Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 13 replies
  • Subscribers 27 subscribers
  • Views 1493 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion is locked.
You cannot post a reply to this discussion. If you have a question start a new discussion

Economy 7 Supply Control.

Zoomup
Evnin' All,

                   at today's first job I came upon a strange thing, well for me anyway. A house has economy 7 storage heaters, no gas present. The Economy 7 supply is controlled by a loud buzzing contactor that makes a big bang when it operates. It is situated near to the meter but is controlled by a simple 24 hour time switch that might as easily control an immersion heater. The time switch can be altered by the house owner, as well as being manually turned on and off.


Why this arrangement, and not a proper Economy 7 timer switch or teleswitch.?


Z.

Parents
  • 0
    We had some fun with economy 7 with a flat that in the end we never got converted to smart meter.


    It seems that the modern way is to have time varying rates, but only one set of meter tails,. so  in effect the whole shebang is on cheap rate at the appropriate time and full rate the rest of the time but no power is switched. The meter knows how many units were used at varying the times, but how that gets back to the billing is more complex, and I was assured that there were no contacts on the meter as such to allow us to know which rate was in force.

    (The old meter has two dials and a contactor inside it, so there are two lots of tails etc.)

    I have since been told this is cobblers, and that meters with timed contacts to operate pilots/relays  etc are certainly available, but not all energy suppliers will wire them in or enable them in software..

    Maybe this householder is with the same supplier and has to set the clock manually to match the times on the tariff  and risk a bit iof mis-billing if the clock drifts?

Reply
  • 0
    We had some fun with economy 7 with a flat that in the end we never got converted to smart meter.


    It seems that the modern way is to have time varying rates, but only one set of meter tails,. so  in effect the whole shebang is on cheap rate at the appropriate time and full rate the rest of the time but no power is switched. The meter knows how many units were used at varying the times, but how that gets back to the billing is more complex, and I was assured that there were no contacts on the meter as such to allow us to know which rate was in force.

    (The old meter has two dials and a contactor inside it, so there are two lots of tails etc.)

    I have since been told this is cobblers, and that meters with timed contacts to operate pilots/relays  etc are certainly available, but not all energy suppliers will wire them in or enable them in software..

    Maybe this householder is with the same supplier and has to set the clock manually to match the times on the tariff  and risk a bit iof mis-billing if the clock drifts?

Children
No Data

Join us to get the best from IET EngX.

Joining EngX lets you personalise your experience so you stay up to date on the topics that interest you, plus you’ll be able to make connections who are looking to collaborate, exchange ideas and more.

Join us Not now

Community Rules & Guidelines