Panel heater on dual supply

[bea-pea]

Hi all. I'm considering replacing a dual supply storage heater with a panel heater.

There's the timed off-peak radial supply and the ring main available to power the panel heater, so I'm wondering if there's a way to take advantage of the cheaper radial supply when it's active, and switching automatically to the ring supply when it's not?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[brianmoooore]

What kind of supply and meter arrangements do you have? There is still the odd old type (white meter?) arrangement around, where the off peak electricity usage is recorded by a completely separate meter from the 24 hour supply, but its become extremely rare to come across one in my experience.
Most off peak systems use a dual rate meter these days, with a radio switch controlling the change over time, and also providing an off peak only supply.
With these tariffs, all the electricity supplied to the house is charged at the lower rate during the off peak period, so just connect your panel heater to the 24 hour supply, and you will have achieved what you propose. Panel heaters often have built in time switches, which you can set to make use of the off peak tariff.

 

[bea-pea]

Thanks @brianmoooore . It’s a 3 meter setup: ‘normal’ and ‘low’ on the same physical meter and a separate meter for storage heaters and water tank. It’s still a very common setup where I live in the north of Scotland.

The solution you propose is very sensible and the most straightforward. However, the storage heater supply is cheaper than the ‘low’ rate, and the storage heater supply is also often available when the ‘normal’ rate is active too.

My plan was to program the heater timer to do the bulk of its work from the storage heaters circuit when available and ‘boost’ it from the low/normal circuit when needs be.

This would likely require a switch at the load end that would cut between the two circuits and favour the storage heater circuit when available.

 

[Rockingit]

Thanks @brianmoooore . It’s a 3 meter setup: ‘normal’ and ‘low’ on the same physical meter and a separate meter for storage heaters and water tank. It’s still a very common setup where I live in the north of Scotland.

The solution you propose is very sensible and the most straightforward. However, the storage heater supply is cheaper than the ‘low’ rate, and the storage heater supply is also often available when the ‘normal’ rate is active too.

My plan was to program the heater timer to do the bulk of its work from the storage heaters circuit when available and ‘boost’ it from the low/normal circuit when needs be.

This would likely require a switch at the load end that would cut between the two circuits and favour the storage heater circuit when available.

Are you aware that the big black box in your pic isn't actually a meter?

 

[bea-pea]

Are you aware that the big black box in your pic isn't actually a meter?

I am indeed aware of that. But thanks for checking!

 

[Rockingit]

I am indeed aware of that. But thanks for checking!

So...... where have you got the notion that there's three meters?

 

[bea-pea]

That type of setup is referred to by a few names around my area - 3 tariff, dual+1, 3 meter (I suppose that's because 3 meter readings are provided to the supplier?) - but I explained it's 2 physical meters in the same post.