Economy 7 hours?

Are the Eco 7 set by the DNO, who you buy your electricity from, i.e. Octopus or who?
I have always assumed it was the DNO, but i have an ongoing issue with my supplier over the exact hours, for obvious reasons.
You're all going to tell me to talk to my supplier and that is the problem. Im not sure they really know. They have given me 2 very different answers. And now they are telling me that because i have a smart meter, that my dual rate meter no longer decides ( which i know it does, as those units are the units they bill me for).
I don't really fancy waiting up until either 23.30 or 01.30 ( depending on which answer i believe) to watch it change over.

Roberto DNO is responsible for getting the supply to your premises and providing you with an MPAN for export tariff and for sorting you out if there's a power cut or other supply problem in your area, nothing more. Your energy supplier, who you can change as often as you like, is responsible for charging you for the energy you consume, as indicated on your energy supply meter (irrespective of who installed it), according to the tariff you have with them.

The key to the start and finish times of the time of use tariff is whether they are the same all year round (eg 1am to 4am all year whether it's BST or GMT), or whether they stay the same all year round eg EDF's EV tariff id midnight to 5am GMT, all year round. For this tariff, it's 00:00-05:00GMT and 01:00-06:00BST. It can be very confusing because both suppliers will say their tariff is the same all year round.

BTW, your energy meter will probably have the correct time of use start and finish times and rates, but it's not guaranteed. If they aren't right, you can ask your energy supplier to correct it.

I am on economy 7 from Octopus and the off peak winter hours are 00:30 to 07:30 and the summer hours are 01:30 to 08:30. Technically it is the same all year as they base the off peak hours on GMT and that is 00:30 to 07:30 but obviously BST screws it up and we all get confused, esp my IHD which takes about 3 weeks to catch up with the spring and autumn hour changes. The IHD should give you 30 mins warning of the change of rate if it is working correctly. Hope that helps

Thanks for the replies. My supplier has confused me as they have written to me with two different answers !
I get the GMT/BST bit and enjoy cooking my breakfast on E7 in the summer!
Currently i have my AC3 charge my battery in the bit of their two answers that matches, i.e. 04.00 to 08.28. This is plenty in the summer and winter time.
What i find surprising is that the E7 hours are impossible to find on my suppliers website. And im suspicious as they are 1) the info is not easily accessible to even them and 2) the conflicting info they have supplied so far.
But when i get their final answer ill report back to close this out.

Historically there was some difference built in, so that everyone's storage heaters didn't click on at the same time, keep the grid up!

Not sure if they still do that with smart meters, but I guess it would make sense.

Maybe one day they'll need to adjust products like Go, to have them start at slightly different times. Although with moves to things like Intelligent Octopus they can have some control over when things happen - as long as they make sure your car is charged by the time you need it.

It can depend on where you are in the country. I am in Hampshire with Scottish and Southern as my DNO and Octopus as my supplier. Times are 00.30 to 7.30 in winter. But I know that if you are in the South East with UK Power Network as your DNO then they have a weird split time 22.30- 00.30 and again from 2.30 to 7.30. Do you know your DNO? If you list your DNO and supplier perhaps there may be someone who has the same combination who can confirm the correct times.

FWIW, I'm on an EDF Economy 10 supply, which runs 21:00 to 07:00 'clock time' as far as I can tell. I too had some difficulty finding the actual hours: eventually my paper / pdf Bill was the place to look. Not listed (otherwise) on the website.

I'm curious, how do people feel about using a simple Economy7/10 tarriff versus one of those that pay you something? Whenever I've looked at the latter it seems you pay enough-extra for power from the supplier to negate any possible benefit of power sold to them...

I am on Eco 7 with Octopus, have a SMETS2 meter, and have been trying to get a proven answer out of Octopus of exactly what time my 7 hour cheaper rate period is, with no success so far. Their FAQ on ECO7 state 0030-0730 GMT and 0130-0830 BST. Emails to hello@octopus.energy have not resulted in a meaningful reply yet.

