It takes two to Tempo?

[Btuckey]

We are just putting electricity into our new house and the heating contractor providing the under-floor heating strongly suggests getting ‘Tempo’ if we can.  A visit to EDF in Carcassonne yesterday confirmed that we can have Tempo if we wish.  However, the EDF rep tried very hard to put us off the idea saying that it was very expensive and most people are switching away from it.  Is it really expensive or is the new privatised EDF just trying to put people off because they don’t make as much money out of it?

Cheers.

[Clair]

http://www.edf.fr/141090i/EDFParticuliers/monenergieauquotidien/loptionTempo.html

With Tempo, you have

22 Red days between 1 Nov and 31 March, which can be any day  except Sat, Sun or bank hols. You cannot have more than 5 consecutive Red days.

43 White days through the year, except on Sundays

300 Blue days through the rest of the year ans all Sundays are Blue days

On Red days, the elecrtricity is very very expensive

On White days, it is cheaper

On Blue days, it is very very cheap.

[quote]le prix du kWh selon le niveau de tarif

Jours bleus Heures Creuses	Jours bleus Heures Pleines	Jours blancs Heures Creuses	Jours blancs Heures Pleines	Jours rouges Heures Creuses	Jours rouges Heures Pleines
0,0456	0,0566	0,0931	0,1104	0,1728	0,4833

[/quote]

The Tempo day starts at 6 AM with 16 hours at full tariff (heures pleines), charged according to the colour of the day (Blue, White or Red).

This is followed by 8 hours at cheap tariff (heures creuses) also charged according to the colour of the day.

The colour of the following day is announced everyday at 8 PM on the meter and/or on the warning box supplied.

If your sole source of heating is going to be your electric underfloor heating, for 22 days every winter, it is going to be very expensive.

Previosu discussions about Tempo:

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/858962/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1161060/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1166819/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1144188/ShowPost.aspx

[Belle]

we are on tempo, edf also tried to talk us out of it, but hubby thought, if they are trying to put us off, then it must be good, we have a two story house, gas central heating, but all the other electrical appliances, and our leccy bill last year, was 360 euros, hope this helps.

[SaligoBay]

I'm surprised you're still allowed it at all, I thought it just wasn't available to new customers. 

Anyway.  In answer to your last question, I think they're certainly discouraging it because people use it too well to their own advantage, and EDF aren't making as much money out of it as they'd like.   They phone us now and again to ask if we want to change from it.

As to whether you should have it.......... the red days are prohibitively expensive, and people generally don't use the washing machine or electric heating or the oven on those days.    So you need to have an alternative heat source, such as a fireplace or a gas fire, otherwise you'll FREEZE!  

Sometimes they put 4 or 5 red days in a row.   If you have a large family, you will end up with a HUGE pile of washing at the end of it!   You need to have enough clothes to see you through!

It seems sometimes like it's ruling your life, but if you can deal with that lack of choice, you can save money.

 

 

 

 

 

[inkflo]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

I'm surprised you're still allowed it at all, I thought it just wasn't available to new customers. 

[/quote]

It isn't available to new customers. We are moving into our new house soon & I asked if we could have Tempo & was told no as it wasn't available any more... shame!

extract from the EDF website..... NB : l'option tarifaire Tempo est en extinction, elle

n'est plus proposée depuis le 1er aout 2004. Elle ne peut être demandée

par un client éligible au sens du décret du 23 juin 2004 pour un

nouveau contrat, ni lors d'une modification ou d'un renouvellement de

contrat. les tarifs réglementés de ...

[sackville]

White days are allowed on a Sunday. They have just sneaked one in tomorow!

[5-element]

[quote user="sackville"]White days are allowed on a Sunday. They have just sneaked one in tomorow![/quote]

Are you sure????

Blue day here, Easter Sunday.

I have only ever seen blue days on Sundays, with the Tempo option. I thought that was the only way to use Tempo: wait until le jour du Seigneur (day of rest, always blue day) to do all the stuff you avoid  during the week: ironing, hoovering, using electric hob and oven, kettle, toaster, microwave, washing machine, defrosting freezer, etc....therefore, Tempo option definitely not very handy for practising Catholics.

 

[Suze01]

From the Tempo en savoir plus:

3 couleurs réparties tout au long de l'année

• 22
  jours rouges du 1er novembre au 31 mars du lundi au vendredi (les
  samedis, dimanches et jours fériés ne sont jamais rouges et il ne peut
  y avoir plus de 5 jours rouges consécutifs),
• 43 jours blancs répartis tout au long de l'année mais jamais le dimanche,
• 300 jours bleus tout le reste de l'année (tous les dimanches sont bleus).

