Octopus, did i imagine this?

[Post and beam]

I cannot find an article i read recently, possibly on here. That said Octopus had a new tariff specifically for heat pumps  with a 24/7 10.5p/hr rate. The crucial bit is that it used a direct connection to the heat pump to infer or measure the pumps electrical use and bill that seperately. 

Did i imagine this ?

[jack]

That'd be an interesting tariff, for sure.

My concern would be how they deal with the fact that solar generation makes a contribution to ASHP power consumption, especially during the shoulder months.

[ProDave]

I recall seeing it mentioned.  I questioned at the time how the meter it, and the answer was you needed a particular HP with a built in certified meter from which they calculated the reduced rate for that alone.

[Post and beam]

33 minutes ago, ProDave said:

particular HP with a built in certified meter

Yep thats the kiddy. Only a couple of compliant models so far but the Vaillant Arotherm is one of them.  As this is what i am fitting this is very interesting for me. Still cannot find the article though

[JamesPa]

2 hours ago, Post and beam said:

Yep thats the kiddy. Only a couple of compliant models so far but the Vaillant Arotherm is one of them.  As this is what i am fitting this is very interesting for me. Still cannot find the article though

Ovo definitely have such a tarrif.  https://www.ovoenergy.com/heat-pump-plus  15p/kWh up to a max of 6MWh/year.  It looks like you can 'add it on' to other tariffs.  Seems too good to be true as I cant find anywhere in the Ts&Cs a right to switch your heat pump off when they need to for grid balancing.

 

 

[sharpener]

5 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

Seems too good to be true as I cant find anywhere in the Ts&Cs a right to switch your heat pump off when they need to for grid balancing.

 

I think they require access to your HP's API so in principle they could do that or indeed almost anything else.

 

The Ovo tariff works by getting the metered consumption data from the HP and then retrospectively crediting your bill with the difference in rate.

[JamesPa]

19 minutes ago, sharpener said:

 

I think they require access to your HP's API so in principle they could do that or indeed almost anything else.

 

The Ovo tariff works by getting the metered consumption data from the HP and then retrospectively crediting your bill with the difference in rate.

True, but nothing in the ts & cs allows them to control your pump. 

 

Of course they could change the ts & C's so I'm guessing this is a first step to get people interested, with control to follow.

 

TBH I wouldn't mind if they did control the pump provided that they do so in a way that constrains temp variations reasonably well and there is a fall back override.  It's the way forward for grid balancing at reasonable infrastructure cost and means I don't have to buy a homely.

[Post and beam]

So i think i might have been mistaked about this being an Octopus rate. Not the 10.5p i think i saw but hey ho !

[bob the builder 2]

Just to warn everyone the OVO are terrible - their billing system is a shambles - so no matter what they promise on the rate it will not be billed correctly (please search the thousands of complaints and several large regulator penalties)  Octopus on the other hand ....

[sharpener]

3 hours ago, JamesPa said:

I don't have to buy a homely

 

Have just checked in connection with another forum, Homely do not yet list Nibe, Vaillant or Mitsubishi as compatible. Curiously enough they all use energy intergral as a control strategy, maybe Homely wouldn't make much improvement on that?

 

3 hours ago, JamesPa said:

TBH I wouldn't mind if they did control the pump

 

I am assuming Octopus Cosy's 3 rates and 7 time periods are a reasonable proxy for saving the planet. It's complicated enough optimising the schedules to suit that but at least it's deterministic and also integrates with the battery setup.

[Gone West]

10 hours ago, bob the builder 2 said:

Just to warn everyone the OVO are terrible

I can second that. We did, though, get some cash back and a nice hamper for all the hassle they caused us.

[JamesPa]

10 hours ago, sharpener said:

14 hours ago, JamesPa said:

TBH I wouldn't mind if they did control the pump

 

I am assuming Octopus Cosy's 3 rates and 7 time periods are a reasonable proxy for saving the planet. It's complicated enough optimising the schedules to suit that but at least it's deterministic and also integrates with the battery setup.

Probably so, but Octopus Cosy is really a battery tarrif not a heat pump tarrif.  If you don't have a battery then I can't see it's useful to those with a heat pump.

[PhilT]

3 hours ago, JamesPa said:

Probably so, but Octopus Cosy is really a battery tarrif not a heat pump tarrif.  If you don't have a battery then I can't see it's useful to those with a heat pump.

I think it's aimed at heat pumps feeding UFH and big concrete slabs

[JohnMo]

13 hours ago, bob the builder 2 said:

Just to warn everyone the OVO are terrible - their billing system is a shambles

That's why I moved from them, monthly bill kept going up even when usage kept coming down. 

[JohnMo]

12 minutes ago, PhilT said:

I think it's aimed at heat pumps feeding UFH and big concrete slabs

Not sure it would be that good for that either, as @JamesPa says really a battery assisted tariff 

[PhilT]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

Not sure it would be that good for that either, as @JamesPa says really a battery assisted tariff 

Granted but why call it a heat pump tariff?

[JohnMo]

35 minutes ago, PhilT said:

Granted but why call it a heat pump tariff?

