Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

I don't seem to be able to set the battery to do that on the Givenergy inverter options, it has a lot of options, but a period of reserving charge doesn't seem to be one of them, weirdly.

To stop it using it, I'd have to edit the charge time and % target, and then edit it back again overnight.
 
HungryHippos said:
Yes but my battery capacity isn't unlimited, I can store 8.2KWH and my daily usage is about 16KWH, so with 4 hours covered under the Go rates, I need about 13KWH or so for the rest of the day.

If solar generation is absolutely 0, then I'll be taking 5KWH~ from the grid at peak rates this winter.

I've run some basic maths and I think a 2nd battery wouldn't make fiscal sense unless prices come down. There are a few reasons, but broadly:

1. Price per KWH on the battery is high.
2. On a good day, you won't need to add much charge to the batteries, so a lot of the time, the 2nd battery would be redundant.
3. Limited charge speed at 2.6KW on Givenergy with a single inverter, which means I can only charge 10.4KWH in the Go window (no I can't get onto Go Faster, also it's been removed from new switches as far as I can tell).
4. Even if I could charge both batteries fully, the additional capacity would only come into play on days when solar generation wasn't high enough. Current stats suggest that only recently has generation dropped low enough to really give me a shortfall.

I'd be looking at Nov - Feb as the only months where I really need the 2nd battery, for the rest of the year that extra expense isn't going to be adding much beyond peace of mind that I have more capacity to play with.
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Any way you can cut your consumption down? 16kWh is a fair bit especially if you're not using it for any sort of heating.

I saved a large amount of daily use by changing from an electric cooker to a gas one (propane no gas out in the country).
We prefer to cook on gas so that made the change easier.
 
Octopus confirmed I'm switched to variable direct debit now which is good news and as soon as I give my Gas reading they are happy to refund the full amount so that's decent too. In my account making some interest then!
 
HungryHippos said:
I'd be looking at Nov - Feb as the only months where I really need the 2nd battery, for the rest of the year that extra expense isn't going to be adding much beyond peace of mind that I have more capacity to play with.
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Yep - I made the same decision too.
It wasn’t worth adding another another 5 kWh battery for £2.5k just to cover 4 months of low Winter Solar generation. Especially when the Government are giving us £67 a month which covers this difference :)
 
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Troop said:
Any way you can cut your consumption down? 16kWh is a fair bit especially if you're not using it for any sort of heating.

I saved a large amount of daily use by changing from an electric cooker to a gas one (propane no gas out in the country).
We prefer to cook on gas so that made the change easier.
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Not really, I've always used a fair bit of electric, one of the reasons I wanted the solar in the first place.

House has a base load of 200W even if I'm not using anything specific, so 4.8KWH per day gone immediately for all background stuff. I have a few switches/hubs and things kicking around, and each bathroom/kitchen has an extractor fan as well that runs 24/7 (this is 4 extractors total), so between all of those, 200W.

I run my NAS 24/7 and various associated disks for that, which use about another 200W, so another 4.8KWH. I don't want to switch any of this off at the moment.

Combined, base load of around 400W. Using about 9.6KWH without doing anything unusual, the other 6KWH or so comes from additional usage like cooking, using the PC, watching TV etc.

In the deepest, darkest, depths of winter the additional KWH of electric needed will be around £2/day on the more expensive Go rates, I can live with that. I think my Winter utility bills combined would be around £5-£6/day for all gas and electric. In the summer it would be much closer to £1/day. so on average it will all balance out.
 
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Anybody with Shell Energy got something like this in their most recent bill?

Really weird as I've not changed suppliers since June 2021.

zCljB66.png
 
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chrcoluk said:
Horrific news, as I think this is been funded by the increased SC's then I expect the inflated SC's will stay for at last another year or two now. :( How on earth they lost so much money.
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Indeed, if part is the £2 billion for Octopus and that side then that not such an issue in that it would be recovered over time naturally, the hedging, not hedging etc and when they possibly did ballooning the costs is a larger issue that needs to be heavily reviewed and is painful to see tbh.
 
Anyone with Bulb not had their DD taken this month? No contact from them, they just haven't taken the payment this month which is new :cry:
 
Anyone able to log in to Octopus? I can get in but just a blank page, menu is there from the drop-down bar, but it takes you to a blank screen for all the options.
 
^^ Cheers, just tried again after your post, still the same, logged out then in and were back to normal service :) , not sure what was going on there.
 
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Today is being touted as the first "test" of the electricity market as the wind is going to start dropping off just as we hit peak daily usage this evening, on top of it being a cold-ish spell. The forecast for the next week is warming up a few degrees though which should help.
 
From the 20th October to the 20th November we've used 225kW less electricity than the same time last year and 725kW less gas than the same time last year.

Pre April 2022, the energy we used for that period would have cost £85. Now it's £207 :(
 
Feek said:
From the 20th October to the 20th November we've used 225kW less electricity than the same time last year and 725kW less gas than the same time last year.

Pre April 2022, the energy we used for that period would have cost £85. Now it's £207 :(
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- Last year electricity the household used 224kWh from 1st November to 21st November billed at £34.12
- This year electricity I've used 68kWh in same period costing £22.94.
- If had used same as last year then it would have been £75.57 and last year was a super low month, we was more regularly using 450kWh a month prior to all this.

That is ignoring the increase in daily charges etc.
 
[
Feek said:
we've used 225kW less electricity than the same time last year
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... can't include the saving from the hungry PoI router was it 6Kw / day
]

HungryHippos said:
I wish there was something like this but targeted at those of us with home batteries.

Give me some credits for charging my battery a few hours before peak, and then charge me extra for using it during the session, that will incentivise people like me to charge the battery and keep usage local for the session.
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It already works like that - in day baseline adjustment from earlier post using 6 prior segment
In Day Adjustment = Sum(Yesterday’s half-hour n - Today’s half-hour n) / 6 : 1…n…6
Baselined Value = Unadjusted baseline (for each weekday/weekend half hour typical usage) + In Day Adjustment (average half hourly up/down)
..
game on , as suggested
on the day of a Saving Session, shift any load to be the 3 hours before the Savings Session (to increase In Day Adjustment).
eg. Charge your car for the 3 hours before the Saving Session (to increase the In Day Adjustment). Obviously switch off during the Saving Session (decrease usage during the Saving Session).
While the rebate is £3/kWh and you'll charge the car at no more than 42p/kWh. 21 kWh x £2.58 = £54.18?
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