Help with reading a meter bill

[druid77]

I have been asked to help a friend understand their electricity bill. A task I find challenging as I don't understand it myself. Note that at the moment I have not seen the meter installation, only the bill and I have attached a redacted version of the relevant page
My questions are

1) Can you have 2 different supply numbers for one meter?

2) Do meters exist that have three payment rates of Flat/Day/Night. I was under the impression that you had either a flat rate meter or an “economy 7” meter with day/night rates
Note this is a small one bedroom housing association bungalow (with solar panels fitted), a single occupant and no gas so all power is electric. I assume heating is night storage heaters but will check at next visit. This bill is July to September so hopefully little or no heating charges.

3) Is 41 kWh a sensible number for night rate for 60 days (presumably water heating) . Less that 1 kWh/day seems very low to me and I wonder if the water timer is mis-set heating the water on the day rate.
(And yet the top part of the bill seems to be charging at 11.06p/kWh which is closer to the night rate than the day rate. and includes 362kWh for 60 days, 6kWh/day which seems to me more sensible for water heating)

4) Does the suppliers yearly kWh estimate of 2262 day and 1638 night seem logical. I would have thought anywhere with Night Storage Heaters would use more kWh overnight. But I have never had NSH so am talking from ignorance.

Any help for me to explain this to someone else would be very much appreciated.
Regards.

 

[ProDave]

That is a dual rate tariff.

First block is the night time usage and the second block is the daytime usage.

As they have 2 separate meter numbers and 2 lots of standing charge, it looks like it is a very old install that does have 2 separate meters. You would save some money by having those meters swapped for one dual rate meter and then there would only be one standing charge.

 

[UNG]

The part that looks odd is the Supply numbers are different but the Meter numbers are the same looking at what is annotated on the redacted bill which is confusing
The top part of the bill is clearly a night tariff only meter and the lower part is a dual tariff meter

I would suggest the OP posts a picture of the current metering and consumer unit arrangement I suspect that the night tariff only meter is operated by a teleswitch or timeswitch serving storage heaters so it might need some wiring mods to move over to a single meter and save a few hundred pounds a year on the standing charge

 

[ProDave]

I wonder if this is a reconfiguration of the old Total control system that did indeed have 2 meters, one being single rate, one being dual rate. As above a picture of the meter(s) would help.

 

[UNG]

Just re-read the OP and solar panels are mentioned so is the top part of that bill for an export meter given that no annual usage figures are given

 

[Murdoch]

A photo showing the meters might help

 

[druid77]

The part that looks odd is the Supply numbers are different but the Meter numbers are the same looking at what is annotated on the redacted bill which is confusing

That is correct

The top part of the bill is clearly a night tariff only meter and the lower part is a dual tariff meter

I would suggest the OP posts a picture of the current metering and consumer unit arrangement I suspect that the night tariff only meter is operated by a teleswitch or timeswitch serving storage heaters so it might need some wiring mods to move over to a single meter and save a few hundred pounds a year on the standing charge

Will hopefully be round there Thursday of this week, so will try to get a picture and a bit better understanding of how the user thinks they are using electricity
Regards

 

[Murdoch]

Looking at the meters and the bills isn’t really giving enough information

Apart from night storage heaters how is the hot water heated?

How many heaters? Are they all storage heaters or the newer LOT 20 units ?

 

[druid77]

Having been to visit and discussed it further The meter installation is as shown. If it cant be read on the photo the type is K222D03.



There is also a solar generation meter in a separate cupboard (Photo 2)




When the home owner moved into the property the supplier was adamant that there were 2 meters fitted. After much back and forth the supplier finally accepted that there was only one meter but it apparently has 3 different readings. The home owner understands these to be for A) Storage heaters, B) Rest of the house day rate C) Rest of the house night rate.

This might explain the two different supply numbers but only one meter number, in days gone by there were 2 supplies and two meters. There is now 2 standing charges and one rebate equal to a standing charge. Note this is not a converted property it was built as a semi detached bungalow and still is.

The home owner says that there is no control of when the storage heaters come on “the supplier” controls that but there is an on/ff switch on each individual heater so they can be turned off.

The water heating is a sorry mess.

There are 2 immersion heaters one in the bottom of the tank fed from a switch labelled “water Heater”. The other towards the top of the tank fed by a switch labelled “boost water”





The Boost water switch feeds through an immersun device. The “Boost water” switch remains permanently off since “I always have plenty of hot water I never need to boost it!!!!”.





I think this means no use of solar power is being made and all hot water is provided by the lower water heater. Whether this is on the “storage heater” circuit or the “rest of the house” circuit I have no idea, but I would hope that it is on the storage heater circuit and the “water boost” switch would be on the “rest of the house” circuit.

I took a brave pill and turned on the “Boost water” switch. The immesun came to life but had no date/time settings. It seemed fairly intuitive to set these correctly. But when I investigated the menus I found a boost menu which showed boost times of

06:30-07:30 MTWTFSS -

16:30-17:30 MTWTFSS -

07:30-08:30 MTWTFSS -

17:30-18:30 MTWTFSS -

08:30-09:30 MTWTFSS -

18:30-19:30 MTWTFSS -

This makes absolutely no sense to me and looks like the boost is on from 06:30 to 09:30 and 16:30 to 19:30 every day. Surely this is peak electricity. I assume that the boost settings are to top up the water when the sun don't shine and surely you would want that overnight on cheap electricity, if you have had no sun the day before (like the last week or 10 days)

Should these boost settings be something like 02:00 to 05:00 to top up with cheap overnight electricity?

HELP?

