My new home has a Total Heating Total Control (THTC) system. How do they work?

Realistically speaking, THTC is only suitable for Storage Heaters or possibly Immersion Heaters. It’s a terrible option for basically anything else

And I have neither storage heaters nor immersion heater. I think there were storage heaters at some point but the previous owner changed to radiators.  

We moved in mid January and have been paying huge amounts for very little. 

Can any one advise on our best option?

I’d do what OVO suggests if possible. It’ll almost certainly be cheaper. Heat pumps don’t “store” anything as such, so tariffs like THTC are terrible for them

Hi @Rosey What make is you heat pump ? can you post a photo of it. There’s a good few people on here who can help you get more out of it than huge bills !

You could find that you can heat the house during the cheap times available on your tariff, then turn it down during the expensive times, so the fabric of your house acts as the storage device. Whoever installed it probably should have left you some info on how they were running it. 

That’s the problem. THTC doesn’t have fixed times for the cheaper rate. It can be random and is controlled by the supplier via RTS.

Once the RTS Service eventually shuts down, all THTC meters will just run off of defaults and/or last known configs and the times will always be consistent, just like having a static timeswitch.

It’s impossible to predict when they’ll be. Taken from SSE:

What are the times for THTC?

The specific times for the off-peak rate depends on the weather forecast for your area, but you'll get between 5 and 12 hours each day. THTC works by storing up heat in your storage heaters and hot water tank during the off-peak times.

Other electric heaters and heated appliances can also be used on the cheaper rate. The off-peak rate is available 24 hours a day for panel heaters, focal point fires, bathroom heaters, towel rails, the hot water boost and even electric showers. You'll need to get an electrician to make sure all those appliances are connected to your cheaper-rate meter if you're not sure.

Ah, gotcha 🤦‍♀️ I’ve clicked ‘like’ but I can’t say I do like it !!! 
So if the heat pump is wired into the off peak supply is that more expensive than the storage heater supply ? Ie three tiers ?

THTC is weird. I’m not even sure if you’d be allowed to wire a heat pump into either of the cheaper rates. I get the feeling it’d have to be the expensive one.

It’s definitely worth setting the heat pump up to tick along quietly in the background the @Rosey i assume it’s doing your hot water ? Can you let us know what time it’s operating and the temp settings etc. ??

Having read back through this thread and found the link to Scarf: https://www.scarf.org.uk/householder/hes/home-renewables/  I wonder if anyone there can suggest the correct way to set up your heat pump to make best use of the thtc supply ??

That’s the one thing I really don’t understand, even though SSE keep saying it. To me, THTC is predictable!

Heating charging from 1:40 AM - 7:40 AM and 1:40 PM - 4:40 PM.

Although that may just be me as I haven’t felt the need to switch from octopus to SSE in the 6 months since I posted this thread. Octopus bill the heating meter as a 24/7 off peak economy 7 meter.

Out of interest, does anyone know if SSE/Ovo has a list of all properties with exotic meters and would have a responsibility to inform such residents that their meters will need switching?