care of that. If I have to back-to-back long journey days I need to take special action - but in those instances I will be wanting 100% charge before I leave anyway, so I'm already having to "take action" of some sort to achieve that ... but I might get caught out at some point. Maybe that approach would enable you to switch to 4-hour off-peak supplier?

We've made a number of lifestyle-change choices in order to be more Eco, and Yeah, we get caught out sometimes ... Others on this forum too I expect, but amongst my non-EV friends pretty much zero change. Yes they get green with envy/anger! when I lecture them on what I am saving, and what they could be doing ... but not to the point of actually putting their hand in their wallet.

 

[Mark_T]

Trying to establish what electricity is used for car charging will be a minefield of complexity ...

Have a look at 'energy disaggregation' when you have a little spare time, it may not actually be all that difficult to track power used for specific purposes like EV charging...

 

[Peteski]

[QUOTE="Peteski, post: 3411622, member: 66251"
The reason why EV owners currently get a great deal on E7 tariffs is because those tariffs were never intended for such heavy night consumption. So ultimately the supplier ends up losing profit because the average unit cost they carefully calculated to balance out overall with a more "typical" E7 usage profile ends up heavily biased toward the lower rate. Obviously this is not sustainable for the supplier and so as EV usage becomes more common, these tariffs will either change or disappear.

Not sure I agree with that either. I typically do 50 miles in a day and charge 25% 7kWh for 4 hours = 28kWh. That's equivalent to two 2kW storage heaters charging for 7 hours. Even if I fully charged my S85 every night it's only equivalent to four 3kW storage heaters, just about enough for a small flat.

Oddly enough my usual 4 hour nightly (well not every night, I'm retired) charge just about fits in with the Octopus and Green Energy low rate variable tariffs, but I might charge longer, which makes the variable tariff less attractive.

I thought you said that your peak usage was only a third of your night usage? Maybe I should have said "heavy EV owners" or simply "heavy night users". Whatever reason why your night time usage is skewed heavily toward night usage, you reduce your energy supplier's profit relative to someone else on the same tariff. You have to remember that the day/night rates they are charging are not directly linked to the actual wholesale prices they paid. They set their retail E7 prices based on a typical user profile.

You might only do 50 miles per day, but others might do a few hundred miles and may have 2 or more EVs in the family. They may also have a load of storage heaters or other sources of off-peak load. You obviously have other off-peak loads to make E7 tariffs very attractive.

If I'm wrong on this then there is no reason why ultra-competitive E7 tariffs shouldn't continue indefinitely, but I think that's wishful thinking as more people take advantage of cheap E7 rates. Enjoy it while you can!

 

[Peteski]

You're the numbers person, rather than me, but I'm not getting my head around this I'm afraid to say.

I understand that if I had single tariff (and a car to charge overnight) that would be more profit for supplier. If I don't have EV (and no nightstore heaters) I'm probably going to seriously struggle to make E7 cost effective - my night usage will never be enough to justify paying a bit more for the day rate - so I should be on a singe-rate tariff.

If I buy EV and switch to E7 then the supplier gains a smidgen on my day use, loses out on my night use, but gains significantly from my extra night use for EV.

If I buy an EV and don't change to E7 ... but change later ... then, yes, supplier loses out but I was nuts for the first period of EV charging cost!

If I buy a static battery and reduce my day rate, and charge battery overnight, then yes supplier loses out, but I (combined with others) have smoothed their supply and reduced the need for them to build new generating capacity. They are "paying me" to subsidise that, and I am using up their surplus overnight generation.

Same thing for everyone who installed PV I suppose ... reduced the bills of those homeowners and profits of suppliers (except that I expect that most PV home owners are out to work, exporting plenty during the day, and only getting the 50% "assumed export", so being ripped off by electricity supplier - but that is hunch-only, I have no data to support that)

So I think that E7 consumers have high enough night usage to justify it, would therefore not be on a single-rate tariff anyway, and Supplier has surplus generating capacity overnight (they may sell to me at a loss, but that's better than no sale, and maybe better than "pumping water uphill"), and all the (serious) off peak users are helping smooth supply.

