Suppliers will be able to accurately predict how many are likely to switch on and at what times, to make use of the cheap supply. They can tweak the cost to encourage/discourage the day before.
High usage using Off-peak electric
- Thread starter GrieveCube
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Suppliers will be able to accurately predict how many are likely to switch on and at what times, to make use of the cheap supply. They can tweak the cost to encourage/discourage the day before.
That sounds very optimistic - they surely can but try to guess how many are likely to take advantage of the 'cheap periods' announced the previous day.
If everyone involved were sensible and 'paying attention', they would presumably all change their EV charging time to that which had been announced as the 'cheapest period for the day' (presumably because it had been estimated to be the lowest demand period), thereby turning what 'should have been' the lowest-demand period of the day into a period of very high demand.
Hence, what the supplier would be trying to "accurately predict" would really be what proportion of users would be "sensible and 'paying attention' " - and I wish them well with that!
Kind Regards, John
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Village Cottage, EPC 'E', 2 NSH + hot water, just Short of 2000 units from Nov 8th to Feb 12th, on Low cost rate.
700 units on Day rate.
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I won't.
Don't think you have set it up wrong but it does 'sound' like the main element and boost element in the hot water tank are reversed or not clearly labeled. The element on Night rate should be the bottom to heat the whole tank, the Boost element on day rate the top one just to heat about 1/3 or less of the tank.
Ask your landlord to confirm which switch is which and label clearly.
I’ve just looked at my bill. Gas heating, hot water and hob. In the colder months, I’m using between 350 and 400Kw of electric per month and around 1,800Kw of gas. 3 bed semi with just two of us living here.3500kwh total from end of November until now, so about 3 months?
That doesnt seem like a "big bill" to me for an all electrically heated place. I use about that amount of electricity and i have gas heating
If you've come from a gas-heated place, bear in mind electric heat is around 3 times the price of gas.
I still think John has a point and that when there are a large number of smart electric car chargers on the system we will need a more advanced system than "day ahead pricing everyone pays the same", otherwise you risk all the electric cars jumping on the cheapest half-hour.
There are various solutions I can see, for example different suppliers could set their cheapest price at different times. Or suppliers could offer a discounted rate for EV users who agreed to regulate their charging to a supplier-defined profile.
I disagree - They can very accurately lead consumers to switch on at times the supplier might decide, simply by offering differing rates to different consumers at differing times. It is perfectly possible for them to do this on a house by house basis, or area by area - the possibilities are endless, for suppliers to lead their consumers.
How do you think the suppliers cope with the present E7 & E10 rates for mainly heating?
They quite simply adjust the two rate charges, to adjust take up. The rates cannot be set a day ahead, but are set months ahead, giving them much less control and much courser control.
Exactly - and that would be true of any system which attempted to control the time of demand by varying prices. With any such system, those (humans or machines) who were 'paying attention' would always jump to the cheapest option whenever prices/times changed, thereby perpetuating periods of high demand (merely 'moving them around').
I can also think of 'various solutions', but ones that would achieve much of what we would like (whilst remaining vaguely 'fair') would probably have to be be very complicated/sophisticated, and are probably not currently technologically implementable.
If different suppliers set their cheapest rate at different times, that would certainly help to smooth out the peaks of demand - but that, in itself, would not require 'smart' meters or daily (or even monthly) changes in hour-by-hour prices. Even that approach might be somewhat undermined by the fact that a significant proportion of users probably have similar (correct or incorrect) notions of when they want/need to charge their EVs (or storage heaters, or whatever), so would all tend to migrate to the one supplier whose timings were closest to their perceived 'requirements'.
Ultimately, it's all about trying to spread out demand so that there are no major peaks. In some senses, EV charging probably makes this easier for the industry, since it will considerably increase demand during what traditionally were low-demand times of the day/night. I personally doubt that any system based on playing with hourly prices would ever achieve much 'smoothing' - since, as we have both said, there will always be a strong tendency for users (humans or machines) simply to move the time of peak demand around in response to changes in when is the prevailing 'cheapest time'.
A hypothetical system that presumably would go a long way to 'smoothing' demand would be to forget about having different pricing at different times of day but, instead, having the time at which each charger springs to life being determined randomly each day. One difficulty then would be to find a way of reconciling the 'random' (which could not always be random!) switch-on times with the 'needs' of individual users.
