Smart meters and specifically octopus
Hi,
I've asked octopus this question but cannot get a straight answer
So my house is not old (2011 ) It currently has a conventional 2 rate meter and from this meter there are two outputs supplying two distribution boards. One of the boards is my 24hr supply and is live 24hrs a day obviously. The other board is my economy 7 consumers ( my storage heaters X 3 and my immersion heater )
So currently my economy 7 supply activates via the meter for the hours 12:30 to 7:30. This means only these consumers are the only items I can exploit for cheaper rate electricity. Which is bonkers
I'm having a smart meter installed and I assume when I have this installed and assuming I select an appropriate tariff the meter will obviously register ALL the electric entering the house and can rate everything at the lower rate as long as it's consumed during the allocated time slots. That means I could charge my storage heaters, or battery or EV on a cheaper rate ? Obviously if I wanted to charge my solar battery at night currently it would take it from my 24hr supply and be at the full rate, because that's the consumer unit that the battery is wired into
Is this how others works or have I missed the point. I've not had a house with economy 7 and two distribution boxes before that are actually separate from the electricity meter
Thanks
Ben
Hi Ben, I am with Octopus and, because I have an EV, I am on their Intelligent tariff. When I moved to Octopus, they fitted a new Smart Meter - within the last 6 months. My tariff gives 7.5p / KWH 23:30-05:30. 40p all other times I use this to power the car, but also to charge the 10.5 KWH SunSynk batteries via the hybrid inverter. I then discharge after 05:30 to use the energy stored.
In summer, the sun then comes up at about the time the batteries are discharged and fills them again, to repeat this cycle into the evening.
I have underfloor heating and an air sourced heat pump. I now put heating on max overnight, to pre-heat the concrete slab and retain heat going into the mornings.
This has dramatically reduced my energy bill