Don't confuse the company that provides your physical electricity supply (distribution) with the one that actually charges you for it (supplier). By using more off-peak electricity you are indeed helping out your local electricity distributor by smoothing demand, but it makes no odds to the retail supplier you actually bought your energy from. The supplier buys energy on the wholesale market and then retails it however they see fit. That's why the same supplier will have multiple tariffs and it's up to you to choose a tariff that you think is a good deal. Your tariff has no effect on your physical supply, it's just a commercial transaction and the less you pay for your electricity compared to other customers on the same tariff, the less profit the supplier makes from you. It's a competitive market and therefore suppliers will adjust their tariffs and prices to survive based on how much revenue those tariffs generate. If more people make use of night time electricity in future, then it will ultimately push up the wholesale price of night time electricity and hence the retail cost too.

At the moment we are in a position where we can take advantage of very low rate E7 tariffs, but as noted already in this thread, they are beginning to dry up as more people do take advantage of them and they simply become unprofitable for the suppliers (not the distributors).

 

[WannabeOwner]

I think that's wishful thinking as more people take advantage of cheap E7 rates

I agree, supply-and-demand bound to have an impact. Only light ahead that I think I can see is that the more EVs there are the more electricity that will be required. If people charge during the day that will impact Peak, so either peak will go up, because plenty of Demand, and that will encourage more EV drivers to charge on Off Peak, or Distributors will offer cheaper Off peak, to encourage consumers to use it, as an alternative to having to build more generating capacity (and probably distribution network upgrades too)

 

[mikemillar]

I thought you said that your peak usage was only a third of your night usage? Maybe I should have said "heavy EV owners" or simply "heavy night users". Whatever reason why your night time usage is skewed heavily toward night usage, you reduce your energy supplier's profit relative to someone else on the same tariff. You have to remember that the day/night rates they are charging are not directly linked to the actual wholesale prices they paid. They set their retail E7 prices based on a typical user profile.

You might only do 50 miles per day, but others might do a few hundred miles and may have 2 or more EVs in the family. They may also have a load of storage heaters or other sources of off-peak load. You obviously have other off-peak loads to make E7 tariffs very attractive.

If I'm wrong on this then there is no reason why ultra-competitive E7 tariffs shouldn't continue indefinitely, but I think that's wishful thinking as more people take advantage of cheap E7 rates. Enjoy it while you can!

It is a third of night usage (net). Maybe usage is the wrong term, it's what's recorded on the meter. Gross usage is plus 2000kWh solar, so currently 5000kWh peak, 9000 night. Secondly , before the Tesla and solar it was 50/50 as I heat my domestic hot water on night rate and run one storage heater in the winter. I'm not a heavy EV user.

 

[Peteski]

It is a third of night usage (net). Maybe usage is the wrong term, it's what's recorded on the meter. Gross usage is plus 2000kWh solar, so currently 5000kWh peak, 9000 night. Secondly , before the Tesla and solar it was 50/50 as I heat my domestic hot water on night rate and run one storage heater in the winter. I'm not a heavy EV user.

At the end of the day your usage profile is perfect for taking full advantage of an E7 tariff as long as such low night rates remain available. Which all depends on how profitable they are for the supplier. If everyone had your usage profile then the supplier would be forced to increase the off-peak rate or go bust! That's all I was trying to say really.

 

[Mark_T]

At the end of the day your usage profile is perfect for taking full advantage of an E7 tariff as long as such low night rates remain available. Which all depends on how profitable they are for the supplier. If everyone had your usage profile then the supplier would be forced to increase the off-peak rate or go bust! That's all I was trying to say really.

The logic you are using implies that the supplier is paying a flat-rate 24/7 and taking the risk on the mix of usage, is that a fact?

It seems rather unlikely that it would be as simplistic as that...