Are my charges for Economy 7 night rate correct, even though it's switched off?

I am a customer, as are both @Firedog and @BPLightlog . We all volunteer our time for free and make no money out of this.

We’ve done our best, but we can’t find any signs of a problem here.

Yes, that’s what we see in the CU where everything’s off. But there’s a clock in the meter itself that switches between registers at the appropriate times.

You’re not giving us all the details; you said that while you were away, you were clocking up 1kWh per day. I tried to explain that that was quite a reasonable consumption level when (almost) everything’s switched off. Now you’re saying that you’re clocking 1kWh overnight while you are at home. That again is reasonable; on top of the background usage that’s always going, there’s all the stuff that happens overnight when you’re at home: lights, chargers, TV and Xbox on standby, bedtime drinks, early morning tea … the sort of thing a smart meter would be able to help you pinpoint.

What you’ve told us indicates  that being on an E7 tariff, all your usage in off-peak hours is being charged at the off-peak rate regardless of whether it’s on the heating E7 circuit or not. Blastoise explained it pretty clearly: “Only one rate can be clocking usage at a time, not both. Anytime the Night Rate register starts spinning around midnight, the Day Rate register stops spinning. And when the Day Rate register starts spinning at around 7am, the Night Rate register stops spinning.“ By the way, the register switch happens at the right time to the second. If there is a breaker that makes sure your E7 gear is off during the day, it won’t turn on precisely at midnight; it could be at any time within the first ten minutes or so. This is to ensure that a whole town’s storage heaters don’t switch on at exactly the same time, because if they did, something would blow up. 

Thanks for the pictures, by the way - they’re helpful.

You do not understand at all, i have tried to give you diferent examples of my situation.  You are telling me that it is acceptable to be charged for one unit per night even though switched off!  

You are wrong saying that all electric resorts to econ 7 at night, if that was the case there would be no need for a complete separate system, would there? 

Please research this as what you have been told is incorect.  Keith.

With the greatest respect @Turnip if you just want somebody to agree with you, the best place is social media not this help group. All we have tried to do is offer solutions, some from experience, others from what’s been seen before over many years. It sounds like we cannot help you unfortunately 

I have a completely comparable setup, the only major difference being that mine is a smart meter. My storage heaters are on a separate circuit, governed by a separate 63A CU just like yours. They have been switched off since 1 April 2022. Even so, my off-peak meter register has clocked up 547 kWh in that period, which is 448 days long. I make that 1.2 kWh per night on the ‘E7’ register even though all the E7 stuff is switched off. All of that has been charged at the cheap rate according to my bills.  So I submit that I’m not wrong …

It’s solely the clock in your meter that determines what counts as off-peak, not the way your heaters are wired up. 

I'd also like to add that we do extensive research all the time, even calling on outside experience and experts in some cases.

We've answered a lot of Economy 7 related questions and we know them well, I myself having answered a ton of them.

It's very rare that we get it wrong, but all three of us are highly confident of our advice in this particular thread. 

I give up if firedog you say that you register all that then your setup must be completely diferent if i were you i would question the usage because if you are registering use then as you admit its a diferent circuit then you like me are being charged for nothing.   Also when we do go away the only thing left on on normal is freezer which equates to about three units per day, but still get charged a unit per night.

Ok so if i go on a smart meter and it does not show up econ 7 usage then i will hold you responsible for all the years of being charged for no electric being used. At least if i keep my meter i have proof.    Ihave suggested they send someone out completely seal off econ7 and come back in a weel to see if i am correct, they wont do it.

Have you ever had a query like mine?     If you are correct then when we are away the bill should reduce considerably if freezer goes on econ 7. There is no system i know of that does this.  I have always said i would like to invent it.

Most E7 systems actually work that way - it’s only the wiring circuits that determine what is available off peak. If you’re not using off peak then you’re better off asking to be put in a standard non E7 rate