Smart Meters and Tariffs

[SnoopZ]

Maybe if we ask Damian to turn off all his skynet servers the grid won't be as bad.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Maybe if we ask Damian to turn off all his skynet servers the grid won't be as bad.

lol I can ask

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Paul

As I have already said, we are nowhere near able to rely on "renewable" only, esp wind power.

All the wind turbines in the world are useless when there is no wind.

We got rid of all the backups except Gas so thats now keeping us going, along with 6GW of imports.

As I type this I see gas is providing 54% of our power generation, and 13% is imports.

---------- Post added at 20:41 ---------- Previous post was at 20:40 ----------

Yes, finally came through, not as bad as feared, still not great though.

I think you may hit your £1 cap tomorrow. My Tracker is saying 40.19 and it's the highest I've ever seen it.

[ianch99]

Here's an interesting site aiming to predict Agile pricing: https://prices.fly.dev/H/

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

I think you may hit your £1 cap tomorrow. My Tracker is saying 40.19 and it's the highest I've ever seen it.

Yes, I noticed that, its going to be another bad day.

---------- Post added at 16:40 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

Originally Posted by ianch99

Here's an interesting site aiming to predict Agile pricing: https://prices.fly.dev/H/

Hmmm, interesting. Thx.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

Yep, rates have come through.

Ouch !

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Paul

Yes, I noticed that, its going to be another bad day.

---------- Post added at 16:40 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------


Hmmm, interesting. Thx.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

Yep, rates have come through.

Ouch !

I moved to Octopus GO 4 weeks ago as i am traveling a lot at the moment. It means i have a fixed rate of 8p KWh between 00:30 and 05:30 which is when i charge my car. The mad fluctuations in Agile at the moment made me move for now. I will move back once the winter period is over.

Originally Posted by Sirius

I moved to Octopus GO 4 weeks ago as i am traveling a lot at the moment. It means i have a fixed rate of 8p KWh between 00:30 and 05:30 which is when i charge my car. The mad fluctuations in Agile at the moment made me move for now. I will move back once the winter period is over.

What daytime rate are you getting with GO?

I’ve been thinking about moving but I got a small EV for doing low local miles in and I’m worried that I won’t use the off-peak electricity enough to offset the higher daytime cost.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Chris

What daytime rate are you getting with GO?

I’ve been thinking about moving but I got a small EV for doing low local miles in and I’m worried that I won’t use the off-peak electricity enough to offset the higher daytime cost.

I have just switched to Go and was surprised how good the rates are:

Octopus Go
The smart EV tariff with super cheap electricity between 00:30 - 05:30 every night
Tariff info (all prices include VAT)
Reference GO-VAR-22-10-14
Electricity
Day rate 26.40p per kWh
Night rate 8.50p per kWh
Standing charge 62.22p per day

Only 1.5p more that SVR in the day but a big win at night if you can use these hours. These is an Intelligent Go sibling tariff which has something to do with the type of car charger you might have?

I plan to move back to Agile when things (price, not wind) calm down a bit ..

Originally Posted by ianch99

I have just switched to Go and was surprised how good the rates are:



Only 1.5p more that SVR in the day but a big win at night if you can use these hours. These is an Intelligent Go sibling tariff which has something to do with the type of car charger you might have?

I plan to move back to Agile when things (price, not wind) calm down a bit ..

Thanks ok so I guess I need to so the maths here …

It’s early days but at the moment I am using about 28kWh per week charging the EV. I work mostly from home but I do some local travel, most of which is a short school run. That’s why I went for the Dacia Spring, despite its tiny battery (a fraction under 27kWh) and short range (140 miles, give or take, under ideal conditions). My total electricity consumption this week was a tad over 103kWh.

My Flexible Octopus rate is 24.31p though, and in my area the GO daytime rate is 25.63p. Night rate is same as yours, 8.5p.

So right now, I’m spending about £6.80 per week charging the car and £18.23 powering everything else. On GO potentially that’s £2.38 on charging and £19.22 on everything else. So possibly a saving of 25.03-21.06=£3.97 per week, or about £17 per calendar (30 day) month.

