Octopus Tracker?

[Crofter]

35 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

2021

 

2022

 

2023

 

So if I'm reading it correctly, you're getting mean summer prices of:

2021- 22.4p

2022- 34.6p

2023- 18.6p

 

Your 2021/22 numbers match mine, I don't know what I did for the 2023 ones.

 

I'm going to have to figure out how much of my energy use is DHW, as the off peak E7 rate undercuts these figures.

[SteamyTea]

20 minutes ago, Crofter said:

Your 2021/22 numbers match mine, I don't know what I did for the 2023 ones.

2023 is much lower, which seems a bit odd, but seems to be right.

I noticed that I did not put the error correction in what I first posted up and have changed the average function to only show relevant months.

Now looks like this for 2023.

 

 

 

This may be easier to read

	2021	2022	2023
Month	2021 Mean Price 22.43 p/kWh	2022 Mean Price 34.6 p/kWh	2023 Mean Price 18.82 p/kWh
January
February
March
April	16.61	30.52	21.13
May	17.62	23.97	18.46
June	18.11	28.35	18.83
July	20.03	38.82	17.19
August	21.71	54.89	18.64
September	32.07	42.35	18.62
October	30.86	23.28	18.85
November
December

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9 by SteamyTea

[Crofter]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

2023 is much lower, which seems a bit odd, but seems to be right.

I noticed that I did not put the error correction in what I first posted up and have changed the average function to only show relevant months.

Now looks like this for 2023.

 

 

 

This may be easier to read

	2021	2022	2023
Month	2021 Mean Price 22.43 p/kWh	2022 Mean Price 34.6 p/kWh	2023 Mean Price 18.82 p/kWh
January
February
March
April	16.61	30.52	21.13
May	17.62	23.97	18.46
June	18.11	28.35	18.83
July	20.03	38.82	17.19
August	21.71	54.89	18.64
September	32.07	42.35	18.62
October	30.86	23.28	18.85
November
December

 

 

 

 

That's perfect, thanks Steamy.

I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

 

I can't remember exactly what we were paying in previous years, but looking at the current rate the tracker has to be a good idea. We're currently on about 16/34p E7.

 

Of course I can't switch tariffs until I get a smart meter. And I'm going to want to install a wifi-enabled timer for the DHW, so that I can boost the tank when the rate is good.

[andyscotland]

6 hours ago, Crofter said:

That's perfect, thanks Steamy.

I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

 

I can't remember exactly what we were paying in previous years, but looking at the current rate the tracker has to be a good idea. We're currently on about 16/34p E7.

 

It would definitely be worth comparing Octopus Agile in that case.

 

When I looked at the end of last year, Tracker's daily price seemed to work out a bit cheaper than the average (mean) of all the half-hourly prices on Agile for that day. But I think Tracker is essentially using a weighted average based on when people generally use power, where Agile is using the raw wholesale price (simplifying a bit).

 

If you can control time of use, particularly if you can avoid the ~ 4pm - 7pm surge then I worked out you could do better on Agile's half-hour pricing.

 

Don't have the analysis I did to hand just now, but for example looking at today's Agile prices for Southern Scotland, overnight is around 14-15p, rising to 20ish for most of the day & evening, with a couple of hours around 

38/39p at teatime. And overnight prices this week seem quite high, before Christmas we had several days where overnight was dropping to a couple of pence a unit or even in some cases a negative price.

 

So if you're able to control water heating etc to use the optimum time window each day I think you'd easily beat your current 16/34 E7 both at night and for almost all of  the day.

 

Will try and dig out the more detailed data I did in December when I'm back at PC.

 

6 hours ago, Crofter said:

Of course I can't switch tariffs until I get a smart meter. And I'm going to want to install a wifi-enabled timer for the DHW, so that I can boost the tank when the rate is good.

 

[andyscotland]

14 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Biggest problem is that if the money that supplier makes goes below their usual tariffs, the tariff gets pulled.

 

I think there's a bit of headroom. As Octopus explain it, on Tracker & Agile essentially the customer is taking the risk - but that cuts out both the risk & importantly cost of hedging that the supplier (and their middlemen) would otherwise have to do to give you a nice stable price all year round. If you need the certainty of knowing what your bills will be day to day and month to month, a chunk of the "electricity" you're paying for is actually risk premiums, interest & reimbursing brokers for the hedges they made a loss on - and as I understand it a good chunk of that will be external to Octopus.

 

So I guess like most things financial, if you're fortunate enough to be in a position to gamble a bit with cashflow you can probably make savings over the longer term without hitting Octopus' margins and everyone's happy...