Another possibility is that suggested by Harry - to give 'customised cheap periods' (presumably constantly changing) to each user. However, that would be extremely complicated a and would invoke some of the other difficulties I have mentioned.
It ain't simple!
Kind Regards, John
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I think the concepts are very different. Dual-rate tariffs arose simply because wholesale electricity prices were lower during the night, and it was introduction of such tariffs which single-handedly resulted in appearance of the (inherently inefficient) concept of 'night storage heaters'.
There was never an attempt to use manipulation of differential day/night prices to influence usage patterns by consumers - in essence, the consumers either had or did not have storage heaters, and that (unchanging fact) was by far the major determinant of whether or not they could benefit from the cheaper night-time usage. If if rates had changed every day, there would not have been anything that consumers could have done about it (other than abandoning the E7/E10 tariff).
The 'standard' (single-rate) cost of electricity charged to consumers obviously relates to a mixture of electricity at low and high (wholesale) cost, such that they are 'underpaying' (in terms of daytime wholesale cost) for daytime electricity - which is why the daytime rate on E7/E10 etc. is a bit higher than the single-rate figure.
As I have said, if the desire is to smooth out peaks in demand, I think the industry really needs to find a way of achieving that 'directly' (by 'control of the loads'). To play around with prices on a day-by-day basis, in the hope that this will incentivise consumers to adjust their usage patterns every day seems unsatisfactory, certainly 'tedious' and potentially unfair.
Kind Regards, John
Which is, I am advised by someone on E7 - exactly what is happening. As E7 offers less advantage to suppliers, the suppliers are reducing the difference in cost.
As I said, I don't really think it ever had much to do with "offering advantage to the supplier" - what was mainly happening was that they were 'passing on' the cheaper wholesale price of night-time electricity to their customers.
It's certainly true that the night/day price differences (to customers) has reduced markedly, but that is primarily due to a reduction in the difference in wholesale prices - which, in turn, presumably reflects a reduction in the difference between day and night demand. One suspects that that is at least partially due to the increasing amount of nocturnal EV charging - something that will increase a lot more before long, quite probably eliminating, if not reversing, the current day/night difference in demand. It will be quite 'novel', but the day may well come when daytime electricity is cheaper than at night time - which would, eventually, be good news for those relying on electricity for (space and water) heating.
I've posted the below several times, relating to my E7 installation. For many years prior to 2018, the day/night price differential (hence the proportionate financial benefit of E7) had remained essentially unchanged. However, in early 2018 there was a dramatic reduction in the differential with most suppliers (including the one I was with), reducing my annual saving by using E7 from £250+ to under £150. I partially remedied that by switching supplier in April 2019, but am still deriving less benefit than was the case pre-2019.
Kind Regards, John
It has always been advantageous to keep the nukes, coal and other traditional systems running at near capacity night and day, which was why the night rates originated from. They have always controlled the take up of off-rates by setting the difference between the day and night rates. The greater the difference, the more the take up. The less it is the fewer opt for it and look at alternate sources.
Yes, but that desire to maximise nocturnal demand is the 'problem' of those who do the generating, so it is them that offers the low (currently) 'off peak' wholesale prices, which the suppliers then largely 'pass on'. The suppliers themselves do not benefit, appreciably or at all, from any of that.
Traditionally, it was only really about storage heaters and, except for the 'stupid', it was only 'taken up' by those who were unable to use gas heating. I find it hard to believe that any sensible person would be induced to install and use storage heaters (if they could use gas) no matter what the difference in day/night electricity prices (unless they got cheaper than gas
). In other words, I don't think that the day/night price difference has (traditionally) had any appreciable effect on the 'take up' of dual-price tariffs.Kind Regards, John
Traditionally, it was only really about storage heaters and, except for the 'stupid', it was only 'taken up' by those who were unable to use gas heating. I find it hard to believe that any sensible person would be induced to install and use storage heaters (if they could use gas) no matter what the difference in day/night electricity prices (unless they got cheaper than gas
We will have to agree to disagree on that point - There are alternatives to mains gas or off-peak for heating, such as stored gas, oil and traditional fuels like coal and wood.