Hi folks, I’m Jon Mullen the Energy Evangelist. Did you know that you can get paid to use electricity? Today we’re looking at new and old electric supply solutions so it might be good for you to work at a different time of the day.
In the past many of you will remember Economy7 electric. This was a supply of electric that was split at your electric meter. Usually it only supplied certain devices like storage heaters between half past midnight to 5:30 in the morning. The storage heaters would store the energy as heat and then release that heat throughout the rest of the day. Or that was the idea! Usually the storage heaters would be pumping out heat in the morning and then be stone cold for the rest of the day. So there would be no heat supplied during the evening unless you had a coal fire. This electricity was ⅓ cheaper than your normal electricity.
Now we have a slightly different angle on the same idea with electric cars. Many of the electricity producers are providing packages which supply electricity in the early morning hours, but it is much cheaper! Normal current electric rates are between 13 and 15p per kWh unit, but the new EV rate is as low as 5p per unit overnight. This means that most EV drivers will be paying close to 1p per mile for their fuel costs.
But there are also new supply packages which are called agile rates. During the night there is little demand for electric in the UK. But the wind turbines still turn and many of the power stations are still supplying lower levels of electricity. So if there is too much production of energy the price will occasionally drop below zero pence per unit ie. they start to pay you to consume. On the other side of the coin it will cost you more to use electric any time between 4pm and 7pm (the hours of peak demand). So if you can run your business (or recharge your car) during the low demand cycles then you might be able to spend less for the same amount of electric.
New ideas for a new season.
I’m Jon Mullen the Energy Evangelist. Come and find out how to save more energy and more cash at EnergyEvangelist.co.uk