Economy 7 in France

[David]

We have just purchased a house which has a large immersion heater for the hot water supply. Can anyone explain the French system for cheap rate electricity as we have been told it is similar to the UK. Thanks.

[Tresco]

Michael, I haven't got it myself, but I've seen people talking about 'Tempo', which may be what you're referring to. 

Until someone who has it comes along, if you put that word into the 'search' box at the top right of the page, a number of threads are listed where the positive and negative aspects of it are discussed.

The word tempo will be highlighted in yellow.

 

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Michael"]We have just purchased a house which has a large immersion heater for the hot water supply. Can anyone explain the French system for cheap rate electricity as we have been told it is similar to the UK. Thanks.[/quote]

It is called Heures Creuse (I hope!). And, although it varies by region, it runs from about 22:30 to 06:00. Electricity is about 1/2 price, although this depends on the tariff you choose.

Very common & popular, mainly for hot water.

The edf website - www.edf.fr will explain it.

Tempo is a rather more complicated version, that seems to need a statistics degree to comprehend....

[Iceni]

HC times vary not just region to region but seemingly house to house. We have cheap rate from 0200 - 0700 and 1400 - 1700 but had no choice in the matter.

We asked for Tempo but cannot have it, the EDF local network can only handle 6kw to our house and you need a minimum of a 9kw tariff for Tempo.

John

not

[Gastines]

Cheap tariff at night and very useful if you haven't got central heating. Apart from the hot water tank, we brought  6 storage heaters over from UK and find it makes a good back up system to our log burners.

Regards.B&B.St.Malo

[David]

My thanks for the replies - all very helpful. Can anyone suggest how we might keep the immersion for cheap rate electricity but also have a gas back up? We imagine that a house full of friends in the summer will all want showers in the evenings! Thanks.

[Eslier]

Michael, your immersion will be controlled by a relay mounted in your standard fuse board. This receives a signal from your electricity meter at the times it should switch on or off. There is, however, an overide switch which enables you to run the immersion heater at any time of day. Obviously it will cost a bit more during the day but it resolves the problem of unexpectedly running out of hot water. It doesn't work in the same way as in the UK where you have a seperate supply and meter.

In France, a hot water "ballon" is very well insulated and efficient. Sometimes, it can be better to leave it switched on 24hrs per day as it could cost more to reheat after being switched off for 16 hours than to just keep it topped up the whole time.

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="nicktrollope"]

Tempo is a rather more complicated version, that seems to need a statistics degree to comprehend....

[/quote]

Nah, it's easy, Nick.  Here are the prices http://particuliers.edf.fr/rubrique112.html

It's not complicated, it just ends up ruining your life!   You spend the winter terrified to use anything electric, and you have to plan your whole life round the red days - all your cooking, clothes-washing, and even your self-washing!

And you still get big bills (they seem big to me, anyway!).  I really don't understand it.

The idea is that the expensive elec in the winter is balanced out by the cheaper elec in the summer, but how much electricity do you use in the summer?   Very little. 

[LesLauriers]

SB said, "It's not complicated, it just ends up ruining your life!   You spend

the winter terrified to use anything electric, and you have to plan

your whole life round the red days - all your cooking, clothes-washing,

and even your self-washing!

And you still get big bills (they seem big to me, anyway!).  I really don't understand it.

Tempo saves me 530€ a year against "Base" and 585€ against "Heures Creuses". But it does help if you understand it!

[SaligoBay]

I do understand it, thank you, my brain is capable of that!   I just don't understand how the bills can still be so high in spite of all our efforts.

 

[Chezstevens]

We bought our house some 13 yrs ago.  We signed up to EJP, just before it was shelved, and have been very happy with the tarifs.  Looks like we can keep the tarif until we change something - such as repositioning our meter or changing our KVa (currently 18 so no need to change for proposed swimming pool - also gives us 3 phase into the garage).   Is there an equivalent now?  

[Miki]

Nope, EJP was way out on its own as far as cheapness went.

When we moved and no longer had it, we looked at Tempo...no use at all

for us. We had "etudes" kind of done but for any accuracy we would have

to check what appliances and electric we used every single day and then

have it checked against what period was being used that day....like you

would eh !!

No but even a quick look at the fact that we could well need electric heaters on

all day, as well as 7 chauffeaus on the go during certain periods and

that's without kettles, 2 washing machines and dryers on the go, it's

enough to bring one out in bright red panic rashes !

EJP why did you leave us..........................

[Bassman]

On this subject... we arrived at the house on Friday lunchtime and about half an hour later MOH said "oh you turned the water heater on then" .... errr NO! but we had hot water [8-)] it was 3 weeks ago when we were last here and the switch was set to Arret [8-)] it has the positions Arret ,Heures Creuses and Heures Pleins any idea why it would be hot??

[Miki]

Not seen one like that, the more normal, or at least most common will have something like:

O (Off) Auto or  I (Override) was it left on A (Auto) ? Otherwise I am probably going to be surprised why it was hot !

[Bassman]

[quote user="Miki"]Not seen one like that, the more normal, or at least most common will have something like:

O (Off) Auto or  I (Override) was it left on A (Auto) ? Otherwise I am probably going to be surprised why it was hot !





[/quote]

 

It definatley has 3 positions marked Arret ,Heures Creuses and Heures Pleins  no Auto and when I looked it was on Arret tis' very strange[:-))]

[SaligoBay]

Paul, have you looked at the fusebox itself?    Ours turned out to have two separate fuses for the water heater.   If someone's done something weird like that, maybe the Arret only switches one of them off?

The electrician who sorted our Pleines/Creuses timer out did the French equivalant of the sharp intake of breath and "what cowboy did THAT?".   Some things are universal.  [:)] 

[Bassman]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

Paul, have you looked at the fusebox itself?    Ours turned out to have two separate fuses for the water heater.   If someone's done something weird like that, maybe the Arret only switches one of them off?

The electrician who sorted our Pleines/Creuses timer out did the French equivalant of the sharp intake of breath and "what cowboy did THAT?".   Some things are universal.  [:)] 

[/quote]

 

I was wondering about that, the timer switch is in the fusebox and there is another switch next to it which MOH thinks is something to do with the fosse pump but to me it looks older than the next one which IS the fosse switch which was only installed last year, I'm going to try turning that off tomorrow when we leave and see what we have next month... hot or cold water [:D]

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Michael"]My thanks for the replies - all very helpful. Can anyone suggest how we might keep the immersion for cheap rate electricity but also have a gas back up? We imagine that a house full of friends in the summer will all want showers in the evenings! Thanks.[/quote]

To answer your question, Michael, there are special "Ballons", which have a calorifier (Heating Coil) which can be connected to a gas/oil boiler circuit, as well as the electric immersion heater which is standard.

So in the Spring/Summer you use electricity and in the colder periods, when you are using the heating, your heat the Ballon  from the Chaudiere (Boiler). Called "Dual Fuel" in the UK: has another name in French which I can't remember.

However, as has already been said, a 200 litre Ballon holds a lot of water and with three of us, two showers per day each and washing up and so on, we have yet to exhaust the hot water in one day.

 

[Michael]

Hey mods i thought i was Michael.Have a nice day Michael.