[JoeSoap]

Originally Posted by Mailman

@JoeSoap

Utrack is giving £2.50/kWh saving so we shall see what ensues. I'll work through my numbers on Sunday after the event and when Bright has given me my data.

That’s a bit more respectable. I’ll have to make an extra special effort to make it anywhere near worthwhile 😂

[JoeSoap]

@Mailman

Bright has updated and I calculated my best reduction yet at -86%. I reduced by 1.254kWh from 1.454 to 0.2. At £3/kWh that would have been £3.76 by my calculations but I now expect £1.88. Hey ho... not so bad.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by JoeSoap

@Mailman

Bright has updated and I calculated my best reduction yet at -86%. I reduced by 1.254kWh from 1.454 to 0.2. At £3/kWh that would have been £3.76 by my calculations but I now expect £1.88. Hey ho... not so bad.

Mine was 0.815 kWh reduction so I'm expecting circa £2.03 (whenever their calculations get done)

[Lorian]

Eon next should have bid more that £1500/MWh really. Ok it was a safe bid and they didn't get rejected like BG but hindsight shows £2500 was the place to be. The returns are already pretty minimal at £3KWh unless you can export. If they carry on at this rate DFS wont be worthwhile. Generating disharmony in the home for pennies? Not worth it. I didn't take part (yes I could have gone bright).

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by Lorian

Eon next should have bid more that £1500/MWh really. Ok it was a safe bid and they didn't get rejected like BG but hindsight shows £2500 was the place to be. The returns are already pretty minimal at £3KWh unless you can export. If they carry on at this rate DFS wont be worthwhile. Generating disharmony in the home for pennies? Not worth it. I didn't take part (yes I could have gone bright).

Only 2 of us in the home so much easier to 'be in control' over the power used in this hour. Had you gone to Bright you might have been bounced by the scheme (as I was earlier this winter - hence why I had to stick with the first participant I actually registered with - Utrack)

[meldrewreborn]

@Mailman

i don’t have a smart meter so can’t take part. My electricity usage per day is circa 4.5kWh per day but if I put my average usage at 4.8 that would be 0.2kW in any particular hour. If I were participating I would turn off the fridge and freezer but not much else, as we cook with gas. I can’t imagine that my potential saving in cash terms could be very significant and no energy would actually be saved as it would be shifted to later on.
as time goes on I would expect the cash incentives to lower as the sensitivity of the customers is assessed - how much do we need to offer the customer to achieve the desired reduction.
but I can’t at present see the benefit to me in all this, it certainly isn’t making a smart meter application any more likely- am I missing something?

[Andy65]

but I can’t at present see the benefit to me in all this, it certainly isn’t making a smart meter application any more likely- am I missing something?

Whilst National Grid will say that they need better load balancing etc I can't help think that it's also a back door way of trying to get more smart meters fitted. I haven't tried joining the energy shift because there's no point. Like you my usage is so small I'd have to switch off my fridge freezer to save around 70 watts, and it wouldn't even be that over an hour because of the compressor kicking in and out.

Those who will gain will be mainly people who essentially waste electricity, but that's their choice if they're paying for it. To financially incentivise people just for switching unnecessary stuff off seems bonkers to me.

I watched that programme on Smart Meters on C5 on Wednesday. There was a bloke who thought smart meters were great because his monthly bill had gone from around £550 a month to £150. His supplier was offering cheap hours plus cheap night rates (presumably Octopus) so he started setting the washing machine etc to come on through the night. I think he had an EV as well and had been charging it during the day. He though this saving was all down to Smart Meters but really he just needed some common sense, and he clearly had more money than sense.

They say that you need Smart Meters to benefit but that isn't really true as E7 has been around for decades with traditional meters, so EVs could easily be charged on a cheap overnight tariff.

It does niggle me somewhat where schemes such as energy shift have no benefit for those of us that are economical. I'd incentivise those who are x% below the average for a particular type of property and penalise those who are x% above the average. It would get messy though depending on whether you have gas or electric heating/cooking etc.

[WizzyWigg]

Originally Posted by Andy65

Whilst National Grid will say that they need better load balancing etc I can't help think that it's also a back door way of trying to get more smart meters fitted. I haven't tried joining the energy shift because there's no point. Like you my usage is so small I'd have to switch off my fridge freezer to save around 70 watts, and it wouldn't even be that over an hour because of the compressor kicking in and out.

Those who will gain will be mainly people who essentially waste electricity, but that's their choice if they're paying for it. To financially incentivise people just for switching unnecessary stuff off seems bonkers to me.

I watched that programme on Smart Meters on C5 on Wednesday. There was a bloke who thought smart meters were great because his monthly bill had gone from around £550 a month to £150. His supplier was offering cheap hours plus cheap night rates (presumably Octopus) so he started setting the washing machine etc to come on through the night. I think he had an EV as well and had been charging it during the day. He though this saving was all down to Smart Meters but really he just needed some common sense, and he clearly had more money than sense.

They say that you need Smart Meters to benefit but that isn't really true as E7 has been around for decades with traditional meters, so EVs could easily be charged on a cheap overnight tariff.

It does niggle me somewhat where schemes such as energy shift have no benefit for those of us that are economical. I'd incentivise those who are x% below the average for a particular type of property and penalise those who are x% above the average. It would get messy though depending on whether you have gas or electric heating/cooking etc.

Morning @Andy65 . Absolutely brilliant post. I too am a low user and I totally agree with you on all points.

Lower usage doesn't have to mean a poor standard of living. Far from It. It means you are using energy when you need it, rather than using it when you don't! Common sense!

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by meldrewreborn

@Mailman
If I were participating I would turn off the fridge and freezer but not much else, as we cook with gas. I can’t imagine that my potential saving in cash terms could be very significant.............but I can’t at present see the benefit to me in all this, it certainly isn’t making a smart meter application any more likely- am I missing something?

Cooking with gas means a low baseline during the early evening. We however use all-electric cooking appliances for almost all of our evening meals in winter - induction hob, electric eye-level oven (used very very sparingly) pressure cooker, air fryer - so depending on what the meal is the evening meal usage peaks at about 0.4kWh to 1.0 kWh for just the peak 30 minute period (5.30-6.00pm) although of course there are other electrical appliances on at the same time so the actual cooking kWh is less. For the event of 2nd February (5-6pm), we had Prawn Jambalya so nothing was cooked at all between 5-6pm that evening - the rice had been cooked prior to 5pm and the final cook of the dish was commenced just after 6 pm so we did do an energy shift to a degree. During the event we sat and watched TV for an hour in a comfortably warm lounge (19C) so heating did not come on (so no juice for the pump on the boiler) for that hour (or indeed for the remainder of the day). Fridge/Freezer etc turned back on again at 6pm. Net result should be circa £2 for very little inconvenience really.

So you are not missing anything at all - its just that your lifestyle and cooking energy are different to myself and others who have contributed to this thread and participated. We both use gas for CH/DHW needs but I can see that savings are even higher particularly for those that rely on electricity as a souce of heating.

But for low basline users such as yourself and @Andy65 and @WizzyWigg these events are almost an irrelevance 🤔, even more so when the £/kWh saving is as low as it was for Eon Next participants. Certainly not enough to lead to a stampede for a smart meter. 👎

[WizzyWigg]

@Mailman I can remember being invited one of the first events and it was estimated if I switched everything off for the duration and sat in the dark for an hour, I might be credited 0.28p. If I was lucky. 😳