Up here in the north of Scotland we have a slightly unusual tariff called Total Heating Total Control. It is a two rate, two meter tariff, but unlike E7 you can have 24/7 access to the cheap rate. Sounds too good to be true? Well the catch is that you are only allowed to use the cheaper meter for heating appliances, and your home must have a certain proportion of storage heating. The electricity company will energise the storage heaters at times of their choosing, based on weather forecasts.
The advantage is that you can run other things like panel heaters, immersion heaters, and electric showers at whatever time of day you like, and get the cheap rate.
It used to be a not bad deal. But a letter arrived yesterday saying that the price for both rates is going up. So even the cheap rate is now going to be uncompetitive- over 15p a unit! The higher rate is well over 20p a unit. Ouch.
So I think it's time to ditch this tariff for good. I can get a flat rate tariff at 14p/unit on a single meter, or I can get a normal E7 tariff.
Question is- when I make the switch, will I need to consider the hardware and meter side of things at all? The whole house is wired for THTC, with two separate circuits running from two CUs and two meters. And if I need to change any of this, who pays for it??
Hoping @ProDave might be able to offer some advice on this one...