Good marketing trick, seems most have no clue how to operate a heat pump, and want to run like a gas boiler, should appeal to the majority. Make their running costs cheaper, but not sure they caught the idea with battery, multiple charge periods every day, run your heat pump on WC for peanuts.

[JamesPa]

53 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Good marketing trick, seems most have no clue how to operate a heat pump, and want to run like a gas boiler, should appeal to the majority. Make their running costs cheaper, but not sure they caught the idea with battery, multiple charge periods every day, run your heat pump on WC for peanuts.

I have not up until now been able to make the business case for a battery work out, so don't have one. 

 

Now I have finally defeated my planning authority and have planning permission for a heat pump, I will have to run the numbers again!  Has anyone developed a methodology for assessing a battery eg with an agile tarif & heat pump that I could steal from?

Edited 19 hours ago by JamesPa

[JohnMo]

No spreadsheet sorry, but info that may help, we run on just normal E7 (13p and 30p per kWh), and my total annual bill divided by kWh consumption for the whole electric (including a standing charge for gas) works out at 16p. Last year's heating season was a mix of trying to batch heat in E7 period and straight WC. This year doing straight WC. Dull, wet, cold day (no solar, clothes washing and drying) we end up running out of battery early evening.

 

We are generally paying £40 less per month average with battery compared to without.

 

7 to 8 Deg daily CoP should be around 4 to 4.2, above that CoP drops slightly and it's more dominated by DHW and below that it's colder and higher flow temperature so drops again.

[JamesPa]

52 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

No spreadsheet sorry, but info that may help, we run on just normal E7 (13p and 30p per kWh), and my total annual bill divided by kWh consumption for the whole electric (including a standing charge for gas) works out at 16p. Last year's heating season was a mix of trying to batch heat in E7 period and straight WC. This year doing straight WC. Dull, wet, cold day (no solar, clothes washing and drying) we end up running out of battery early evening.

 

We are generally paying £40 less per month average with battery compared to without.

 

7 to 8 Deg daily CoP should be around 4 to 4.2, above that CoP drops slightly and it's more dominated by DHW and below that it's colder and higher flow temperature so drops again.

That helps a lot because it gives me the idea to simplify the problem drastically by considering a two price tariff initially!  Thank you

[PhilT]

1 hour ago, JamesPa said:

I have not up until now been able to make the business case for a battery work out, so don't have one. 

 

Now I have finally defeated my planning authority and have planning permission for a heat pump, I will have to run the numbers again!  Has anyone developed a methodology for assessing a battery eg with an agile tarif & heat pump that I could steal from?

Do you have solar panels and smart meter capable of export? The latter, at say 15p/kWh, makes a huge difference to the financial case

[JamesPa]

27 minutes ago, PhilT said:

Do you have solar panels and smart meter capable of export? The latter, at say 15p/kWh, makes a huge difference to the financial case

Yes I do have both

[ReedRichards]

Do you have an EV tariff or similar?  That also makes a huge difference to the financial case, but in the opposite sense to the difference @PhilT is referring to.

[JamesPa]

16 minutes ago, ReedRichards said:

Do you have an EV tariff or similar?  That also makes a huge difference to the financial case, but in the opposite sense to the difference @PhilT is referring to.

Not yet, up until recently I've been charging largely on excess solar (I got the EV in May).

 

A bit of playing with numbers suggests that a tarrif which has a few hours of cheap electricity (where I can charge my EV, do my washing/washing up and continue to run my hp, possibly with a bit of set forward) in return for a small penalty the rest of the time saves perhaps £300.  A 5kW battery in addition saves perhaps another £200-300, which if the battery costs 5k doesn't make a financial case. 

 

Economy 7 (or something very like it) with no battery is looking like the winner based on a rough and ready analysis.  

 

I am left wondering what the circumstances are where 'professionally' installed batteries pay.  Possibly if they are installed at the same time as solar panels?

 

I am hoping I'm wrong!

Edited 12 hours ago by JamesPa

[sharpener]

4 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

I am left wondering what the circumstances are where 'professionally' installed batteries pay. 

 

I don't think they can. To date even my self-install has had a projected ten year payback.

 

E7 only gives you one go at charging the battery (though I did actually have a gap but it was only an hour so too short to use).

 

Cosy which as you say is as much a battery tariff as an HP one gives you 3 goes, quite widely spaced apart. It is early days and not really cold enough to tell but I think it will give me a better ROI than E7 did.

 

Octopus notified me today that my Outgoing Fixed tariff is now operational so it now makes sense to import at 12.11 p/unit and export as much as possible at 15p.

 

Victron s/w is optimised for battery charging from PV, which doesn't suit this strategy but they also have a Dynamic ESS upgrade. It has a Green mode which prioritises battery charging and self-consumption of the PV generation, and Trade mode which I am trying out - this is more aggressive and seeks to optimise the return by whatever means. Reviews of it are mixed so if it doesn't work for me I will have to write my own flows to do it in NodeRed.

 

And I thought the physical installation of the HP was the major milestone...