Economy 7 & 5 port meters

hello, it is confusing and its not a silly question. the 5 port/terminal meters are "smart" to my believe they meassure your daily off peak usage and deducts that value against the on peak time and estimates the amount your night time charging the heating, it meassures the KW/U used via the 5th terminal. so if your daily 12am - 5pm is 30kw the smart meter will calculate in that daytime your hourly average will be 30kw/17hrs = 1.76KW. but when on peak your heating system and the house drains 50kW in 7 hours. then the smart meter will minus the average usage against that 50kw the 5th terminal meassured. sometimes its not even wired that way, you will know if there is a seprate distribution board, sometimes the 5th terminal isnt used and its all estimated via 1 tarriff cost and calculated with the heating system rated power.

The short answer is yes. Any electricity used while the 5th terminal is live (times vary around the country but it's usual 7hrs between 11pm and 8am. Eg 12.30-07.30) is recorded on the rate 2 (the cheaper rate). So if you're feeling really thrifty you could have washing machines etc on timers to utilise the cheap rate at the risk of upsetting your neighbours with the noise.