Octopus Agile (Time of Use) tariff

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Russdl said:

Ive seem all of those letter before, but I’ve never seen them arranged in that order ?   What is it?

It is the place that organises all the generation data.

@DamonHD is the main expert on it here.

 

https://www.elexon.co.uk/knowledgebase/where-can-i-find-details-of-wholesale-prices-of-electricity-in-great-britain/

 

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=eds/main

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by SteamyTea

[Bramco]

2 hours ago, Russdl said:

It peaks at 235.93p/unit at 19:30 - over 6 times the import price

 

You'd need a big torch to get decent generation at 7:30 at night!!

 

Simon

[Russdl]

2 hours ago, Bramco said:

 

You'd need a big torch to get decent generation at 7:30 at night!!

Or...

 

a battery system that you fill up with their ‘bargain bucket’ 35p stuff and sell back to them at over £2 a pop. Just a thought...

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, Bramco said:

You'd need a big torch to get decent generation at 7:30 at night!!

Or live in the far west, as I do.

 

 

[joth]

15 minutes ago, Russdl said:

Or...

 

a battery system that you fill up with their ‘bargain bucket’ 35p stuff and sell back to them at over £2 a pop. Just a thought...

 

Yeah with this spread, it starts even making (personal, financial) sense to wear out a car battery selling back to the grid.

I'm now feeling like a total dummy for being on Agile import but a fixed rate export. Silver lining for now is I only export from PV so by definition I'm on average only going to sell when Agile would give me the lowest possible price for it. Getting a battery changes everything.

 

[Ferdinand]

I have a friend who has just switched to Octopus.

 

Are they OK & will they survive?

And is it a bad decision?

 

Do I need to warn to take care?

 

[ProDave]

Octopus don't do the silly unsustainable low prices so are more likely to survive.  They have a good reputation for customer service and I like the way you can manage your account yourself so that is why I stay with them.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

19 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Are they OK & will they survive?

And is it a bad decision?

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/octopus-energy-sees-160-jump-in-revenue-but-still-records-loss-due-to-relentless-investment

 

No sign of over expansion and ambition is there.

 

And the Kraken Technologies seems to be a cloud database with basic AI (which is anything but intelligent at the moment).

 

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by SteamyTea

[Wil]

Octopus did raise their variable rate prices yesterday sadly. Mostly on the night rate of my E7 tariff. now getting 20.6p/14.7p ? Standing chaarge up 1.8p too...

[ProDave]

Does anyone know the new "post increase" rates for the GO tariff?

[Stewpot]

40 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

I have a friend who has just switched to Octopus.

 

Are they OK & will they survive?

And is it a bad decision?

 

Do I need to warn to take care?

 

 

I've been with Octopus for 18 months now - not through choice; my previous company was taken over by them. I've not seen any signs of trouble with them, however they've just emailed me to say that prices are going up for the second time since May (I'm on a variable tariff).

 

As an aside, I submit my meter readings every month (gas and electric), and in return, I get a free spin of their "wheel of fortune". It's just a graphic that you click on. The wheel is divided into 12 sectors - 5 win nothing, 5 win £1, and 2 win 50 and 100 quid, so I get 7 out of 12 chances of winning something twice a month. After 13 months I had won nothing, so I wrote to them to point out that this makes me the unluckiest man who has ever lived (the chances of losing 26 consecutive times at those odds is less than 1 for every person that has ever lived - by a considerable margin). I don't trouble with it any more. They replied that it was meant to make meter reading 'fun' (Jeeezz..!), and assured me that people do actually win on it. I still think that it should actually behave as it appears it should.

[SteamyTea]

33 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

The wheel is divided into 12 sectors - 5 win nothing, 5 win £1, and 2 win 50 and 100 quid, so I get 7 out of 12 chances of winning something twice a month. After 13 months I had won nothing, so I wrote to them to point out that this makes me the unluckiest man who has ever lived (the chances of losing 26 consecutive times at those odds is less than 1 for every person that has ever lived - by a considerable margin). I don't trouble with it any more. They replied that it was meant to make meter reading 'fun' (Jeeezz..!), and assured me that people do actually win on it. I still think that it should actually behave as it appears it should.

