Thanks amazing savings in your free hour. Electric Kiwi should aproach you and offer you a contract to do an advertising spot on TV to sell their company. They would be flooded with swap over requests.

Well, I've signed up ;)  Hopefully they process it soon.  I'm debating whether to set my hour of power for 9pm or 6am. Will probably try 9pm and crank up heaters for an hour then to warm house, try do my washing in the evening, etc. 

sidefx:

 

Well, I've signed up ;)  Hopefully they process it soon.  I'm debating whether to set my hour of power for 9pm or 6am. Will probably try 9pm and crank up heaters for an hour then to warm house, try do my washing in the evening, etc. 

 

Welcome to Electric Kiwi. 

Well that was quick, seems they've changed me over already - got an email yesterday saying they had notified the losing company and were waiting on them to process it, then one this morning saying I was all moved over.  Let the savings begin! ;-)

Is there an iOS app? I'm getting keen, are with Genesis. I like the app I have that I can see daily and hourly usage. But if EK only had a webpage, a webapp would do. I;ll check my current rates and EK rates I think, and ponder a change

tdgeek:

 

Is there an iOS app? I'm getting keen, are with Genesis. I like the app I have that I can see daily and hourly usage. But if EK only had a webpage, a webapp would do. I;ll check my current rates and EK rates I think, and ponder a change

 

I think it's just web.

@timmmay How did you go about verifying the 30min time shift? I see that I also have a Atlas Mk7C meter, although it has no Metrix branding.  My usage data has finally started appearing and the graph shows my usage dropping off in the last half of each "Hour of Power".  Is it enough to just get them to take a look or did you do some testing/evidence gathering with higher load at known times to prove the point?

EDIT - Actually I've noticed that Sat and Sun are identical graphs so one (or both) must be estimates.  I'll give it a few days before I start investigating.

caminham:

 

@timmmay How did you go about verifying the 30min time shift? I see that I also have a Atlas Mk7C meter, although it has no Metrix branding.  My usage data has finally started appearing and the graph shows my usage dropping off in the last half of each "Hour of Power".  Is it enough to just get them to take a look or did you do some testing/evidence gathering with higher load at known times to prove the point?

 

I just know what time I was using power, the graph on the EK website didn't match. I told EK this and included a screenshot of graphs and they took it from there.

caminham:

 

@timmmay How did you go about verifying the 30min time shift? I see that I also have a Atlas Mk7C meter, although it has no Metrix branding.  My usage data has finally started appearing and the graph shows my usage dropping off in the last half of each "Hour of Power".  Is it enough to just get them to take a look or did you do some testing/evidence gathering with higher load at known times to prove the point?

 

EDIT - Actually I've noticed that Sat and Sun are identical graphs so one (or both) must be estimates.  I'll give it a few days before I start investigating.

 

If a large percentage of your free power usage is from heating & starting from a cold house then a drop off is likely if thermostats start cycling the heaters as the temperature approaches the selected temperature settings. 

I find with my heat pump it goes continously for 30mins or so & then starts to cycle. My second half hour of free power is typically about 20-30% lower than the first & that mostly due to the heat pump & the outside temperature. 

Thanks @clive100. Most of the house uses gas heating and the drop is more like 60-70% in the second hour so I think there more to it.

I'll wait till the weekend data looks more realistic. I used the oven on Saturday during my Hour of Power so that graph should look very different to Sunday's.

clive100:

 

 

 

If a large percentage of your free power usage is from heating & starting from a cold house then a drop off is likely if thermostats start cycling the heaters as the temperature approaches the selected temperature settings. 

 

I find with my heat pump it goes continously for 30mins or so & then starts to cycle. My second half hour of free power is typically about 20-30% lower than the first & that mostly due to the heat pump & the outside temperature. 

 

Not so much if you set the temperature to 28 for the free hour. I use a system that lets me easily set the thermostat for different times of the day, so it goes on at 28 to ensure a good pre-heat then drops to 21 at the end of the free hour. My second half hour is typically 10% lower than my first half hour, but that includes two heat pumps, hot water, dishwasher (which probably does drop over the hour), and sometimes clothes drier.

Resnick:

 

We're averaging around 16% saving after approximately 3 weeks with Electric Kiwi. 

 

 

 

We should be able to improve on this as I have just discovered that the time delay on our washing machine and dryer is for when we want the cycle to finish. Not a start time as I had always assumed!

 

Sounds great, but how does Electric Kiwi deal with people whose main heating source is gas? Does EK have its own gas rates or do they simply use the gas rates and plans of other providers?

frednz:

 

Resnick:

 

We're averaging around 16% saving after approximately 3 weeks with Electric Kiwi. 

 

 

 

We should be able to improve on this as I have just discovered that the time delay on our washing machine and dryer is for when we want the cycle to finish. Not a start time as I had always assumed!

 

 

Sounds great, but how does Electric Kiwi deal with people whose main heating source is gas? Does EK have its own gas rates or do they simply use the gas rates and plans of other providers?

 

Electric Kiwi aren't gas providers, electricity only. Nova energy are still our gas provider which we use for water heating (infinity as well as a cylinder) and cooking hob. Hope that helps.

Well I must say I'm very happy with how quickly EK switched everything over, and I much prefer the graphs, etc on the EK website to the previous companies I've been with. 

The hour of power is interesting though... don't get me wrong, it's great, but I also think that depending on how you use it, you have to be careful using it as a measure of "savings" - my plan is to crank on as much heating as possible during that hour, but that also means I'll be using a lot of power that I possibly wouldn't have just because it's "free"