4 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

I have now made about £2.50, but have missed all but 3 of the sessions.

 

I'm somewhere north of £8, nearly all of which was over two sessions.

Old mine shafts re-purposed as gravity batteries

The benefits of all electric and some careful planning! 

Apparently there'll be another session tomorrow, Monday 23rd, 5-6pm, but octopus haven't told me about it by email yet. I could still opt in via the control panel though.

 

> Earn 2700 OctoPoints - worth £3.37 - for every unit of power you cut down

 

That's gone up.

 

They've been a lot less frequent than I imagined, so as a percentage of total energy costs it's a drop in the ocean... but a significant saving on the days they *do* happen.

 

> So far you've earned 11400 OctoPoints (or £14.25) over 5 Saving Sessions

 

(Not including the last session, or the 12.5p/session bonus for maintaining a streak)

3 hours ago, jamiehamy said:

The benefits of all electric and some careful planning! 

And i thought we were doing okay....

 

"So far you've earned 5376 OctoPoints (or £6.72) over 5 Saving Sessions"

14 hours ago, Nick Thomas said:

They've been a lot less frequent than I imagined, so as a percentage of total energy costs it's a drop in the ocean

 

From the original email introducing the scheme:

 

 

We seem to be roughly on target for that order of magnitude, especially taking into account the late start to winter.

This session has special significance in relation to today's national news features eg https://news.sky.com/story/cold-snap-forces-national-grid-to-put-three-coal-power-plants-on-standby-12792900#:~:text=The UK has broadly phased,raced to replace Russian gas.

 

There's also an email from Greg Jackson going around - 

 

"This evening, coal-fired power stations are on standby to deliver extra power, should it be needed to balance the grid. 

 
This means every kWh saved in today’s Saving Session from 5-6pm will make a real difference in reducing our need for dirty fuel.

 
On a practical level, this also makes it our most valuable Saving Session yet – offering 2,700 Octopoints per kWh saved: a massive 50% more than usual"

I remembered less than 20 mins ago - bloody phone was somehow on silent so I didn't hear the reminder! Ran around and turned off what I could, but have just now learned that the washing machine has been on the whole time as well.

 

Also, it appears the car's been plugged in to charge until right now (partly my fault - we came home together, my wife plugged it in while I got the dog out of the boot. I'd planned to put it back onto the cheap tariff so it wouldn't start until after midnight, but I got distracted and didn't do it).

 

If anything, we're going to have used more than our average consumption during this period.

 

Bugger.

Turning stuff off is easy, I have a button in Loxone for price surges. Made no difference though as the battery still at 40% from good PV around midday so not importing anyway.

Given the news I could have put the battery into export, if there was a financial incentive rather than penalty for doing so!

Yeah, I could've exported today, but didn't bother.

 

Gridwatch didn't register any kind of coal spike, so mission accomplished I suppose.

These 5pm to 6pm sessions are not much good to us. Our typical import over that hour is less than 0.4kWh so even with everything turned off we'll be luck to have earned more than a quid.

4:30-6 tomorrow any good for you?

 

I tend to be running down the battery from any stored solar at these kinds of times, which surely impacts the baseline. Still reasonably healthy though.

1 hour ago, Nick Thomas said:

4:30-6 tomorrow any good for you?

 

I tend to be running down the battery from any stored solar at these kinds of times, which surely impacts the baseline. Still reasonably healthy though.

Not really, we tend not to cook before 7pm, and no heating on at that time. Happy to do our bit though if it helps to reduce the need for dirty power stations to spin up 

12 hours ago, NSS said:

Happy to do our bit though if it helps to reduce the need for dirty power stations to spin up 

Been doing it for year, shame E7 users cannot benefit more.  Be nice if the gave me cash back for not using power between midnight and 3 AM.

 

24 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Been doing it for year, shame E7 users cannot benefit more.  Be nice if the gave me cash back for not using power between midnight and 3 AM.

 

Yes. These savings sessions really penalize anyone that does this by habit, which is counter productive. For example if I program my house to always automatically reduce energy use during 4pm-6pm, then my 6 week average will be naturally lower then and there's really no incentive for high effort low reward schemes like this, but I get no bonus for doing it 365 days a year.

Really I think they need to encourage habitual or automated solutions as even for the highly motivated, saving the odd pound or 2 for a bulk of effort and potential family strife just isn't worth it.

 

4 minutes ago, joth said:

family strife

That is where we differ, only me shivering away like poor little Annie.

 

May have saved last night.

 

Roasted the pheasant at suppertime.

5 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

Roasted the pheasant at suppertime.

I had raw swan for supper, taste similar to sea eagle.

 

(actually had donner kebab, so who knows what I had)

On 24/01/2023 at 11:16, SteamyTea said:

I had raw swan for supper, taste similar to sea eagle.

 

(actually had donner kebab, so who knows what I had)

Could have been worse, I've just had a burger at Frankie & Benny's 🤮

 

Note to self, next time just ignore where the granddaughter says she'd like to eat.