[wizzo227]

At risk of somebody else mentioning the name of somebody else's trademark price-every-half-hour smart meter electricity tariff, has anyone else noticed that all the half-hour prices overnight from around 23:00 BST to 07:00 BST tonight are nil or negative electricity pricing ? As in between 2p and -2p /kWh electricity for those on the price-every-half-hour deal.

I won't be a complete pig over this; I won't switch on every fan heater I've got, but were I to do so, that would spend less than £1 to severely overheat this small well-insulated ordinary house.

What I will do is switch on the small wall-mounted heat pump to draw 0.7kW and deliver about 2kW of heat, both for half of the time. Expected cost is much less than £0.10 for expected gain of several kWh of heat to one room overnight.

The cause of this overnight electricity glut is likely to be a lot more wind than average, so those who can use it should.

This kind of bargain does not often happen. This time-of-use pricing deal won't suit everyone because it is extra-expensive at after-school time 4pm-7pm, recently going over 40p/kWh. I just don't use much at those times, and preferentially use the cooker and heavy appliances at less expensive times. Daytime <20p/kWh and occasionally much cheaper is available to those who bother to use it.

[Andy65]

At 3am 57.7% was wind generated @wizzo227. TOU tariffs are good for those that can, and want to manage their usage. I know a fair few people who just wouldn't be interested and would rather pay a more expensive flat rate for convenience.

There's quite a lot on YouTube that have seemingly turned managing their TOU/Solar/EV into a serious hobby. Those on flat rates can get surprising results just by switching stuff off and managing their appliances a bit better.

[meldrewreborn]

I don’t yet have a smart meter but I’m sceptical that the UK population will take to TOU tariffs in great numbers. If they require people to continually monitor their usage and be reactive to both low and high prices, I think that most people will lose interest very quickly.

I can well imagine that offers to reward cutting consumption at peak times might be well received, but that might be as good as it gets.

personal use of battery storage might well be a winner - so doing on a small scale what seems to be impractical on the national scale.

[wizzo227]

Well, there is a downside to half-hour priced electricity if you are one of the many who'll just switch stuff on because its after-school time. Right now, if you are on the tariff which got me cut price heating the other night, don't switch anything on if you can possibly help it because prices have gone to the nastiest which I've seen for a while:

17:00 - 17:30	58.88p/kWh
17:30 - 18:00	65.96p/kWh
18:00 - 18:30	63.67p/kWh
18:30 - 19:00	67.95p/kWh
19:00 - 19:30	38.15p/kWh
19:30 - 20:00	32.85p/kWh

Thats right: 66p/kWh
I had the heat pump on for the cheapest hours after lunch so I'm good for the rest of this evening unheated.
That's right - neither gas nor electric heating used for a couple of hours.
That long time constant before indoor temperature changes is another advantage of living in a moderately well insulated home with a small exposed perimeter.

So if you want to become capable of exploiting cheaper electricity and ignoring expensive electricity, get insulated.

[meldrewreborn]

@wizzo227


TOU pricing can be both a carrot and a stick. You've illustrated both in a very clear manner.

I'm all for the carrot approach - reward people for using at off peak timings or reducing consumption at peak periods. I'm not so keen on the stick approach which would catch the unworldly wise part of the population dearly. Which is why I'd press for a fall back position of total consumption in a period (1 Month?) being chargeable at no more than the price cap, thus overiding TOU pricing if that proved to be more expensive. So TOU might be cheaper, but couldn't be more expensive than the price cap.

[wizzo227]

@meldrewreborn
That would be sure to fail, because who'd sell surplus electricity for massively less than price cap at windy times and then at limited price for price cap reasons at after-school-peak no-wind times ? A biller desk might get away with it for a few months and then go bust costing everyone else's biller desks for offering below-cap but never above-cap. If instead, the p/kWh goes up commensurately with the cost of hurling fuel into a furnace somewhere, then at least some people will notice that now is a bad time to be using extra and postpone their major loads, hence avoiding overuse of fuel or expensive batteries. I can still use the internet and run this raspberry pi; Household use shows 120 Watts while the fridge motor is running and will soon be back below 0.05 kW. I just won't be putting the oven on for chips.

[meldrewreborn]

@wizzo227

it would be up to suppliers to devise their tariffs in the future. Indeed all current supplier do exactly as you say would be sure to fail, because they set prices at a minimum of 3 months in advance with no certainty of half hourly prices.

you would have thought that anybody on the variable next tariff would shift to next pledge which is virtually the same but guaranteed to be cheaper. I don’t have the figures for how many have but we’re often told that the massive proportion of customers are still on default tariffs, so hence why customer inertia (still after 40 years of deregulation) will mean TOU becomes Niche only.
I’m not aware of any places where half hourly electricity pricing on a TOU tariff has become popular in a domestic market.

some parts of Canada has compulsory banded TOU pricing but it’s set in advance and not continuously variable. Opinions differ on whether it’s beneficial - entirely predictable. Here, those adversely impacted by standing charges would prefer tariffs to be just unit charges. That’s life!

[DebF_EONNext]

@Andy65 I agree. I believe it's all about having informed choice, researching what will work best for you and knowing what your needs are, such as - do you need a flat rate, do you use more in the early hours, do you have kids on devices (little energy vampires!) do you have storage or an EV, do you live alone or a family of 5 etc

Once you know what you need and how you use your energy you can look at what's available and what suits you.

TOU is a fantastic idea and like you say Andy65 some people get really invested in it where as other people just want to pay their bill and forget about it. For me I no longer have solar, I don't have an EV and I work from home so TOU probably isn't for me at the moment but in future who knows?!