Tariffs, meters and your supply

Smart meters

In England, Scotland and Wales, your energy supplier will fit a smart meter if you ask, and doesn't charge for fitting it. Most tariffs with cheaper hours, and payments for electricity you export, need one, because they depend on knowing when you used or made each unit.

Northern Ireland has its own electricity market, with fewer tariffs to choose from. Ask your supplier what it offers for heat pumps, electric cars or night-time use. The Consumer Council compares them.

Kinds of tariff

• One rate all day. The same price at every hour. Simple, but it gives you nothing for using electricity when it's cheap to make.
• Cheaper hours overnight. Several hours of cheaper electricity each night, and a higher rate for the rest of the day. They suit charging a car or a battery, and heating the hot water cylinder overnight. Economy 7 is the older version.
• Heat pump tariffs. Some suppliers have a lower rate for homes with a heat pump, all day or at set hours.
• Prices that change every half hour. These follow the wholesale price: usually cheap overnight and on windy days, and dear in the early evening. They reward moving what you use, and cost more if you can't.
• Export tariffs. Payment for what your solar panels or battery send to the grid. In England, Scotland and Wales, larger suppliers must offer one under the Smart Export Guarantee, and it doesn't have to be the supplier you buy from.

Compare the whole day, not only the cheap hours: a tariff with a very cheap night rate can have a dearer day rate than the one you're on. The savings calculator estimates running costs for your home at current prices.

Using electricity when it's cheaper

Much of what an all-electric home uses can move to the cheaper hours without anyone noticing. The car charges overnight, the hot water cylinder heats up before morning, and a battery fills overnight and runs the house through the evening. A heat pump can warm the house a little more before a dear period and coast through it. Each of these has controls or an app that can follow a tariff's hours.

Some suppliers also pay households to use less at busy times, or more when there's spare wind power. These schemes come and go, and your supplier will tell you if it runs one.

Whether your supply can take it

A home's electricity comes in through a main fuse, usually in a sealed box beside the meter. A heat pump, a car charger and an induction hob together can take a home close to what that fuse allows, if they all run at once.

Your installer checks this. Car chargers with load management slow down when the rest of the house is busy. Installers have to tell the local network operator about a heat pump or a car charger, and occasionally the operator upgrades the fuse or the cable, or separates a supply shared with next door. Your installer arranges it.

Power cuts

A gas or oil boiler needs electricity for its pump and controls, so it stops in a power cut too. The difference in an all-electric home is cooking: a gas hob can be lit with a match, and an induction hob can't be used at all.

A home battery keeps things running in a power cut only if it's fitted with a backup circuit, which covers some sockets or the whole house. Ask the installer if that matters to you.

Closing the gas account

When nothing in the house uses gas, you can stop paying the gas standing charge, the daily fee for being connected. It carries on while the account is open, even if you use no gas, so ask your gas supplier to cap the supply or remove the meter.