Octopus "Saving Sessions"

[Nick Thomas]

Seems they've decided on the branding for the national grid "pay you to load-shift" scheme: https://octopus.energy/blog/saving-sessions-faqs/

 

A few interesting points:

 

- Export is ignored

- Reward is calculated relative to a baseline of your last 10 weekdays, or last 4 weekends

- £3/kWh

 

(other energy suppliers are available, I'm sure)

 

The baseline was always going to be a hard problem to solve, but with a battery and a single rate tariff, and with some certainty around the usual "saving session" times, they're rewarding load-shifting *into* the peak times on non-saving-session days, so you can effectively get twice your battery capacity out of each session.

 

What a world.

 

[NSS]

Had an email invitation to participate from Octopus earlier this evening. Have signed up but not sure how likely we'll be able to benefit as we've already load shifted much of our use to the Go period in the night.

[gjonesy84]

I was interested to see what the T&Cs are for this scheme for the likes of us with battery storage. Looks like it doesnt benifit us at all which is a great shame.

It would have been nice for people that have invested their hard earned money into Battery Storage to gain something out the saving sessions and help balance the grid during tough times. 

 

Export should have been considered!

 

However I do wonder if there is away for us benefit still? For example switch of our battery storage off from today at peak times now to increase our base line and switch them on during saving sessions to gain from scheme?

 

Or just limit how much we invert between 4-7?

 

This would obviously mean pulling for grid. Not sure if the sheme could even offset those costs.

 

Might not even be worth the effort!

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, gjonesy84 said:

Looks like it doesnt benifit us at all which is a great shame.

I doubt it will really benefit anyone.

 

 

[Marvin]

36 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I doubt it will really benefit anyone.

 

 

Sorry @SteamyTea I TOTALLY disagree.😂😂😂 First, a smart meter helps the power suppliers reduce their business risk by thinking of ways to make their problems your problems. We will eventually shoulder the up and down price of energy more relative to the market price. AND finally these companies have shareholders!😳

 

 

[SteamyTea]

31 minutes ago, Marvin said:

a smart meter helps the power suppliers reduce their business risk by thinking of ways to make their problems your problems.

True, but how long will the £3/kWh offset payment be sustainable if even 10,000 people take part. And it won't touch the sides of our energy consumption.

Let us say that there is a mean shifting of 1.3 kWh. The cost to the company is £39,000 a day, £14 million a year.

Can't see shareholders wanting that to last very long.

[Marvin]

40 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

True, but how long will the £3/kWh offset payment be sustainable if even 10,000 people take part. And it won't touch the sides of our energy consumption.

Let us say that there is a mean shifting of 1.3 kWh. The cost to the company is £39,000 a day, £14 million a year.

Can't see shareholders wanting that to last very long.

True  However, imho, it's part of the "getting used to variable rate priced electricity" scheme and the "lost leader" pricing tactics. 

[Nick Thomas]

National Grid pays the £3/kWh, rather than it coming from the company. it's not clear to me where natgrid gets the money though - general taxation? It's not very economical, but then, neither is burning gas to generate electricity in the dead of winter during an acute gas shortage, so, swings and roundabouts.

 

On a single rate, you can benefit with the battery by dropping your consumption to 0 during the "saving session" without suffering any discomfort. One can also benefit by charging the battery during the 4-7pm peak on non-saving session days, so the benchmark against which the 0 kwh on saving session days is measured is higher. Something of a perverse incentive, and I agree it would make a great deal of sense to pay the same for export during the period, but there we go.

 

Hmm. I wonder what octopus "agile outgoing" prices will look like. If they're willing to pay £3/kWh for reduced import, the wholesale prices must be absolutely sky-high; maybe they took that into account while designing the scheme?

 

The sooner people realise that the appropriate solutions to this problem are not market-shaped, the better. Although I have been wondering for a while about an altered charging scheme where you pay based on peak (or p95/p99) wattage, rather than accumulated kwh, similarly to bandwidth. Feels like that would be way ahead when it comes to "incentivising" people to do things that the grid likes.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Nick Thomas
Add "on a single rate". The dual-rate implications are gnarly af

[SteamyTea]

13 hours ago, Nick Thomas said:

Although I have been wondering for a while about an altered charging scheme where you pay based on peak (or p95/p99) wattage, rather than accumulated kwh,

I looked (casually) at this a while back.

I can see a benefit of limiting peak loads, but would require quite a bit of smart kit to do it.