Both of you need a statistics lesson. Each spin is a new game and previous losses are no indication of the future 

At least it shows it is random (though not truly random, not many things are).

 

Would be a better game if you could bank not playing and the odds of winning increased each time i.e take away the high or low winning options.

 

[Ferdinand]

I see the Utility Point and People's Energy have gone through.

 

This email received by one customer in another group I am in:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=69D0560CC54123FE!2025&ithint=file%2cdocx&authkey=!AMba7-6gjkaYfPw

 

TL:DR seems to be:

 

You may be aware last year OFGEM announced that all suppliers where required to offer extended payment terms

and be more lenient with the collection of debt due to the pandemic, something they are asking to continue into

this winter. Utility Point has always supported all its members and understands the variability of vulnerability and

that it is not static, supporting many of our members through hard and uncertain times. Unfortunately, this extra

support has meant an increase in debt and deficit.

 

 

On top of all this the price cap on default tariffs which was introduced to limit the amount suppliers can charge

customers has not been covering the costs of supplying energy which means that every supplier is undercharging

for energy and that the fair cost for energy that OFGEM was trying to encourage is actually well under the value at

which it costs to supply. Although the rise in the level of the price cap is set to increase by £139 from October to

reflect rising wholesale costs, bringing the average dual fuel bill to £1,277, this is still over £200 below the cost to

supply the energy and it has been impossible to hedge in line with the way the price cap is calculated making the

whole market unsustainable to operate in. Indeed, in most cases the only reason that suppliers end up charging

more for energy than it costs is to offset the cost of debt and the collection of debt which is a major issue in the

industry and one that requires a rethink as those that can, and do pay, end up paying for those that don’t pay.

 

This toxic mix of circumstances and lack of commercial understanding from the certain powers has made it

impossible to continue, indeed the only real outcome for consumers, which will be felt in the coming year, is that

prices will rise for the very people that they are trying to protect.

[SteamyTea]

PFP Energy went last week.

[Bitpipe]

I was with Tonik who folded last year and SSE took over their customer base.

 

Moved to Green a few months ago on a variable tariff and now they're hiking prices in line with the wholesale increases.

 

Going to take a look at the market again but as it's only going in one direction suspect it will be hard to find any cheaper providers who won't go the same way as the other low cost ones.

 

I model my gas & electric usage monthly so always get a pretty accurate quote, we don't use that much gas which is fortunate as it's going up the most whereas the electricity rise is more modest.

 

 

 

[Stewpot]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Both of you need a statistics lesson.

 

Both of me???

 

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Each spin is a new game and previous losses are no indication of the future 

At least it shows it is random (though not truly random, not many things are).

 

Maybe we're both making the same point. Mine was that what appears to be a 7 in 12 chance of a win, isn't. It's a sham, and, assuming there actually are 'winners', the algorithm behind it is doing something else. If your comment about it being random is to say that it is based on a random selection across the customer base, then maybe that is right (who knows). What it certainly ain't is representing what it purports to be - ie. an equal chance of landing upon any sector of a wheel divided into 12.

 

But it's not statistics (the domain of those who want to sell you something, or get elected), it's probability. Spin a coin. As you say, every spin is a new event, and previous results are no prediction of the future. It's possible to spin it a dozen times or more, and get the same result (statistics). It's possible, but it won't happen (probability).

 

[Bramco]

6 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Or live in the far west, as I do.

 

That's gotta be the wild west to get any generation at 7:30pm....

 

Isles of Scilly sunset time today is 19:38  - only 8 minutes after here in delightful Notts...

 

Are you sailing across the pond?    ?

 

Simon

[Bramco]

6 hours ago, Russdl said:

a battery system that you fill up with their ‘bargain bucket’ 35p stuff and sell back to them at over £2 a pop. Just a thought...

 

When we finally get our new build finished, it will probably be an EV to soak up our PV and any cheap night time electricity.