[Belle]

we are blue today too (Easter Sunday)

[SaligoBay]

Yes, we're blue too.

Maybe Sackville is on a different Tempo?   Someone on TF recently mentioned Sorièges Tempo, where they still have some red days to come.

 

[sackville]

Just checked again and it is now blue! It was definately white at 5 30 yesterday and this is not the first time it has been incorrect. It does have the goos old get out on the EDF site "non contractual"

[Caussenarde]

No, it's white today.

By the way, someone above mentioned Tempo and Red days as a means of making money by evil EDF. 

In fact Tempo is a tool EDF uses to shed domestic load on peak days, and is mostly influenced by the volumes of water they have in stock behind their barrages.

If you sign up to Tempo, you are agreeing that you too can shed load on red days and either postpone consumption or divert to other energy sources.

Cheers.

[SaligoBay]

What are you talking about, Caussenarde?    How does one "shed load"?

 

[BJSLIV]

By using the on / off  switch ?[:)]

[nomoss]

[quote user="sackville"]White days are allowed on a Sunday. They have just sneaked one in tomorow![/quote]

 

Our house had "Tempo" meter when we bought it in 2000.

The EDF website showed Sunday as "white" on Saturday afternoon. The "colour" of the next day is available there from about 1600.

I received an email from them confirming this at 18.31 on Saturday. (This service is available via their website) :-

         Informations sur la couleur de demain
     de l'option tarifaire tempo du tarif bleu EDF

Demain dimanche 23/03/2008 la couleur du jour de tempo sera "BLANC"


Expediteur : EDF-CONTACT-TEMPO@tempo.tm.fr

At about 1700 yesterday I went to their site to check today's (Monday's) colour and found that we were, in fact, having a "blue" day.

Very annoying, as my wife had been waiting to do the laundry, and had to start then.

This has happened before, I assume someone forgets to update the site.

 

[Caussenarde]

@ Saligo Bay...what am I talking about?

I'm talking about 'shed', as in 'shed' , see Concise Oxford Dictionary - 'shed = reduce (electrical power load) by disconnection'

You shed load yourself by not turning things on, or turning them off.

EDF sheds load on the days of peak demand by reducing load by means of contracts with consumers.

They do this because it becomes increasingly expensive  (and eventually impossible if they have no water behind the hydro dams) to deliver the power needed for peak days and transients.

Hope this helps. 

[SaligoBay]

Aha!   I thought "shed load" was slang of some sort!  [:)]

I hadn't thought about the water, but I was aware that as one of the world biggest exporters of electricity, EDF need to manage their supply to customers in Italy and elsewhere - so when it's cold there, their demand goes up, and we get red days to keep ours down.

 

 

[Quillan]

The thing about heating is very important. On red days we use just the log fire and have petrol (paraffin) heaters around the place and excellent they are to.

I don't know if the selection of days is regional because this year we have been really lucky and have had good weather on many of the red days. I was under the impression that they changed to red when the weather was particularly bad so we thought that somebody was 'getting it' somewhere which turned out to be northern France.

Another 'habit' they have is when the weather is not so bad and they get near the end of the period they can use the red days, they seem then to run them for a whole week and can remember one year they ran red days for two weeks consecutively (except Sundays) just to use them up. They do this for white days as well which probably explains why we have had white days (except Sundays) for the last few weeks. I think we have 4 left now then back to the nice cheap blue ones.

[Belle]

nearly onto just blue days, as the red days start begining of nov - end of march, when do the white days start and finish.

[Clair]

White days can be any time of the year, except Sundays.

[Belle]

Thank you Clair, so are you saying that once all the whites have been used i.e all 40 odd of them, then they can start straight away with the next lot

[Clair]

With Tempo, you have 365 days of the year distributed as follows:

• 22 Red days between 1 Nov and 31
  March, which can be any day  except Sat, Sun or bank hols. You cannot
  have more than 5 consecutive Red days.
• 43 White days through the year, except on Sundays
• 300 Blue days through the rest of the year ans all Sundays are Blue days

[BJSLIV]

And the year starts on the 1st September.

So once the remaining two or three white days have been used up it will be blue until the end of August.

Historic pattern here.....

http://www.edf.fr/141090i/accueil/mon-energie-au-quotidien/l-option-Tempo.html

[Kitty]

I've just read the Tempo threads - thanks Clair for the historic ones and for the original poster to alert us.  I didn't know about the system.

Can someone tell me:

(a) does gas central heating use much electricity driving the heat around the system? (yes, I have gas CH and so am trying to see if I have to be freezing on red days)

(b) is it worth the hassle when my electricity bill (I do live in France) was 250 euros last year

(c) how do you sign up?  Apologies if have missed a post about this.