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Published: 24th October 2012
Electrically heated hot water trials have had a re-think.
in hot water
The electric hot water trials have been redesigned and enhanced. Originally we wanted to monitor customers who heat their water electrically at peak times, and run restricted hours and direct control trials to see whether we could further manage the timing of these loads. But we have found that nearly all customers polled using electric hot water are on Economy 7/10 tariffs, existing time-of-use tariffs that shift water heating loads (as well as heating loads) to the off-peak evening period. Since the majority of customers are already taking advantage of these long-standing restricted hours tariffs we have had to reconsider our trials in this area.
Instead, we will now monitor customers with overnight electric hot water heating; we’ll look at energy consumption profiles, get a read on the percentage of customers who regularly use the boost facility in peak periods and measure the amount of hot water consumed in a typical day. This will inform our view on how customers are using electricity today so that we may consider what this could mean for the networks of the future.