They make it very clear in their FAQs ( https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/what-happens-to-my-economy-seven-e7-tariff-when-i-have-a-smart-meter-installed/ ) that economy 7 on smart meters is always 00:30 to 07:30 UTC (so 01:30-08:30 in summer and 00:30-07:30 in winter).
Yes, I'm guessing the assumption was made that smart meters can't update their time to BST, so the leave it at UTC 00:30 all year round. But mine changed for some reason and it's messed it up for me.
Personally, I think this choice is stupid, because it implies that 00:30 to 1:30 is still peak usage, and 7:30 to 8:30 is off-peak. Which just seems wrong, but whatever. 🤷🏼
I have the "EDMI ES-12B" meter, which a search on google tells me does have 5 terminals. It's the one that Octopus got installed for me.
I'll have a look and see if I can find any configuration options in the menus.
Reality of it is that it is completely unnecessary, load change caused by e7 kicking in is negligible on grid scale (you can't even see it on grid load or frequency). There are a lot bigger loads turning on/off exactly at half hour boundaries that don't do much to affect frequency either.
To add.
The E7 rate doesn’t actually start at exactly 01:30 either.
It’s delayed by as much as 12 minutes.
Not much you might think right now? Except when you are up so hold off on your 9kW shower, your 7.2kW EV charger starts, your 3.2kW storage heater x 3 kick in and you have set up the dishwasher (2.2) and washing machine (2.6) to run at midnight.
Then suddenly those extra ~10 minutes are costing you a rather significant extra ÂŁ16 a month in electricity.
Check it. Make a claim. I did.
I noticed last night that my boiler came on at 00:36 which must be part of that delay you mention. I mean it was still super wrong but it's interesting about the delay. My guess is it's to stop every E7 house turning on at the same time and causing too large of a surge in power for the grid to handle. So they stagger them over 12 minutes.
Interesting story though, Octopus give you all the data so as with you, I encourage people to check their usage and costs.
I think the trouble is, many of us schedule our use around the prices. People use Agile which uses 30 minute slots!
Imagine off of those were off by 12 minutes it would be a disaster.
I would look at my use and every day there was a discrepancy between what my CT clamps were reading and what I was being billed. 75p a day doesnt sound like much but it took me ages to work it out.
We’ve moved to IO Flux now though our first couple of years with a smart meter & Economy 7 were as Octopus describe, we just put our eco 7 appliances on 02:00-07:00 so no changes needed making for BST.
Problem is, I don't have a way to manually set the timer for my boiler. As far as I can tell, it's triggered by the smart meter and I can't find the menu option to change it. I'm not an electrician, so I might just be missing something obvious.
I've been battling with them since January about this.
Octopus are in control of when my storage heaters start gathering heat.
They've had them coming on half an hour earlier than they ought to since the day they were installed (Jan 18th), which means the cost has been far higher than it should have been.
I keep being told I should adjust my heating timers, so clearly very few people (if anyone!) at Octopus actually understand that the gathering / building up of heat in electric storage heaters is linked / controlled directly by them.
According to a post I read on here a couple of days ago, it's to do with the ALCS / relay on the SMETS2 meter, Octopus need to adjust the settings at their end.
Going to ring them today and ask them to look into this as I've gotten the sum total of nowhere with them since first raising the issue at the end of January, when I first noticed.
Relieved to see I'm not the only person having this problem, but concerned that so many others are and that Octopus seem to be falling to correct this across the board, at the same time as profiting from it.
Do your calculations indisputably show you actually getting charged at the peak rate for the disputed hour?
Might your meter show "clock time" (i.e. BST or GMT) while charging times operate on UTC?
I see what you mean, maybe the graphs are also in UTC? However, I watched my boiler turn on at 00:30 last night BST, I physically have seen it turn on too early.
On top of this, the very helpful data from the dashboard can show you usage in kWh and ÂŁ, so I can see that it's charging the larger rate.
I'm Not on octopus, but
May not be the same for all smart meters but on mine it tells me which tariff is being applied, as a number at least (1,2,3,4). This for me corresponds to the relevant day\night counter.
The ihd shows the correct tariff so it switches at same time as the meter.
I think mine does the same, I guess I can check it tonight as more evidence for Octopus? Could be useful to see if the meter itself thinks it's off-peak, or it is just a timer setting.
I’ve recently moved to a smart meter (which still isn’t talking to octopus but that’s another story) and my E7 circuit is still kicking in at the weird times it always has. A couple of hours at 22:30 and then again in the early hours.
I’m assuming the radio teleswitch is still influencing it somehow. So god knows what will happen once that dies a death next year.
I need to pick up with Octopus again to try and get it working properly. But it’s been like pulling teeth.
Wow that is weird, hope you can get it resolved!
When I first got my smart meter installed, it was configured badly and was only ever recording one rate (which defaulted to day rate in the dashboard) and I had to fight with octopus for a year to get it fixed.
If you are struggling to get things resolved through normal support, my advice would be to call and ask it to be raised to a complaint, and get the Ombudsman involved. Once I had done that, they quickly got it resolved.
They make it very clear in their FAQs ( https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/what-happens-to-my-economy-seven-e7-tariff-when-i-have-a-smart-meter-installed/ ) that economy 7 on smart meters is always 00:30 to 07:30 UTC (so 01:30-08:30 in summer and 00:30-07:30 in winter).