The bonus consideration is that my EV charging is going to be pretty consistent week in week out whereas we have only just taken a lot of Christmas lights down and finished catering for a steady stream of friends and relatives, so 103kWh in a week, even including the car, is as high as our electricity consumption is ever likely to get.

So I guess I’m switching to Octopus GO. . I will wait until Mobilize have installed my 7kW wall charger though. At the moment I’m using a 3-pin plug, which would make it difficult to contain a full charge within the overnight period should I need it.

'Go' is only available if you have an EV, so thats not an option.
'Flux', 'Snug' & 'Cosy' all seem to have various restrictions on who can have them as well.
Economy 7 is still an option, and in winter could be a consideration, as I have partial electric heating.

I also keep an eye on the fixed price as they often review it, the current 23p is a little high.
I moved to fixed Gas at 5.67p in early November, which has saved me a lot in the last 2 months.

This is my first year on Agile, so its obviously a bit of learning, I expected winter to have bad days.
Those bad days are irritating of course, but they generally get cancelled out by the good (cheap days).
The tarriff comparisons (using my actual consumption) show that overall Agile is still the cheapest for me (since I got the meter, so Aug - Dec 2023).

Even in January (so far) the bad days have not yet cancelled out the good days.
I expect they will when todays figures are in, but there is still the rest of the month.

I keep my eye on it, but there seems no reason to make panic decisions atm.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Paul

'Go' is only available if you have an EV, so thats not an option.
'Flux', 'Snug' & 'Cosy' all seem to have various restrictions on who can have them as well.
Economy 7 is still an option, and in winter could be a consideration, as I have partial electric heating.

I also keep an eye on the fixed price as they often review it, the current 23p is a little high.
I moved to fixed Gas at 5.67p in early November, which has saved me a lot in the last 2 months.

This is my first year on Agile, so its obviously a bit of learning, I expected winter to have bad days.
Those bad days are irritating of course, but they generally get cancelled out by the good (cheap days).
The tarriff comparisons (using my actual consumption) show that overall Agile is still the cheapest for me (since I got the meter, so Aug - Dec 2023).

Even in January (so far) the bad days have not yet cancelled out the good days.
I expect they will when todays figures are in, but there is still the rest of the month.

I keep my eye on it, but there seems no reason to make panic decisions atm.

I'm on Go and I do not have an EV.

There are two versions of the GO tariff. Intelligent GO works with compatible cars and chargers and will charge the car whenever the unit rate drops super-low. I guess it’s similar to Agile in that respect, although in addition to ad-hoc charging during the day there is also a guaranteed low rate period every night. But to be put on that tariff you have to have a car and a charger that the sign-up form on their website recognises and approves of.

The regular GO tariff is really just the same idea as Economy 7. It gives you super-low rates overnight and slightly more expensive ones the rest of the time. In this case it’s 5 hours overnight but no extra top-up hours during the day. You don’t actually need an EV to go on this tariff because it’s designed for cars and chargers that they don’t support (apparently because the device manufacturer hasn’t built in the necessary software), so they can’t prove whether you’re actually using an EV or not.

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Just had a phone call from the installer … 7kW home charger coming my way in a little under 3 weeks

[SnoopZ]

Over 3 days I've had 7 hrs of completely free Electricity and they will credit my account.

We’ll credit you a total of £5.5 for all of the electricity you used during the Power Ups on 01/01/2025, 02/01/2025, 31/12/2024.

We’ll credit you a total of £5.5 for all of the electricity you used during the Power Ups on 01/01/2025, 02/01/2025, 31/12/2024.

As a collective Power-ups customers have used a total of 5.5GWh spare green electricity, stopping it going to waste and keeping the grid in balance.

Smashing job, well done everyone!

Originally Posted by ianch99

I'm on Go and I do not have an EV.

Originally Posted by Chris

You don’t actually need an EV to go on this tariff

Well I looked it up on their site ;

https://octopus.energy/smart/go/

To join Octopus Go you need to...

* Be an Octopus Energy customer
* Have an electric car and a home EV charger
* Have a smart meter we can connect to

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Paul

Well I looked it up on their site ;

https://octopus.energy/smart/go/

I have both but was not asked for proof. If you want that tariff just say you are thinking of buying an ev over the next month