UK households are being warned not to use their oven after 4pm if they are on a certain type of tariff – because it could be costing a lot of money.
An energy CEO has revealed that homes across the country can slash their bills by paying attention to exactly when they switch certain appliances on or off.
Although it won’t apply to everyone, dynamic pricing tariffs, such as Octopus Energy’s Agile Tariff, are becoming increasingly popular.
That’s because these tariffs, as the name suggests, automatically go up and down based on usage patterns.
If you’re able to move a lot of your higher energy usage into lower priced times of day on one of these tariffs, you could make huge savings.
This is effectively how companies can ‘nudge’ customers into reducing usage at peak times, thus lowering the demand on the grid, and into using more electricity when supply is low.
Spreading out demand in this way helps the grid run more smoothly and avoids issues like wasted energy production from wind or solar when usage is lower.
“What we are seeing now is not sustainable,” warns CEO and co-founder of Make My House Green, Llewellyn Kinch.
He added: “Those of us in the energy industry have to do what we can to help the public adopt new techniques, such as this one, to save money – and the environment.”
Kinch explains that you can significantly cut your energy bills by understanding your utility company’s time-of-use (TOU) tariffs and when their off-peak hours are.
For example, many utilities designate off-peak hours as 9pm to 7 am, while others may have midday off-peak periods from 10am to 2pm or weekends when energy demand is lower. Some companies even have multiple off-peak periods, such as before 4pm. and after 9pm on weekdays. It’s important to check your specific utility’s schedule to take full advantage of the savings.
Kinch added: “This information can typically be found on your monthly bill or the utility’s website, where they outline cheaper nighttime usage rates.
“Once you’ve identified these lower-cost periods, you can adjust your energy usage habits to take advantage of them.”
If you are on a tariff which gets more expensive after 4pm, then using your oven – which is one of the most expensive items in the household, typically chewing up 1000 to 2000W of power – is something you should do before 4pm as often as you can.
It’s worth noting that you won’t be subject to dynamic time price changes if you’re not on an agile tariff or a tariff like Economy 7 and these times won’t affect you, so check with your supplier to make sure you know what tariff you’re on and how it works.
