-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
New (?) EDF EV tariff 'GoElectric'
- Thread starter Battpower
- Start date
We have this. Initially we were put onto a flat rate 12.5p tariff in early March - they don't seem to be able to switch you over straight away to the dual rate. I had to call them once the smart meter was working properly. After that, we went through the set-up process again and got switched from the May21 to Aug21 fix without penalty and this seems to have reduced the gas further.
We have solar panels (with 8kW max output) so the overnight rate is working very well at the moment, we're importing very little at daytime rate. Over the summer due to FiT payments, our electricity cost should be below zero. We have a garden pond with an air source heat pump, a PHEV, and the Model 3. We get our first bill later this month and we'll be able to see how much we're saving. Our gas + electricity bill before we got solar was huge, currently we're paying barely half of what we were. It won't really be clear until we've had a full year, and the cars are being used much less than normal still due to corona, so it may go up a bit once normality is restored.
We have solar panels (with 8kW max output) so the overnight rate is working very well at the moment, we're importing very little at daytime rate. Over the summer due to FiT payments, our electricity cost should be below zero. We have a garden pond with an air source heat pump, a PHEV, and the Model 3. We get our first bill later this month and we'll be able to see how much we're saving. Our gas + electricity bill before we got solar was huge, currently we're paying barely half of what we were. It won't really be clear until we've had a full year, and the cars are being used much less than normal still due to corona, so it may go up a bit once normality is restored.
Your setup is similar to mine. Very similar actually - although we are electric only. (+ oil boiler)
Looked attractive to be able to run heatpump weekend daytime, as well as 9pm to bedtime.
I don't have a smart meter (just dual rate) because the tariffs I looked at all worked better with my solar PV / battery storage using E7. I like a simple tarif where I know what I'm paying, and GoElectric dual rate looks perfect.
What was the delay in switching you to the Dual Rate (is it likely to effect all new installs?) and have you any concerns / regrets about going Smart Meter? Are your FIT payments already with EDF? I saw some slightly concerning small print on a different contact that suggested to me there is a move eventually to get FIT payments adjusted to be based on actual export rater than deemed export - which would be quite a negative for me - and that by having the Smart Meter installed I agreed to my FIT contact transferring to EDF (which might give them chance to change my contRact terms).
My (dream) objective while I still get FIT payments is to try and have net zero energy cost (apart from equipment purchase) as psychologically that woud feel great to drive (13k miles), heat and cook for no onging energy cost. With the heatpump and 8p / unit, you are paying about 3p / kwh which beats gas quite decently and for me is a huge win if the oil boiler never needs to fire up. In winter we sometimes have the stove lit which adds another 3-4 kw to the thermal store, so quite a decent energy supply of around 12kw continuous.
Last edited:
It's not the cheapest tariff out there but I can see the attraction of the entire weekend being entirely off-peak.
Interestingly despite already having a SMETS 1 meter EDF wouldn't offer me the dual rate just the easily beatable single rate.
Interestingly despite already having a SMETS 1 meter EDF wouldn't offer me the dual rate just the easily beatable single rate.
I think it was mainly incompetence. We started out applying for GoElectric when they only supported a dual rate, and they rejected us because we had a SMETS1 meter. So I looked around and found British Gas did an EV rate, which was not anything like as good, but as they'd installed the meter when we were with them in the past, I assumed they could work with it - not so! But they were happy to install a SMETS2 meter and didn't have any lock-in.
After 6 months we decided this was working out too expensive, and EDF had meanwhile been in touch about the flat rate. So we decided to try with EDF again, and told them we had a SMETS2 meter now. They said "your meter is SMETS1, so you have to go on the flat rate". This would still be cheaper overall than BG, so we went ahead, and then once it was up and running it was clear the meter was working with them (for gas, but not for electric). They made an absolute shambles of the switch, claiming we didn't have any reading on switch day (despite the smart meter clearly working for gas) and refusing to accept our manual reading (because we have a smart meter...!). They said they'd do an estimate. Eventually they came back, and British Gas took 3p from us. Or was it refunded. I can't remember. So clearly BG had told them a reading from the smart meter. Why the 3p error, I have no idea.
Once this was sorted, suddenly the electricity meter data started showing on the EDF website, so I called them, and after some to-ing-and-fro-ing between departments, they agreed to the dual rate tariff. We've been on this since some time in May.
Regarding the feed in tariff, this is with SSE. I think at some point they will want to switch to metered export. This will likely not make a huge difference overall. Since commissioning in March last year, I think we'd have been only (back of envelope calculation) £64 worse off with metered export. We have no storage at present; clearly adding storage would reduce our exports further, but we do struggle to use peak daytime output.
@Simavon, that's all good to know.
That's a good point. I tend to forget that what they actually pay on deemed export doesn't amout to a whole lot. But I am very conscious that the underlying benevolence of the energy companies does not really extend to extracting as little money from me as possible, so short term incentives to get a smart meter will doubtless eventually turn to using my data against me!
That's a good point. I tend to forget that what they actually pay on deemed export doesn't amout to a whole lot. But I am very conscious that the underlying benevolence of the energy companies does not really extend to extracting as little money from me as possible, so short term incentives to get a smart meter will doubtless eventually turn to using my data against me!
interbear
Active Member
Yes, this is strange. I have a SMETS 2 meter, installed by EDF, but they’d also only offer me the single rate.
I’ll be sticking with Octopus Go. Cheaper rates anyway. But the longer of peak with EDF could be practical for many.