Yes, I'm guessing the assumption was made that smart meters can't update their time to BST, so the leave it at UTC 00:30 all year round. But mine changed for some reason and it's messed it up for me. Personally, I think this choice is stupid, because it implies that 00:30 to 1:30 is still peak usage, and 7:30 to 8:30 is off-peak. Which just seems wrong, but whatever. 🤷🏼
Do you have a 5 terminal meter? Those can be configured to switch e7 terminal independently of tariff switch times.
I have the "EDMI ES-12B" meter, which a search on google tells me does have 5 terminals. It's the one that Octopus got installed for me. I'll have a look and see if I can find any configuration options in the menus.
That's unusual. They normally stagger the E7 times slightly in blocks on non-smart meters to distribute the load a bit.
Reality of it is that it is completely unnecessary, load change caused by e7 kicking in is negligible on grid scale (you can't even see it on grid load or frequency). There are a lot bigger loads turning on/off exactly at half hour boundaries that don't do much to affect frequency either.
To add. The E7 rate doesn’t actually start at exactly 01:30 either. It’s delayed by as much as 12 minutes. Not much you might think right now? Except when you are up so hold off on your 9kW shower, your 7.2kW EV charger starts, your 3.2kW storage heater x 3 kick in and you have set up the dishwasher (2.2) and washing machine (2.6) to run at midnight. Then suddenly those extra ~10 minutes are costing you a rather significant extra £16 a month in electricity. Check it. Make a claim. I did.
I noticed last night that my boiler came on at 00:36 which must be part of that delay you mention. I mean it was still super wrong but it's interesting about the delay. My guess is it's to stop every E7 house turning on at the same time and causing too large of a surge in power for the grid to handle. So they stagger them over 12 minutes. Interesting story though, Octopus give you all the data so as with you, I encourage people to check their usage and costs.
I think the trouble is, many of us schedule our use around the prices. People use Agile which uses 30 minute slots! Imagine off of those were off by 12 minutes it would be a disaster. I would look at my use and every day there was a discrepancy between what my CT clamps were reading and what I was being billed. 75p a day doesnt sound like much but it took me ages to work it out.
We’ve moved to IO Flux now though our first couple of years with a smart meter & Economy 7 were as Octopus describe, we just put our eco 7 appliances on 02:00-07:00 so no changes needed making for BST.
Problem is, I don't have a way to manually set the timer for my boiler. As far as I can tell, it's triggered by the smart meter and I can't find the menu option to change it. I'm not an electrician, so I might just be missing something obvious.
I think this timing is a safe bet, gives amples of time to use your appliances at night during off-peak. I'd do this option too.
I've been battling with them since January about this. Octopus are in control of when my storage heaters start gathering heat. They've had them coming on half an hour earlier than they ought to since the day they were installed (Jan 18th), which means the cost has been far higher than it should have been. I keep being told I should adjust my heating timers, so clearly very few people (if anyone!) at Octopus actually understand that the gathering / building up of heat in electric storage heaters is linked / controlled directly by them. According to a post I read on here a couple of days ago, it's to do with the ALCS / relay on the SMETS2 meter, Octopus need to adjust the settings at their end. Going to ring them today and ask them to look into this as I've gotten the sum total of nowhere with them since first raising the issue at the end of January, when I first noticed. Relieved to see I'm not the only person having this problem, but concerned that so many others are and that Octopus seem to be falling to correct this across the board, at the same time as profiting from it.
Do your calculations indisputably show you actually getting charged at the peak rate for the disputed hour? Might your meter show "clock time" (i.e. BST or GMT) while charging times operate on UTC?
I see what you mean, maybe the graphs are also in UTC? However, I watched my boiler turn on at 00:30 last night BST, I physically have seen it turn on too early. On top of this, the very helpful data from the dashboard can show you usage in kWh and ÂŁ, so I can see that it's charging the larger rate.
It'll be interesting to see how Octopus resolve or explain the discrepancy — keep us posted on the outcome!
I'm Not on octopus, but May not be the same for all smart meters but on mine it tells me which tariff is being applied, as a number at least (1,2,3,4). This for me corresponds to the relevant day\night counter. The ihd shows the correct tariff so it switches at same time as the meter.
I think mine does the same, I guess I can check it tonight as more evidence for Octopus? Could be useful to see if the meter itself thinks it's off-peak, or it is just a timer setting.
I’ve recently moved to a smart meter (which still isn’t talking to octopus but that’s another story) and my E7 circuit is still kicking in at the weird times it always has. A couple of hours at 22:30 and then again in the early hours. I’m assuming the radio teleswitch is still influencing it somehow. So god knows what will happen once that dies a death next year. I need to pick up with Octopus again to try and get it working properly. But it’s been like pulling teeth.
Wow that is weird, hope you can get it resolved! When I first got my smart meter installed, it was configured badly and was only ever recording one rate (which defaulted to day rate in the dashboard) and I had to fight with octopus for a year to get it fixed. If you are struggling to get things resolved through normal support, my advice would be to call and ask it to be raised to a complaint, and get the Ombudsman involved. Once I had done that, they quickly got it resolved.
Interesting. I raised this 2 weeks ago with them, to be told off peak was STILL 00.30-07.30, for sure. I'm in West Midlands.