Octopus export tariff (non-MCS)

[Wil]

Apologies for a new topic on this - I did search but couldn’t find previous topics- I’m trying to sign up for Octopus’ non-MCS export route. I’ve provided my DNO letter and Building Reg cert covering the install. They now want the £250 ‘with no guarantees’.

 

Anyone that’s been through it know what happens next? Are there any further loopholes/ reasons for them to reject?

 

TIA!

[JohnMo]

32 minutes ago, Wil said:

They now want the £250 ‘with no guarantees’.

I had the same Email. Also offered the grand total of 4p for export, as I have no signal to smart meter, so it's dumb. So 6500kWh export, before break even, a complete waste of time.

 

Instead I just push it in to my own battery, excess goes to hot water or heat pump. Yesterday used 99.1% of all PV generated.

[Wil]

Yep I do that already, but I have the capability to add significantly more PV (and DNO agreement to export 11.68kW) so I could be making money back on the days when I’ve filled the hot water tank, batteries and car.

 

I can get 35kWh on a decent day with my currently 5kWp array. I have a functional smart meter so hoping for at least 15p/kWh. I already have the export MPAN from the DNO, just need octopus to accept it! 

 

I’m sure I read of others here who had used the non-MCS route?

[scottishjohn]

exporting without a battery you are going to be stuck with low rates 

lookat octopus FLUX

 you can fill up your own battery between 2 and5 in morning for 4.42p  and sell it back to them later inthe day between 16-1900 hrs for 27p--even in wnter when your panels are not doing much it could still be a big winner

you need to check your postcode cos the rates are different for other parts of contry 

 I would not have gone for PV without a battery --thats where you can start to make the money back

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Wil said:

...

I’m sure I read of others here who had used the non-MCS route?

 

We have

• 3.84kW peak on the roof.
• Main focus: self consumption. 
• All solar directed to a 14kWh capacity water heater.

Here's my export for this year so far  (£11.88 in total)

[Wil]

I have batteries (although set not to export due to the 3.68kW per phase limit) and on Octopus Go so 7p overnight 11.30 to 5.30am and 23p the rest of the time. Getting a blended rate of approx 16p so far this year.

 

in winter with the HPs I rarely get past lunchtime before the batteries are flat. Let alone 4-7 to export what’s left.

I charge EV, battery and dishwashers/ washing machines overnight to maximise night use and can avoid 90% of daytime usage which means I dump solar into hot water tank and anything else. I currently export almost nothing but I could heat the HW to 65 instead of maxing out the immersion and actually concentrate on some export.

[Dillsue]

I think with the Octopus non MCS option you pay £250 to join but get back £100 if they reject you??

 

How lucrative it is depends on your own circumstances but we'll hopefully be around net £0 over the year for eleccy, so well worth it for us and no batteries needed:)

[Wil]

21 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

I think with the Octopus non MCS option you pay £250 to join but get back £100 if they reject you??

 

How lucrative it is depends on your own circumstances but we'll hopefully be around net £0 over the year for eleccy, so well worth it for us and no batteries needed:)

Yes it’s £150 back if they reject you, so only £100 lost, but just wondering what hoops I need to go through having had all the paperwork submitted to them already.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Wil said:

...  but just wondering what hoops I need to go through having had all the paperwork submitted to them already.

 

I submitted mine and, beyond receipt for the documentation,   heard nothing (2022) . A  good while  later ( 6 months?) during a random quick look at my Octopus account I found that I'm on Flexible Octopus.

I expect I missed an email

[Wil]

I’ll answer my own question- i got an email a day later saying i was now on octopus outgoing… now have to adjust my automations to not consume every last drop.

 

15p/export vs my night rate of 7.5p means worthwhile exporting once the battery and the hot water are complete.

[Dillsue]

2 hours ago, Wil said:

I’ll answer my own question- i got an email a day later saying i was now on octopus outgoing… now have to adjust my automations to not consume every last drop.

 

15p/export vs my night rate of 7.5p means worthwhile exporting once the battery and the hot water are complete.

Don't you want to export everything  you can and charge the battery and hot water overnight on the 7.5p rate....assuming your battery and DHW tank are large enough for a days use??

[Wil]

I can’t export my battery sadly as it was set up prior to any export agreement. I let the HW charge from the ASHP whenever it needs but have been dumping solar into it until recently. You make a good point though- I could export the batteries to 30% (in case the HPs kick in during hte day) and only export the solar.

[Wil]

Turns out by changing the tariff in my Tesla App, it’s sorted itself out and is now exporting all the solar and just slowly discharging the battery to cover the house. Haven’t seen what it does when the house loads look like they’re going to exceed the battery capacity during the day but got 13kWh of export yesterday vs 34.3kWh of off peak input (house/car/battery charge).

 

Once it settles down I should be able to see what my break even on the £250 is going to be! 1667kWh of export either way.

[JohnMo]

23 minutes ago, Wil said:

1667kWh of export either way.

But is it? Your figure assumes no import to allow export.

 

If you are paying to charge battery at 7.5p to allow export at 15p, your effective rate is 7.5p (15-7.5p). So that becomes 3,333kWh export to break even.