Don't think it would be easy to do for all the ToU tariffs, the whole idea is you move that peak to when there is spare generation capacity.

Worth remembering that a CCGT is not switched on and they off like a central heating boiler. Many are running hot, ready to connect within a few seconds, others are spinning up or down depending on predicted load.

 

I think the biggest problem is that most households could not manage to load shift enough. This will lead to the energy suppliers being accused of ripping customers off with false claims.

 

There are still people that think putting in a smart meter will save energy, as if the more accurate metering is, in itself, an energy saving devise.

 

[Radian]

22 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There are still people that think putting in a smart meter will save energy, as if the more accurate metering is, in itself, an energy saving devise.

 

 

I guess that's slightly excusable - although if they thought their non-smart meters were inaccurate and didn't gang up outside their energy suppliers with flaming torches and sharpened pitchforks, that'd be inexcusable.

 

[billt]

36 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There are still people that think putting in a smart meter will save energy, as if the more accurate metering is, in itself, an energy saving devise.

 

That's completely understandable as the vested interests that pushed smart meters made the claim that they would save energy very loudly without explaining that the meter doesn't save anything, the consumer would have to change their usage.

 

I don't think that the messaeg has changed much.

[SteamyTea]

11 minutes ago, billt said:

I don't think that the messaeg has changed much

Nor has people's understanding of the very, very, basic science if energy usage.

How often do we hear on the news/consumer interest programs about people talking about their energy costs, but not their actual usage.

Like saying a car costs £2500, but not specifying which car, or how old it is.

[joth]

15 hours ago, Nick Thomas said:

National Grid pays the £3/kWh, rather than it coming from the company. it's not clear to me where natgrid gets the money though - general taxation? It's not very economical, but then, neither is burning gas to generate electricity in the dead of winter during an acute gas shortage, so, swings and roundabouts.

 

 

My assumption:

At this point it's all project / R&D budget, exploring and proving out new models for dealing with peak-demand in a decarbonized and digitally integrated grid.

Longer term, the proposition is not just to avoid the £ cost of the gas being burnt at peak times, but also save on the massive year-round capital and operating overheads of having N peaker plants sat around doing absolutely nothing for weeks at a time, and many hours of the day, just in case they're needed to cover those moments of absolute peak demand. You might as well ask if it is clear where natgrid get the money to fund that overhead from today.

 

[SteamyTea]

45 minutes ago, joth said:

My assumption:

At this point it's all project / R&D budget, exploring and proving out new models for dealing with peak-demand in a decarbonized and digitally integrated grid

I think the same. Just marketing.

Edited October 29, 2022 by SteamyTea

[SteamyTea]

Seems it is not just Octopussy offering money.

(Octopus has just got control of Bulb, I wonder if they ever pay back the £2bn+ that we bailed them out with)

 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/10/octopus-ovo-energy-pay-to-cut-electricity-use/

Edited October 29, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Dillsue]

1 hour ago, joth said:

 

Longer term, the proposition is not just to avoid the £ cost of the gas being burnt at peak times, but also save on the massive year-round capital and operating overheads of having N peaker plants sat around doing absolutely nothing for weeks at a time, and many hours of the day, just in case they're needed to cover those moments of absolute peak demand. You might as well ask if it is clear where natgrid get the money to fund that overhead from today.

But the need to have gas generation isnt going to go away. It will just be paid to be on standby for longer periods to cover for times the wind isnt blowing. Last BEIS forecasts I looked at showed circa 20% gas generation in 2040 and 14% in 2050. Hopefully all with working CCS by then

[Dillsue]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I think the biggest problem is that most households could not manage to load shift enough.

I think the "could not manage" should be replaced with "cant be bothered". Unless youve got home generation, batteries or on a TOU tariff, for most people would see no reason to load shift.

[Marvin]

On 29/10/2022 at 09:53, SteamyTea said:

There are still people that think putting in a smart meter will save energy, as if the more accurate metering is, in itself, an energy saving devise.

 

😂😂😂🙄

 

[ProDave]

On 28/10/2022 at 10:12, Marvin said:

True  However, imho, it's part of the "getting used to variable rate priced electricity" scheme and the "lost leader" pricing tactics. 

A big rump of the population (me included) don't want to play the silly variable priced electricity game and have to choose each day what time to turn the oven on.  That is in part why a lot of us are resisting having a smart meter for as long as possible.

[ProDave]

On 29/10/2022 at 09:53, SteamyTea said:

There are still people that think putting in a smart meter will save energy, as if the more accurate metering is, in itself, an energy saving devise.

