OT:EDF Electric 'Car' tarriff

[Andrew]

Just noticed this after paying my quarterly bill.

There is a tariff supposedly for EV cars that you own

*or* have the 'use' of :-)

Seems to work like E7 with an interesting variation-

The Off peak period starts at 9PM and stops at 7AM, but also applies ALL the weekend.

Daily Standing Charge 27.13p (Std Var rate 27.96) Peak rate 16.84p (south east) (std var 19.93) OffPeak rate 8.01p

Their FAQS state the the power can be used for the entire house,..

So Anyone with a larger usage that could be shifted to the weekend could sign up for this and make some handy savings. Ditto from 9PM onwards.

It is unclear if you need to have an existing E7 meter system, they are a bit vague about it.

It all depends on the 'ownership' or use of an EV car. I wonder if they check ?, since ownership is not mandatory. I wonder if just supplying the reg no of the local councils parking warden nissan leaf would fool them ?.

Somehow I think a lot of people might try and use this to run other things, like heat pumps. I would. Even the peak rate is less than the std variable rate !!. You could install one of those battery packes that some people are pushing, charge it up at night and run the house off the battery during the day.

The downside is they might insist on a PArt 18 CU update plus all the related nonsense like surge protectors. Has anyone had this done recently ?, and how mich did they pay ?

Andrew

[Tim+]

Dunno if this is of any interest, but the Photonic Induction chap built himself a whole house UPS charging off E7 to time-shift his power consumption.

Tim

[Andrew]

And then run an air-source heat pump off the UPS during the day :-)

[Robin]

I'm an EDF customer so check their offers from time to time. That looks like the Go Electric tariff. It helps though to give the precise name as they can mutate rapidly.

"the GoElectric tariff provides customers, who have a compatible 2 rate meter...."

Their summary is that customers must "Own or lease an electric vehicle, or have one on order - we'll ask for evidence when you sign up to the tariff." I'm a bit surprised if they really do exclude company cars and hire purchase but can't be arsed to dig for the precise terms.

[harry]

This is the thin edge of the wedge where EV electricity will be taxed as a road fuel at some point in the future.

Bound to happen as petrol/diesel is phased out.

[Brian Gaff]

Actually, I don't really see why they should care what its used for. If the idea is to make loads more constant over the 24 hour period then the more the merrier I'd imagine, up to a certain point. I believe from conversations I've had about meters of late, there has to be one of the new smart meters for all new split tarrif plans. Of course if you already have an economy 7 like mine, its not clear if the times can be varied or not. Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

E7 hasn't the abilty to cope with BST/GMT let alone a longer period and weekends... Even the 198 kHz "teleswitch" controlled ones. Ours is a mechanical clock with broken, self winding, spring backup. Power cuts mean the "off peak" period moves around, currently it's about

0845 - 1545. B-)

Think this tariff will require a "smart" meter and presumably one set to 1/2 hourly updates. But even than granularity on billing with a

7kW car charging load is significant, up to 30p/day more expensive than it should be. Though I can't quite get my head around timings of meter reading updates and switching on the 7 kW car load at 2100 precisely.

[John Rumm]

Presumably one could pull the service fuse to "correct" that if required? :-)

The meters record the consumption in different internal registers, so there should be no requirement for real time reading updates back to the mothership - they just need to make sure the meter is programmed with the the right time windows.

[Andrew]

I would have thought that a 'smart' meter could handle an E7 or similar tarriff all on its own, without the need for all the external clock timer gubbins. If not then they have missed an opportunity there.

What time does your E7 cheap rate start though ?. The po> Actually, I don't really see why they should care what its used for. If the

[Dave Liquorice]

period

Why should I? The meter and time switch are not my responsiblity, they are the suppliers and they send some one round every six months to read the meter and do a "safety check". If they don't check that the time shown on the time switch isn't correct that's not my problem.

Ah, smart meters are slighly smarter than I thought. But then why do you need to have the various data upload frequencies? Presumably thats just to get pretty graphs showing rough consumption across a day. The meter simply uploading the values in the registers each time.

[Robin]

AIUI the 30 min interval also allows suppliers - if they wish - to tell customers if their past pattern of use shows E7 or other tariffs would have been to their advantage.

[John Rumm]

I think you may be missing my sub text. :-) basically if the backup clockwork bit is not working, depriving it of power for a few hours of your choosing will rotate night and day as far as the meter is concerned. That could result for example in some of your normally peak rate consumption being metered as economy consumption. Obviously not something one would recommend doing, and not advisable to make substantial shifts in use since algorithms are good at spotting that.

I was not even thinking smart meters necessarily. We have a dual rate electronic meter, and it knows the date and time. It decides in isolation when to bill consumption to the "night" register rather than the day one. No reason that a meter of that sophistication could be setup to bill 9pm to 7am etc and all weekend on the cheap register.

Yup, so you can see nearer real time what consumption pattern is going on, and [1] for someone else who has hacked the web site to work out a good time to burgle!

[1] Needless scare mongering I am sure - they doubtless have had good security people work on these things to make sure that can't happen!

[Dave Liquorice]

months

Yes, that is what happens when we have apower cut... Hence the "off peak" period is currently 0845 - 1545 real clock time.

I think your saying the same thing but differently. The mechancical time switch switches the off peak supply (for the storeage heaters) on/off each day. There is a link from the output side of the time switch to the meter to tell it which register to record all consumption in.

They'd have a hard time spotting it with the information they hold. All they know is that x peak and y off-peak units where used since the last meter reading. They don't know *when* the off-peak period is and the 60+ kWhr used in that period dwarfs the 3 kWhr (ish) difference in "living" consumption between day/night for 7 hours.

registers, so

programmed

This is (probably) true. Our E7 meter is electronic but it has no concept of date/time.

[Andrew]

Except they didn't, which is why the UK security services seem to have been behind the adoption of Smets2 meters.