 

Apparently there'll be a shortage of wine at Xmas, so I'm buying in just in case (wonder how much will be left). But with the fire the French caused on the cable that we use to import lekky from France, I'm also going to be buying wood (still have an open hearth - maybe I should have specced one for the new house - mind, it's timber frame, so we'll be OK......)

 

Simon

[Dan F]

22 hours ago, Russdl said:

a battery system that you fill up with their ‘bargain bucket’ 35p stuff and sell back to them at over £2 a pop. Just a thought

 

Challenge is you can't tell batteries to export, you are only allowed to export from PV.

[joth]

15 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

Challenge is you can't tell batteries to export, you are only allowed to export from PV.

 

By "can't" you mean "mustn't"?

Technology wise, there's no problem with getting them to export. It's just a matter of policy. And that's a moving beast: suppliers are always running trials to enable battery export (e.g. Tesla/octopus and OVO/myenergi), albeit under their direct control.

[SteamyTea]

59 minutes ago, Dan F said:

Challenge is you can't tell batteries to export, you are only allowed to export from PV.

Seems a good reason to have a dumb meter, except it cannot log the time you export.

But a bit of trickery with ToD and FiTs could pay dividends.

 

I feel that all these ToD tariffs are going to vanish for the consumer. The large companies will develope systems that integrate seeminglessly into the grid and we will not have to worry about it.

Will work out cheaper as well because they will fit it where it is needed for local grid reinforcement.

It is cheaper to fit a MWh of grid integrated storage in one place than 100 10 kWh distributed system  

[joth]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Seems a good reason to have a dumb meter, except it cannot log the time you export.

But a bit of trickery with ToD and FiTs could pay dividends.

 

I feel that all these ToD tariffs are going to vanish for the consumer. The large companies will develope systems that integrate seeminglessly into the grid and we will not have to worry about it.

Will work out cheaper as well because they will fit it where it is needed for local grid reinforcement.

It is cheaper to fit a MWh of grid integrated storage in one place than 100 10 kWh distributed system  

I agree. The policy changes needed are not so much purely to "make it viable for every house to have their own battery" but to enable many different innovations and business models to be tried out and the successful ones will flourish.

For example, if the grid system and billing allowed it, it would be much more cost efficient for me to "rent" an amount of battery storage from a warehouse of industrial sized batteries on the edge of town than have the hassle of buying, installing, and eventually disposing and replacing, my own much smaller battery. Just like the trend from private / on premises computer servers to centralized data centers and "cloud" service providers. The open internet is great for facilitating that sort of evolution; the closed grid less so.

 

In Europe there's quite a few pilots going on around local energy cooperatives and local "energy islands" that could enable some of this stuff

https://www.compile-project.eu/energy-communities/

 

I feel the highly fragmented UK system of DNOs  and suppliers will slow down progress here, in theory the Smart DCC has the charter to enable it, we'll see how that goes. https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/enabling-innovation/

 

 

 

[Russdl]

Plunge pricing alert for Octopus Agile electricity. First time in weeks that the price has dipped below the 35p/unit cap by more than a couple of pence. 
 

Tomorrow morning they’ll pay 2.21/unit (just for 30 mins) but between midnight and 06:00 the average unit price is 5.602p. 
 

Sunamp, washing machine and dishwasher will be in the starting blocks at midnight. 
 

I may even get the boss to run the vacuum round and bake a few cakes provided she doesn’t wake me ?

 

 

[ProDave]

That no doubt is because we are in for a couple of days of windy weather so the wind farms should be on good form.

[TerryE]

I am fairly lucky in that I planned to switch to the Agile Tariff, but had to wait until my meter got upgraded to SMETS2. In the meantime, the Agile rates went through the roof, so I aborted this plan.  I am just entering the second year of an OVO fixed price tariff at 9.19p / kWh night rate (about 70% of my annual usage) and 15.81p / kWh day rate.  Sometimes the dice roll for you.  With my house system, I could easily implement supplier-friendly demand shaping, but I see no point without adequate price incentives.

Edited October 25, 2021 by TerryE