That is because, at least to start with, the tv advertising was openly saying "get a smart meter to save money".  I and many thousands complained to the ASA about this false advertising, but nothing got done. Or perhaps it did?  there is now the very small print saying something like user action is required to save energy usage.  In other words read your meter to see how much you use and if the figure shocks you, use less.  It is NOT the smart meter that makes you do that.

[Marvin]

23 hours ago, joth said:

Longer term, the proposition is not just to avoid the £ cost of the gas being burnt at peak times, but also save on the massive year-round capital and operating overheads of having N peaker plants sat around doing absolutely nothing for weeks at a time, and many hours of the day, just in case they're needed to cover those moments of absolute peak demand. You might as well ask if it is clear where natgrid get the money to fund that overhead from today.

 

Money comes from us.

 

Yet again the most reliable source of renewable energy is tidal. We're an island with strong tidal currents and territorial waters over 275,000 square Kilometres. Surely we can find somewhere to do this. Or is it a problem with political will? Or its it that people would rather have more environmentally unfriendly alternatives, or in the middle, go cold in the winter. When in between a rock and a hard place there are tough decisions to be made. The government refers to cost whilst promoting costly renewables. Ha Ha.  

[Marvin]

9 minutes ago, ProDave said:

My a big rump of the population (me included) don't want to play the silly variable priced electricity game and have to choose each day what time to turn the oven on.  That is in part why a lot of us are resisting having a smart meter for as long as possible.

What's wrong with having dinner at 2am?

[Marvin]

5 minutes ago, ProDave said:

That is because, at least to start with, the tv advertising was openly saying "get a smart meter to save money".  I and many thousands complained to the ASA about this false advertising, but nothing got done. Or perhaps it did?  there is now the very small print saying something like user action is required to save energy usage.  In other words read your meter to see how much you use and if the figure shocks you, use less.  It is NOT the smart meter that makes you do that.

The adverts never said WHO would be saving money. Time will tell on that one.

[Ferdinand]

On 28/10/2022 at 20:31, Nick Thomas said:

National Grid pays the £3/kWh, rather than it coming from the company. it's not clear to me where natgrid gets the money though - general taxation? It's not very economical, but then, neither is burning gas to generate electricity in the dead of winter during an acute gas shortage, so, swings and roundabouts.

 

On a single rate, you can benefit with the battery by dropping your consumption to 0 during the "saving session" without suffering any discomfort. One can also benefit by charging the battery during the 4-7pm peak on non-saving session days, so the benchmark against which the 0 kwh on saving session days is measured is higher. Something of a perverse incentive, and I agree it would make a great deal of sense to pay the same for export during the period, but there we go.

 

Hmm. I wonder what octopus "agile outgoing" prices will look like. If they're willing to pay £3/kWh for reduced import, the wholesale prices must be absolutely sky-high; maybe they took that into account while designing the scheme?

 

The sooner people realise that the appropriate solutions to this problem are not market-shaped, the better. Although I have been wondering for a while about an altered charging scheme where you pay based on peak (or p95/p99) wattage, rather than accumulated kwh, similarly to bandwidth. Feels like that would be way ahead when it comes to "incentivising" people to do things that the grid likes.

 

 

 

There seem to be a couple of wrinkles in how the baseline against which the reduced usage is compared are generated.

 

Presumably the £3 comes partly from not having to pay a premium to compete for the inflated peak price.

 

Will it also save having to pay money to eg diesel swing resource generators? Have not got my head around that.

 

And do consumers have to be compensated for power cuts? So avoidance thereof saves money.

[jack]

6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

In other words read your meter to see how much you use and if the figure shocks you, use less.  It is NOT the smart meter that makes you do that.

 

I disagree with this. Reading your meter tells you how much energy you use, not how that energy usage happens.

Despite knowing (vaguely) the power outputs of our kitchen appliances, I've been quite surprised at how much energy they use when cooking, especially if you have a few things on the go at once. If I were struggling to pay my bills, this could be a very useful piece of information.

 

Same with being able to see my background energy usage - it's over 300W a lot of the time, which really surprised me, and is something I'll be digging into to try and bring it down.

 

And finally, being able to see my smart meter allowed me to notice a persistent 1.5+ kW power consumption even when no-one else was home and almost everything was off, which let me find that my son had left a fan heater on in the garage gym. Without a smart meter, that could have been left running for days.

I'm sure there are other examples, but those are just what jumps to mind.