During the Winter, all seemed logical with the East Midlands timing of 0030 to 0730 GMT, all my devices programmed within that time period, the day and night registers on the meter incremented as expected, AND the 30 minute downloaded data aligned so all tallied up with the monthly bill.

Since the clocks changed on 26/3/2023, I am still unclear as to exactly which 7 hours I am billed at the lower rate.
I ran a car charge that finished at 0815 BST and found the day register had incremented by an unexpected 2 kWh, not on the night register, and the following bill reflected this.

Later in April (around the 20th) my SMETS2 meter got an update by Octopus resulting in the IHD getting the revised day and night tariff prices that came in to force on 1/4/2023. I think the day/night timings got changed at the same time.

It seems that Octopus expect customers to work out the timings by experimentation rather than be a straight forward product supplier by being able to tell the customer exactly what and when the day and night tariffs apply including for GMT in Winter and BST in Summer.

At the moment I am effectively getting an Eco6 tariff, and still getting the odd increment on the day register that is unexplained.

Before the SMETS2 meter got installed it was more straight forward as I could read the 2 registers and the current time on the meter clock to see how fast or slow it was running compared with the nominal 0030 to 0730 period. I then set all the timed car charges and other devices to fall within that 7 hour window to ensure they all got billed at the low tariff rate.

There's a few people complaining that their meters aren't setup correctly for their tariff too.

Octopus bill on the half hour readings, and if they've not set the meter up right, you can get charged incorrectly for the advertised rates.

People have had to compile spreadsheets and prove Octopus has got it wrong. A specialist meter team has to get involved to get the meter setup correctly.

Roberto E7 hours used to be set with an electro-mechanical time switch in the premises making it impractical to change with daylight savings. However, different area boards (DNO as they are now) had different periods with some even having split E7 periods. You could have one area board with midnight to 7am and another with 00:30 to 07:30. Roll forward several decades and your supplier might have customers in those old area board areas and so they will have different customers in different areas on their single E7 tariff but on different start and finish times. It’s confusing for us consumers but it can also be confusing for energy supply staff if they don’t understand where it’s all come from, let alone the change to daylight saving hours. Good luck in finding the correct answer.

TX200
It became an ongoing issue each month for me, I have never had to ring my energy supplier before but Octo eco7 had me calling frequently. now on flux and hoping that if i move back to eco7 in autumn it will have been sorted out. Each call also results in a partial bill which exasperates the problem.
Its not the hours that are wrong it is their system that seems to not cope.

Wow, what have i started here?!
For clarity im in SE England with my DNO as UK power networks. And yes, im with octopus.
They have told me via email that my hours are 00.30 to 07 30 in the winter and also 22.30 to 00.30 then back to standard rate followed 02.30 to 07.30 again in winter. During summer add one hour to these times.
So the only period that is common to both answers is where i charge my battery.
Octopus do not put their e7 hours on the bill like some others do.
And yes, each time you call, they send you parial bill. Once, they put me back onto a SV tarrif. I had to call them to get back onto my fixed tarrif, followed by another partial bill.
They are starting to look like an innovative company that is now strugling to do the basics?

I think economy 7 is too old for Octopus. They seem to be great with the newer tariffs, but lots of problems with the ones that existed well before they did.

Roberto Wow, what have i started here?

nothing that hasnt been discussed many times on other threads I'm afraid.

Tim I agree, its not the people who answer the phones/emails i blame, but their management system and staff training.
In my head what they bill me ( based on when i buy it ) cant be hard. But somehow, they are not being told. I do wonder if it is deliberate.

Right, so Octopus have been back in touch following my challenge last week.
They say " I can confirm that your times as of the meter technical details on the account are 00:30 to 07:30....."
So there we are. Not as per their first emailed answer, but their answer.

Roberto
they assured me categorically that though those times are correct they are gmt so with bst they are an hour ahead and i did check that i was charged cheap rate at those times.