I must admit that I didnât know that there are still people with a HP/HC tarif who have 2 hrs of lower tarif electricity during the day. Our Heures Creuse are between 23.30 and 0730hrs. I have our water heater on a separate timer so that it is only capable of activating between 2.30am and 7.00 am, and we find this quite sufficient for our daily needs.
I think that one thing we can all do is to use timers and delay start facilities on our major appliances so as to spread the load on the electricity supply system into the early morning âsmallâ hours.
I note from other sources that we are all being asked to reduce consumption between 8am and 1pm, and 6pm and 8pm, and not to charge either mobile phones or electric vehicles during those hours. We have therefore decided to do the ironing in the afternoon as every little bit helps.
I just dumped my heures HC/HP tariff and have an ordinary one which is a lower abbonnement. As my water is heated by a pompe Ă chaleur it does not need the cheaper hours and is not a conventional chauffe-eau ballon. The dial always spun round so much faster on the previous meter before I let them install a linky that it wasnât that much cheaper even if the costs were less, I still racked up a hefty bill every two months even on my own.
Iâve seen this posted elsewhere with ZERO explanation of how anyone can remotely disable an electric water heater via a houseâs smart meter.
The only control a Linky meter has is to limit you to only consuming the amount of power you use in line with your subscription level (9kW etc).
If anyone here believes that EDF can switch off the breaker feeding my water heater remotely, please send me âŹ1000 and Iâll tell you where Elvis, Lord Lucan and Shergar are hiding.
Actually, itâs the daytime automatic swtching ON theyâre talking about at the moment⊠which can be deactivated by the suppliers⊠via the Linky⊠where folk have a split-supply (cheap/peak) which allows waterheaters to boost/heat at cheaprate 12noon-14pm âŠ
Any water heaters which are not tied in with this split-supply wonât be touched, as far as I can see.
Of course, if there is still an overload of use/over demand⊠powercuts might come into play which will affect everythingâŠ
I donât think the circuit breaker is controlled, it is within the heater itself. An impulse is sent down the electricity cables which switches the relay. It is fairly old technology since I know this was the way the heaters or âgeysersâ as they are known in South Africa were controlled in SA in the 80s/90s to switch them off during peak demands of power. You have plenty hot water generally that you wonât notice them turned off for a few hours unless you run several bathtubs full of water
From a South African website "WHAT IS A GEYSER CONTROL SYSTEM?
City Power Control Centre are able to continuously measure the demand for electrical power throughout its area of supply. At peak demand times, computer-based load management systems broadcast control signals to receiver control units that are installed at the consumerâs premises. These control units are able to interrupt the electricity supply to the geyser, so providing a mechanism to centrally control a substantial portion of the electrical load and reduce the demand for power when necessary, to avoid early stages of load shedding and power failures in your area.
Geyser control units are in use in all areas which get supplied by City Power and has been in operation in some areas since the early 1970.
The mentioned areas have now be en fitted with the necessary equipment at the main substation and therefore we now need to install the geyser control units into the homes.
WEEKDAYS AND WEEKENDS GEYSERS CONTROLLING TIMES
On weekdays your geyser will be controlled between 07h00 to 10h00 in the morning, and again between 18h00 to 20h00 in the evening. On Saturdays your geyser will be controller between 09h00 to 12h00 in the morning and between 18h00 to 20h00 in the evening.
Once the geyser control units have been installed customers should not switch off the geyser isolator in the distribution board, as this may affect the operation of the geyser control equipment which may result in having no hot water."
As I said earlier, anyone that doesnât have an electric water heater connected directly to a dedicated âoff peakâ supply from their meter or is supplied via some type of remote control equipment isnât going to have their water heater magically switched off by their electricity supplier.
My 200 litre water heater (2 years old) is so low tech that it doesnât even have a light to show you when itâs heating water, just a heating element and a thermostat. Anyone wanting that switched on or off is going to need explicit permission from Herself, Queen of the Thermostats or there will be bloodshed.
Seems there are around 5m clients who are on mixed tarifs for water⊠and regulating/cutting during the period 11am - 15:30⊠could save 3.5 gigawatts per day, over the period in force (now until April 2023).
Reducing peak consumption and spreading the load to quieter parts of the day is certainly worthwhile - especially in the UK where sudden surges in demand often have to be met by bringing gas powered generators on stream (as they can be âturned onâ very quickly) but it doesnât âsaveâ much energy overall.
The amount of energy required to heat water for domestic use is mainly dependent on how much hot water is used, not what time of day it is heated (ballons do lose heat, of course, but that can be mitigated by insulation).
Well, I have to presume that those in charge know what theyâre talking about⊠
and this is one of the approved goverment plans to help all of France survive Winter without general âcutsâ.
just by discussing the measure might get folk seriously looking at their usage/possible-wastage of electricity in this and other areas of daily life.
In some ways itâs a bit sad that France should even be contemplating cuts - as hardly any of its domestic electricity generation is from fossil sources - unfortunately I think several nuclear stations have been hit with maintenance simultaneously.
I see that the beeb is reporting possible power cuts in the UK this winter.
Time to buy a generator.
I suppose we all see things differently⊠to me it seems to make sense⊠to cut back on what we donât really need.
not only for the immediate Winter, but as yet another step to NOT wasting anything!
Firms etc⊠are having strict rules laid down, to reduce electricity usage⊠they will break such rules at their perilâŠ
the ordinary person is merely being asked to review and assessâŠ
But as I said, you arenât saving energy by fiddling around with what time of day peopleâs ballons are actually heating water.
You *can* smooth out demand this way - which helps the suppliers especially if peak generating capacity is down and so might avoid the need for cuts but overall energy use wonât change.
I suspect smoothing will do the trick⊠itâs during peak-time food preparation in France⊠food is much more important than keeping the cylinder hotâŠ
Indeed 
It will happen in future if electricity supplies remain under pressure. As will âminingâ of storage devices such as electric cars, connected to the grid