Thank you Smart meter 2

[Andy Burns]

If it's cheap, heat it after midnight, otherwise do it as normal 6am'ish?

[Tim+]

Why would you do that? It is of course a choice you could make but last night it would have been cheaper to preheat my water by immersion that doing it by gas.

Tim

[Tim+]

I don?t think so although I?ve not bothered to look. No need to really.

Oh I think it probably is. You can get lots of data online about your consumption I believe.

Tim

[Andy Burns]

Though looking at the historic price info linked by Theo, being under

5p/unit is very much the exception.

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail]>, Tim+ [e-mail] writes

Silly question as I don't have a smart meter but... if the tariff is set low and significant numbers of users switch stuff on, won't this trigger a tariff change?

[Andy Burns]

If they've set their tariff 24 hours ahead, I presume that's part of the contract, and at the moment octopus customers are probably tiny enough proportion of the market they won't have much effect on the grid.

[Chris J Dixon]

However, you don't want to run on a small load, as the cost of the tablets could outweigh the power saving. ;-)

Chris

[Tim+]

Not a silly question. I don?t think the tariff is changed dynamically like this for domestic users. Octopus do the sums, look at the tea leaves, check the bit of seaweed hanging from the nail and make their predictions of demand on this and give you notice of the charges next 24 hrs.

As more and more people move to smart meters and EVs, I?m sure off peak charges will rise.

Tim

[Tim+]

Oh I dunno. Between 2:30 and 3 tonight I get paid 0.22p per kWhr consumed! Might have to plug the car in again. ;-)

Tim

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

No, the half hour data is unloaded to the supplier only once per day, as a batch via the mobile network. So it lags by upto 24 hours, before the supplier gets the data.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well it should not matter from the bill point of view though, since the billing is done on the readings and the readings are on the meter with the timer deciding when off peak is, so its in their interests to keep them working as they should. I do not see any replaceable batteries. I had to change the rechargeable in the immersion heater timer some years back. A friend did this as they had not designed it to be user changeable, you were I imagine supposed to bin the switch and buy a new one. Of course the physical size of the new one did not fit the holes in the pcb, but we would not let that stand in the way of changing it! Brian

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

on 15/11/2020, Tim+ supposed :

One company I was with, with a working Smart Meter if you selected the

30 minute reporting, allowed you to check a website the following day to see what you had consumed and when - the previous day.

The meters bulk upload the previous 24 hours consumption data, once per

24 hours.

[Andrew]

And you would need a very-well insulated HW tank to maintain all that water temperature. Now a thermal store, heated by electric, when the 'grid' is paying you to use the power may be an interesting costing exercise.

AFAIK only John Rumm has one of these.

[alan_m]

I'm sure that some people could arrange to shift some of their energy usage but there is a good reason why there are periods of peak demand on the grid and its unlikely for most people that their habits, work patterns or leisure activities will change significantly.

It's much like the energy monitor displays which when first installed may make people realise when excessive energy consumption is taking place but after the novelty has worn off how many people then give them a second glance or take notice of the information being given.

[T i m]

<snip>

There were times when some of us delayed making a casual phone call till after 6pm, just because it was cheaper and 30 years ago I tried to charge my EV overnight (on E7), so I think this has been going on for a while.

The issue for me is that saving money by regularly switching tariffs (becoming a 'rate tart') could be fine *if* the systems in place at the time can deal with such easily and the returns are worthy of any input effort involved.

It's also the law of diminishing returns, looking at the savings you can make by (regularly potentially) switching compared with any other savings you could make in your life that could be much greater. Like, it's possible I could save £150 off my energy bill which is the same I pay for my secure storage per month? Or I could dump my land line and go mobile only (BB over cable), saving £240 pa?

Or I could move to a more energy efficient house or make this one smaller by putting internal insulation on all the external walls ... etc etc.

Or as you say, I just get on with my life, keeping costs down on the things that are easy to do, like doing our own vehicle maintenance. ;-)

That said, *if* there was a system that automatically switched energy suppliers and was *guaranteed* not to cost us a single penny ever and didn't involve any extra work on my part (like having to read the meters every month) and there was *no* risk of any administrative errors ... I can't see why *everyone* wouldn't be on it?

But is there no chance that if that was available, it would put many suppliers (or 'middle men') out of business (< going back to the old single supplier days) as it's obvious that the vast majority would end up on whoever was the cheapest, and the others ending up with no customers?

Like Black Monday, a supplier would only have to reduce their prices to something that caused most to auto-switch and then when all the others have gone to the wall, put their prices back up. I'm not sure I want to be party to such nonsense?

All that aside, I'd still like to monitor and log our energy (and water) usage, just for the S&G's of it all.

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Plowman (News]

But would you move meal times to get the benefit of cheaper energy? Put off having a cup of tea because electricity is cheaper later on?

Why I use Flipper. Does everything for me. And tells me the savings.

Unless you have independent access to all the possible data yourself, you're paying a site that gives you that one way or another. At least with Flipper you know what it is costing. Unless they are dishonest.

[Spike]

You are completely forgetting, perhaps for good reason, about the people, of which there are many, who have no idea of who their energy supplier is, or how much energy they use, or what the price is, and who can't find their mandatory Annual Statement with all this data on.

Many people have no idea of who their energy supplier is, or who are seduced into the idea of 'safety' by firms who deliberately trade with the word 'British' in their trading name. It is these people, stuck in the past or who are afraid of imagined hobgoblins, who will stop your scenario from happening. This does of course mean that the rest of us can make savings by being subsidised by such people.

At the present time you are party to a different, dinosaur-like nonsense.

[T i m]

Not unless our energy supply got very desperate! ;-)

Yeah, I'm tempted between that and similar services.

True.

Cheers, T i m

[Tim+]

The ?carrot and stick? approach with Octopus Agile is quite a strong incentive to alter ones usage. ;-)

Without suitable incentives it?s not surprising that people can?t be bothered to change. If a company makes it worthwhile though...

Tim

[Chris J Dixon]

Isn't an important part of the picture that right now there isn't simple and cost-effective off-the-shelf technology available to permit appliances and other kit to be controlled for greatest economy.

Chris