It was in my last property, but that was two years ago. I reckoned we just about broke even - washing machine, dishwasher and immersion heater all on E7, but there were just the two of us so not a lot of use of any of those, and gas CH. A big family, lots of laundry, dishes and hot water for bathing etc, might be worth it, but probably not, otherwise.
Dunno. Don't see how it can be taxed at home over and above existing electricity use, at least until smart meters become universal. On a forecourt or local supermarket car park, it might be. Someone like Harry with an e-car might know.
I did the sums the other day (we have a dual rate meter here - but no sensible use for it). Relatively high electrical use (about 25 kWh/day,
7/night). And estimate its probably costing about £120/year extra over a single rate meter when you take into accounts the slightly higher day rate and standing charge. I could never quite understand why they insisted on using a split rate tariff just because the meter can measure that way. I have a suspicion that if I ask them to change it they will only offer s smart meter.(some years back they tried to convince me that the registers on the meter were configure the wrong way around - and wanted to swap them. That would have been a fairly substantial refund! I managed to convince them in the end, since I did not trust they would not come back in n years time and demand a massive back payment)
As I have said here previously, my off-peak usage is about 30%, and ever since I started keeping records nearly 30 years ago, E7 has been cheaper than a standard tariff, generally by about £4 per month.
However when my Tonic deal was expiring, I looked at the usual comparisons and found that the dual fuel non-E7 tariff Avro are offering, compared with my previous good deal from Tonik, reduces my electricity costs slightly and my gas costs quite a bit, and the daily charge is also less.
They simply apply the same tariff to both readings, absolutely no call for a meter change. It may be worth your while looking at the numbers.
Chris
Some providers (Octupus Energy is one, but not unique) will offer you a standard tariff even though you continue to provide them with both readings, just by adding them. Other providers' software can't cope.
midnight to
expensive!
Which is another "little problem" with going to electric cars. HMG gets *a lot* of money from fuel duty and the VAT on it. Not only does the electricty need to come from some where, so does that money.
Not convinced a Smart Meter helps at all. They may have multiple registers but as it's can only measure the whole supply how can it know that x kW is going to the car and y kW to the house and/or storeage heating?
Indeed. Similarly a smart meter can't tell the difference between charging a car and charging a household battery pack used just to spread the load and take advantage of a variable tariff.
Will be interesting to see if the new Transport Select Committee goes ahead with their predecessors' planned inquiry this year into options to replace the £40 billion from taxes on fuel and from VED - road pricing, congestion zones, workplace parking charges etc.
Separate metering perhaps, rather like E7 is separately metered, but by location rather than time, say in the garage or wherever, talking to the smart meter?
Yes thats going to be really interesting having an impact on climate change with pressing Joe Publick to convert to leccy cars.
And seeings how the UK power supply industry is so very marginal and no new tech coming along apart from the Rolls Royce modular Nuke concept gonna be interesting times;!!
I thought current smart meters only recorded /time/ of use with no facility to record /what/ consumed it. But there's a prior question as to whether the public will accept a tax on - say - electricity for the car that gets a nurse or teacher to work but not on electricity for a heated swimming pool. Interesting times for fiscal wonks.
There's a lot more s*it in the pipe about electric cars - and probably the biggest reason they will struggle to take off in the UK, as they'll kill house prices dead.
It's already been hinted at, but where are all these smart cars going to be parked when they charge off your domestic supply ? That is those that belong to people who have no off-road parking ?
Because unless you get a reserved road space (remember this is a *public* road) then you won't be able to guarantee charging your car.
Of course it's a simple stroke of a pen to bring in road markings and laws to only allow the owner of the registered car to park in that space when charging. But that's about as likely as the UKs space programme putting a man on the moon - ever.
Dunno.. Theres a a lot of terraced houses here, a street lamp stylee post charger outlet may have to become the norm so instead of fighting over a parking space it'll be power!
Course a lot of digging for higher capacity cabling and distribution system alternation to be made but looks like the power industry might be a good career choice;)
Not taxed, but the screw is starting to be turned on pricing ...
TfL funds LEVC taxis and charging points, but at Heathrow they're so expensive per kWh, that the cabbies fill up on petrol and re-charge via the range-extender
Ionity chargers (owned by Ford/BMW/VW/Merc) recently raised their "rack rate" for motorway fast-charging to 66p/kWh
The meter actually shows three sets of readings anyway - register 1, 2, and total.
My (electromechanical) one doesn't.
The impression I got when a Government minister was outlining the plans for the electric car revolution was that it was assumed that everyone had off road parking where they could charge their cars each night.
While watching a video recently on the reuse of batteries from written off electric cars I got the impression that the packs contained some record of how many times the battery had been re-charged and if it was a slow or fast charge. It seemed that fast charging was not too good for the life of the battery and could effect its second had value.
If this true I wonder how it would effect the second hand value of working electric car. It wouldn't necessarily be the age and mileage that determines the value but how the car is regularly charged.
Around my way a lot of roads are closed for 6 weeks at a time while the gas pipes are replaced or re-lined. This has been going on for a couple of decades. If a majority of roads in towns have got to be dug up for additional electric supplies connected to road side metres how long is it going to take to complete the work?
Thanks for the heads up Chris, I just ran my numbers and they offered a similar dual fuel deal to that which you describe, at an estimated annual saving of around £980 :-)
Based on their pricing my annual electric daytime cost would go down £740, Night time would rise by £71, and gas would fall by £313 (and those are figures with the standing charged factored in). So let's see if they can manage to do the transfer, and if EDF cough up the credit amount they are currently sitting on promptly.
In article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Chris Hogg snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net writes
Syntax error. "Harry" and "know" can not be used in the same sentence unless followed by "nothing".
That sounds great, glad to help.
I am really not happy about the way one almost has to game the system to keep on a good tariff. It is a bit like the way you have to keep such a close eye on supermarket pricing, and those who most need to make a saving probably have the least time, inclination and ability to do the maths.
Chris
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