Moving from THTC to another tariff- Will all consumer units be connected by Ovo to the new meter ?

Comparing rates is interesting.

My Peak is 27p & offpeak 21p, not a lot of difference on Eco9

Octopus are offering 30p Peak & 13p offpeak, a proper reduction for 7 hrs overnight 

At the moment we're on Domestic Economy which is giving us 8 hours, not 7, overnight. We're desperate to move to Octopus, possibly Tracker or Agile, but we're also looking at their Intelligent Go.  This would charge our car and do our storage heaters for 7p per kWh....a bit less than our current 17p!! We have solar panels which reduce our daytime consumption....as long as the sun shines, obviously!!

That’s not really comparable. Storage heaters - and hot water - would work well on an Economy 7 tariff like that, but any heaters you had running during the day would be very expensive at 30p/kWh. With your Economy 9 plan, you’d be able to run them for six hours in daytime at 21p/kWh. You’d have to do some fairly complicated sums to find out which is the best deal for your own unique situation, including whether a bit of investment in new equipment might not quickly pay for itself and start saving you money.

By the way, it’s really important when comparing rates to check whether the figures you’re using include VAT or not. An average electrically-heated household uses 3900kWh/year. Using OVO’s standard tariff, that would cost £927 + VAT £46 = £973.

It’s also important to be accurate; a penny more or less on the unit rate is £40 a year for the average household. Standing charges vary a lot, too: every penny difference is almost £4 a year more or less. It’s tempting to round the figures off to make for easier calculations, but it might lead you to prefer a tariff that in fact isn’t the best.

Just a quick reminder. Please DO NOT post your MPAN or MPRN here unless you want me (or anyone else!) to locate your exact address. Trust me, you don’t want that happening...

Thanks. The sums get really complicated when you add an EV and free PV electricity into the mix, especially if you get paid for any excess and if you divert solar power to heat up your water tank when it’s not got anything better to do.

However, I get the impression that there are many THTC-refugees who are eyeing up Octopus’s smart ToU tariffs. OVO should get a move on introducing similar plans; Charge Anytime is one little step in the right direction, but it can’t match what Octopus offers.

That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for the last 2 years

I only charge my modern storage heater & water overnight, rarely need extra heat during day as have a log stove.

Done the sums on my present usage & Octopus are around £20 cheaper monthly.

When the cold weather arrives & I turn on another heater it will be closer to £50 as that’s where the biggest cost is. Cost for things like washing machine/dishwasher are insignificant by comparison to heating.

That must be another storage heater, then, if you’re charging it at cheap rate at night.

If you have no real need for the cheap-rate periods during the day, it sounds as if you’d be better off with a good old-fashioned Economy 7 tariff. Economy 9 or 10 necessarily has higher rates to cover those daytime cheaper slots. I tried to find an Octopus E7 plan, but their really confusing quote pages with clever quizzes and pretty graphics showing all sorts of advanced green tech solutions refused to show me one. At least I get clear(ish) information from OVO, which seems to boil down to:

Peak rate ex VAT: 27.13p/kWh
Offpeak rate ex VAT: 16.31p/kWh
Standing charge ex VAT: 59.93p/day

That could well work out more expensive than Octopus’s offer if most of your consumption is during the night, but a lot less than your current Economy 9 plan unless the storage heaters and water heater only need three hours to charge up overnight. 

That’s a better Ovo deal. Thanks for finding it. Definitely should have Eco7 for my needs.

Then all I would need is for the heating to come on at the right time & prices !

I live in hope