 

[ProDave]

First picture looks like a normal 2 rate meter in the meter box with the supply.

Can we have a zoomed out picture of the second meter to give some context of what it is connected to and what is around it please?

It has an immersion diverter so suggests there is solar PV on the house, so could the second meter be for a Feed In Tariff? If so they might me miss treating it as anything to do with the paid for supply electricity.

 

[druid77]

First picture looks like a normal 2 rate meter in the meter box with the supply.

Owner says it provides 3 readings which are sent to the supplier when requested and then appear on the bill as Supply 1 (not labelled night rate but unit cost suggests it is a night rate). Supply 2 'day rate" & "night rate". Looking at the bottom of the meter the connections are labelled (L>R) L1 N2 (from the supply header), N3 L5, L4, L6.

I ASSUME L5 L4 and L6 supply Storage heaters, rest of house and input from solar panels (which is which I have no idea) but this would support 3 readings coming from that meter if say L5 = Storage heaters (first supply number - night rate) L4 rest of house (second supply number but on economy 7 tariff hence day & night readings) L6 feed from the solar panels.

Can we have a zoomed out picture of the second meter to give some context of what it is connected to and what is around it please?

Sorry haven't got a wider angle and wont be back for a while but directly to the right it of looks to be the CU and below the CU the solar isolator switch. Owner recognises this as the solar meter but has nothing to do with it - is never asked to read it and couldn't get to it if asked. As I said in the first post
"Note this is a small one bedroom housing association bungalow (with solar panels fitted)". All of the dwellings in the estate have identical solar panel fits and my guess is that they are all part of the "rent a roof" scheme, where the householders get the free electricity when the sun shines but the Housing Association gets the FIT.

It has an immersion diverter so suggests there is solar PV on the house, so could the second meter be for a Feed In Tariff? If so they might me miss treating it as anything to do with the paid for supply electricity.

See comments above.

 

[ProDave]

So the question I would put to the supplier: There is only ONE meter. So why are you charging TWO lots of the daily standing charge.

The solar PV meter is probably read remotely by that gadget attached to the top of that meter. Although not paif for the FIT the owner does get the free electricity they generate and a lot of that will just get dumped into the immersion heater reducing their bills a bit.

 

[druid77]

I have been provided access to the users energy dashboard which looks like this and shows the same serial number meter for 2 different supply numbers.

 

[ProDave]

That is even more weird, why does the right one say "single rate meter" and then goes on to give a day and night rate?

I would raise this as a complaint, on the basis how can you charge two daily standing charges for ONE meter?

 

[UNG]

Having been to visit and discussed it further The meter installation is as shown. If it cant be read on the photo the type is K222D03.

View attachment 17220

That meter looks to have 3 outputs with the two red and one brown cable on the right of the meter and the Southern Electric label on the backboard is clearly indicating 3 rates with readings for rate 1, 2 & 3. So was this a Southern Electric tariff and Octopus don't have an equivalent tariff

 

[Murdoch]

Back in the day when meter readers existed these unfortunate situations didn’t happen unless the owner denied the energy company access

 

[ProDave]

So that IS a modern incarnation of the "Total Control Total Heating" (THTC) tariff which was I believe unique to SSE.

do they still use storage heaters? and more importantly do they still use a lot of electric panel heaters? Having panel heaters and being able to run them any time of day on their own cheap rate was the only unique point and only valid reason for having THTC.

If they don't have lots of panel heaters then you really want to swap that meter for a normal one and revert to a normal tariff, a normal off peak tariff if you still have storage heaters, or a normal single rate tariff if you heat with gas for instance.

One of the big issues as this thread shows is nobody other than SSE know how to meter and charge for this properly.

 

[druid77]

So that IS a modern incarnation of the "Total Control Total Heating" (THTC) tariff which was I believe unique to SSE.

do they still use storage heaters? and more importantly do they still use a lot of electric panel heaters? Having panel heaters and being able to run them any time of day on their own cheap rate was the only unique point and only valid reason for having THTC.

Showing my ignorance here. What is a panel heater. There is no gas in the house concerned (It is not mine and the owner is elderly) all heating is electric. I thought (always having had gas) that all electric "central" (or whole home) heating was storage heaters. Are you saying that there was the facility for heating with simple (no concrete block) convector heaters?

 

[druid77]

Thank you. I had never heard of THTC from SSE but a bit of a google search reveals others having problems when supplier is changed

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-acco...how-do-they-work-11473?postid=58898#post58898

It seems that they did originally have two meters (Hence two supply numbers I guess)

 

[ProDave]

Thank you. I had never heard of THTC from SSE but a bit of a google search reveals others having problems when supplier is changed

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-acco...how-do-they-work-11473?postid=58898#post58898

It seems that they did originally have two meters (Hence two supply numbers I guess)

Yes it was an attempt at the time, to make all electric heating more affordable and more acceptable, and attempting to make it as cheap as gas.

There are 3 separately metered circuits.

Normal house circuits metered at normal rate in the day and cheap rate at night.

Storage heater circuits that are only energised at night and metered at the night rate.

And the odd one, a third output always on and metered at the cheap rate that is only supposed to be used for "heating appliances"

A panel heater is just a wall mounted slim electric heater that does not have the big heavy bricks that storage heaters have. Typically used for bedrooms when you want heat in the evening through the night to the morning but not in the day.

Anyone switching this type of supply to anyone other than SSE is on a hiding to trouble and grief as none of the other suppliers properly deal with this system. There was a time when nobody else would take it on, but the watchdog decided that was against competition so it seems other suppliers will take it on and then make a pigs ear of it.