Warning to anyone with octopus energy on economy 7 for electric

[Jimbob1982]

Just thought I should let people know who are in the same boat as I was. I emailed octopus asking what the prices per kw were for myself on economy 7.

It turns out if you pay two different rates for your electricity (IE economy 7) then the day rate goes up to 63p per kw, when the price cap set by ofgem is 34p per kw. And the night rate is 25p per kw.

So in short, unless you're using most of your electricity between 12pm and 7am. Then it will cost you far more on economy 7.

Apparently it says on their website that you can switch to the standard price cap 34p whenever you use electricity for free. So I would strongly advise doing this otherwise your bills will be even higher than they need to be unless you use a high percentage of your electric at night.

Economy 7 has always been expensive unless you had storage heaters that use a lot of energy at night - or something similar. I'm guessing car charging may be one of those now. We had it when we moved into a house, and we were too naive to realise we didn't need it. Even running all machines in the E7 night hours was never enough to come out on top.

Gosh that’s good to know. Thank you

I have Economy 7 with octopus, and am currently on the flexible avro tariff as we were moved across from avro.

Octopus emailed me a couple of weeks ago with me new rates. I just checked them again after reading your message OP.
My new daytime rate will be 41.106 and the night 15.461. The night rate has actually decreased.

I try to run dishwasher etc overnight to make the most of the cheaper rates.

It is interesting that the day rate is higher than the price cap. I might have to crunch some numbers and see if we should change tariff.

I have economy 7 with British Gas. Day rate will go up to 41.54 and night is 16.96. So day rate has gone up by 10p and night is down 8p I think from you of rates. But their email says this is the cheapest tariff available

Economy 7 has always been more expensive during the day than at night as your storage heaters charge overnight so you benefit from the cheaper prices at that point.

This shouldn't be news to anyone on Economy 7. It's the whole point of the product.

It was initially intended to work with storage heaters, but you have to check if it fits in with your lifestyle, eg if you're out at work all day, a lot of the heat could have been lost in the daytime.

I don't know if they still fit storage heaters or if they've improved over the years, but they were all the rage in the 1970/80s, but I don't remember them being that good, from personal experience of using them.

I've only got 2 storage heaters. They aren't great tbh. Rest of the house is plug in heaters. It's not possible to have gas, but I'm not sure it would be cheaper anyway as things stand.

I get my hot water heated up overnight at the 'cheap' rate and I often set the washing machine to come on overnight (although this makes me a bit nervous because it's not supervised and is also a bit noisy). Luckily the kids are at work/school during the day, although we use a fair bit of electricity when everyone gets home and I'm cooking snd they have showers etc.

Im turning into my dad and moaning about lights left on etc - it's like being back in the 1970s!

Interesting to see that others on octopus have been quoted differently to myself. I think the person who emailed me must have made a mistake. Still think it might be worth switching to a normal tariff for myself and a lot of other people.

It's not the fact that people don't know what economy 7 does. It's the fact that the price doesn't even average out between the day and the night rate

We moved last year and we're put on an Economy 7 tariff. We divided jobs when we moved and my husband dealt with that so I didn't realise until very recently. Apparently it is their standard approach for electric only customers. They seem to assume single fuel customers have storage heaters. Rather than just off the gas grid as we are. We are getting it changed asap.

We don't have gas here so our heating and water are oil. Which isn't subject to any price cap.

@CalmFern It's not £50-£100 off. Its £50 for you and £50 for the other person.

Also, most suppliers are advising to stay with their existing supplier as the prices are all much the same on the SVR.

I am also on the Flexible Avro tarriff with Econ 7. I don't take much advantage of the night rate ( 32.65% of my consumption).
I did the calculation to comapre standard tarriff (before price cap) using Octopus rates. The standard tariff is £144 less on my usage (39.4p per day) and I would have to use more than 50% on night rate to get that reduction.
The calculation includes the standing charge . It was 12p per day a year ago and now over 44p per day - what has that got to do with the cost of energy?
octopus.energy/blog/energy-price-cap-oct-2022/#flexibleoct22rates

had to check ours on reading your post.
Tariff name
Energy Price Guarantee Direct Debit Economy 7 Electricity Only Direct Debit ebill
Variable
Direct Debit
Day: 39.260p per kWh Night: 18.886p per kWh
this is with Shell.
we use oil for cooking and heating, I always set the dishwasher and washing machine for overnight use.

We are with Bulb, we use washing machine and dishwasher overnight, have a slow cooker going sometimes. We are serious nightowls, partly because we used to have clients overseas and now have kids living on the otherside of the world. Was not aware of the big price differences with other suppliers though. Worth knowing if we are ever forced to move over.

Tariff name: Pay Monthly Variable 2 rate
Payment method: Monthly direct debit
Unit rate (Day): 36.76p/kWh
Unit rate (Night): 21.75p/kWh
Standing charge: 37.17p/day (£135.67/year)

I’m on economy 7 with octopus transferred from Avro.
my rates are
day rate 43.40 pkwh
night rate 16.69 pkwh
standing charge 43.40p

ive looked at other normal rates and the standing charge doesn’t differ too much from my standing charge.

Bugger, Bulb were late updating their tarif page, as of today show the following ( prev figures were taken yesterday.)

Monthly Direct Debit in advance
Electricity Day Unit Rate:
38.5928p per kWh
Electricity Night Unit Rate:
22.8375p per kWh
Standing charge
39.0274p per day (£142.45 per year)

Yes, but you get £50 for refering dont you!

We have octopus go tariff which is for people who have electric cars. On the bill it works out what the average per KWH is and if it exceeds the cap they adjust it. I assume it’s the same for economy 7.
For some people economy 7 does work out. My MIL has electric storage heaters and has economy 7.

Octopus have sent me an email today. They want to put up my DD to £292 a month. According to my smart meter I use £6 a day now with the heating on. It was a lot less before the heating was turned on. So that’s £186 month in the winter. Just shows the proposed increases to come through yet. I can’t afford £292 a month.

Unless you use more than 40% of your electric overnight, you will be paying too much. Especially from Jan 2023 (new Eco 7 tariff price rise) you will be paying 18% more than if you were on their standard rate. I'm with Octopus and they changed it within one day. I only use about 14% during the night on average normally. I saved £16.00 just in one month, I did a comparison new E7 rate to Standard. Ask them to put you on Octopus Flexible if you are with them.

As far as we were aware and the guy installing our smart meter we were on economy 7. But online shows this, so I'm assuming we are not on the economy 7 anymore.