 

 

 

 

[Wil]

I’m assuming that I would have used the import energy anyway and been paying for it. So every penny in export is effectively ‘gain’ from my previous situation.

 

It’s probably too simplistic as the solar charging the battery would have meant less charging the following night.

 

Either way- today I’m at 25.4kWh import and 20.5kWh export so figure I’m up for the day.

 

The £250 is also a LOT less than I would have paid for an MCS install- am I allowed to offset that cost?

[scottishjohn]

in the long run it may well pay you to get an MCS inspection and cert andthen you can export properly 

and if at same time you use a batteyr approved by octopus you could then have the proper rates 

 Iknow a man who is MCS registered 

and maybe could help 

 

i could always ask to se if he is up for it?

[MikeSharp01]

On 28/05/2025 at 13:52, ToughButterCup said:

Here's my export for this year so far  (£11.88 in total)

 We turned on our system in April (11th) since when I have become what the other half calls a Solar bore.

6.8kW export limited to 6kW, - MCS accredited and here is how it is going:

 

almost 1MWh exported in May. Agree the house is not finished yet but its fun to see it paying the electricity bill across this place and that. Octopus have taken us off monthly DD and we will now only get a bill when we owe them money!

 

 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, MikeSharp01 said:

1MWh exported in May

That's double our PV production with similar size array. Long way north and with plenty of trees, to shorten solar day by a few hours

 

PV envy.

[Wil]

Impressive Mike! My solar only produced 785kWh (unshaded SSW array in the Midlands) in May! £150 back would be a pretty nice payday!

 

My installer has now enabled export on the batteries so I can dump what’s left in them at the end of the day at 15p and then immediately charge them back up at 7.5p. Will see how that goes for a bit before deciding how much I want to fully cycle them every day.

[Russdl]

We have 7.44kWp of PV. 13.6kWh battery storage and use Intelligent Octopus Go/Outgoing Octopus. 
 

PV keeps the battery topped up and then all excess goes to export. The battery charges during the off peak window and runs the house for the rest of the day/evening.
 

Prior to the off peak starting again we export what’s left in the battery to the grid, and then fill it up again in the off peak window.

 

I've never been overly concerned with ‘pay back’ (which is why I drive the car I want and not the one that will suffice) but I suspect we’re on track to be paid back before all the kit is dead and needs replacing. Obviously very much dependent on future tariffs/sunshine. 

 

We’ve been in for 3.5 years and as of this month our total energy costs for the whole 3.5 year period around is -£30.
 

To be exact it has cost minus £32:76* to run the entire house for the 3.5 years we’ve been living here, including 12 months of running a hybrid. 
 

*that figure includes the £400 bung from the taxpayer which we passed on to some local old, cold people. 😇

[MikeSharp01]

8 hours ago, Russdl said:

We’ve been in for 3.5 years and as of this month our total energy costs for the whole 3.5 year period around is -£30.

Now that's my kind of electricity bill. We have not decided to invest in a battery yet but probably will once the house if finished so we can use agile octopus, the PV, the battery and the ASHP to optimise everything. Do you have PV diversion to the DHW, I dimly recall that you do but I may have that confused ?

[Russdl]

32 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Now that's my kind of electricity bill.

It is pretty sweet isn’t it. I keep checking I’ve got the calculations right because I can’t quite believe it myself - but it is right. 
 

33 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Do you have PV diversion to the DHW

 

No, Sunamp here and it’s still going strong.  
 

(so far). 

[NSS]

7.5 years in, total net energy cost is -£730. However, last RHI payment was received a couple of months ago, so I may now look again at whether it's worth us adding a battery.

[Russdl]

I was about to say that I’ve been ‘Top Trumped’ again!

 

But I guess the RHI payment makes it an uneven playing field so maybe I haven’t?

 

Mind you, I was on a flexible export tariff post Covid and post Russias shenanigans where I was getting crazy amounts per kWh at times - perhaps it is a level playing field. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Russdl

[JamesP]

21 hours ago, Russdl said:

We have 7.44kWp of PV. 13.6kWh battery storage and use Intelligent Octopus Go/Outgoing Octopus. 
PV keeps the battery topped up and then all excess goes to export. The battery charges during the off peak window and runs the house for the rest of the day/evening.
Prior to the off peak starting again we export what’s left in the battery to the grid, and then fill it up again in the off peak window.

I've never been overly concerned with ‘pay back’ (which is why I drive the car I want and not the one that will suffice) but I suspect we’re on track to be paid back before all the kit is dead and needs replacing. Obviously very much dependent on future tariffs/sunshine. 

We’ve been in for 3.5 years and as of this month our total energy costs for the whole 3.5 year period around is -£30.
To be exact it has cost minus £32:76* to run the entire house for the 3.5 years we’ve been living here, including 12 months of running a hybrid. 
*that figure includes the £400 bung from the taxpayer which we passed on to some local old, cold people. 😇

Hi @Russdl Very impressed with how this works for you, what is your annual consumption out of interest.

 

I would like to have a battery option at home, one to reduce bills but also independent of the grid for some limited emergency use for power cuts

 

We have 11 years FIT (3.7kWh PV) and 2 years RHI remaining so well subsidised.

What would you recommend ?

Thank you

Edited 12 hours ago by JamesP