The single rate is nothing special at all and is the only option that came up automatically when I ran a quote so I had to dig a bit deeper. I haven't seen an equivalent to the dual rate elsewhere - the two differentiators being Off Peak all weekend, which if you heat / cook a lot being home during the day, or need to charge the car then you are at a low price during Sat / Sun. The 9pm to 7am off peak at night is also twice as long as some alternatives so if you heat, charge batteries and cars you have longer to do it at cheap rate.
Definitely not an automatic win, and certainly not the single rate. Look at the pdf attached to the first post which breaks down by region. You need a SMETS2 smart meter too, and by the sounds of it probably need to speak directly to EDF. Only for EV owners, but I guess most here will meet that requirement!
Last edited:
Be careful with EDF. They confirmed I was switched in September last year but it turns out in March that they never did and since then they have still not switched despite at least three calls and having a smart meter installed by EDF.
In the end I said unless they switched me and back dated then I was switching suppliers. The "dedicated support agent" has been working on it for a month and still nothing...so I can't recommend them unless you want to be on their standard tariff without being told!
In the end I said unless they switched me and back dated then I was switching suppliers. The "dedicated support agent" has been working on it for a month and still nothing...so I can't recommend them unless you want to be on their standard tariff without being told!
I have been with EDF for some time on and off, and agree that they are not great at doing what they are supposed to do. Somewhat like dealing with Tesla I take the view that forewarned is forearmed.
Also that's why I started this thread... to winkle out some real experiences of this specific tarrif!
I used to be on an earlier version of this tariff with EDF and had smart meters installed to support it. EDF were unable to provide daily usage graphs showing my consumption during the various periods for me to easily work out what I was spending on car charging. That’s what prompted me to go Octopus Agile. I now get very detailed consumption information down to 30 minute intervals and average unit prices that are much lower than the off-peak price for EDF.
Realistically, how would you state your overall off-peak rate and duration? I like the idea of Agile if I win, but feel that the onus on me to keep checking for the optimal time for charging would negate much of the benefit. How do you rationalise your tariff to be able to use it simply and meeting your schedule?
At 8p per kwhr all weekend and 9pm to 7am I think that would offset the increased off peak compared with my current 6p E7.
I don’t need to check or worry about it. I use the ev.energy app to automatically optimise the times for charging. The only other thing I do is to not put the tumble dryer on between 4 and 7 in the evening unless I really need to.
My bills then have a graph for every day for the billing period and it shows the average kWh price you paid that day. I just looked over a few weeks in June. It was below 7p/kWh most days and rarely above 8p.
Its an experiment and there is no penalty to switch to another provider if it starts to becom unattractive.
So long as gas prices remain low (and I think they will remain low for several more months to come) there isn't going to be many fixed tariffs that can match the Octopus Agile rates. If you look at the Agile rates since inception in Feb 2018 they haven't always been the bargain they are now. Whilst the rates have increased recently as demand has increased they are nowhere near as high as last year. The good thing is that you are not locked in and can change tariff or even supplier without penalty. Yes the rates fluctuate but it doesn't take much time to check the rates daily. Why check? - to maximise plunge pricing opportunities and to tweak the daily routine if necessary. To be honest there is no way Mrs M's routine is going to be tweaked however I may delay charging from 00:30 to 02:30 for example.
EDF got the smart meter working, but now that they've switched to the dual rate, they've managed to break support for the graphs. They are pretty useless.
Fortunately, we have good graphing from the solar system which includes imported and exported energy and we can use this to track usage and also we can see in real time and graph if we're importing a lot or exporting a lot.
More evidence of EDF being useless this week.
It took them a while to sort out the initial meter reading as I'd previously said. They said it was all sorted, some time ago, before we then switched to the dual tariff.
Now they've come back with "our opening reading doesn't match your previous supplier's closing reading". This is now more than four months after we switched, and they apparently have no idea how much to bill us. "We're working with them to agree a reading". Translation: "We're wasting their time".
Nothing will change, because the closing reading from British Gas was from the smart meter. They haven't even paid us the courtesy of telling us what they think the readings are, so we can compare with the reading we took. Which they wouldn't accept back then, because we have a smart meter...
It took them a while to sort out the initial meter reading as I'd previously said. They said it was all sorted, some time ago, before we then switched to the dual tariff.
Now they've come back with "our opening reading doesn't match your previous supplier's closing reading". This is now more than four months after we switched, and they apparently have no idea how much to bill us. "We're working with them to agree a reading". Translation: "We're wasting their time".
Nothing will change, because the closing reading from British Gas was from the smart meter. They haven't even paid us the courtesy of telling us what they think the readings are, so we can compare with the reading we took. Which they wouldn't accept back then, because we have a smart meter...
More evidence of EDF being useless this week.
It took them a while to sort out the initial meter reading as I'd previously said. They said it was all sorted, some time ago, before we then switched to the dual tariff.
Now they've come back with "our opening reading doesn't match your previous supplier's closing reading". This is now more than four months after we switched, and they apparently have no idea how much to bill us. "We're working with them to agree a reading". Translation: "We're wasting their time".
Nothing will change, because the closing reading from British Gas was from the smart meter. They haven't even paid us the courtesy of telling us what they think the readings are, so we can compare with the reading we took. Which they wouldn't accept back then, because we have a smart meter...
That's crazy.
I haven't really had any major issues with EDF on E7, and it sounds as though there are many reasons why I should stay on E7 for the foreseeable future. 6p midnight to 7am isn't bad, and avoids possible issues with new meters and reactive power etc.
Similar threads
