Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

SaBBz said:
Just signed up to Octopus via a family member’s referral link for the £50. However, I noticed that they have an Agile tariff which charges based on wholesale prices in half hour windows. Is there any downside to this with the EPG? If the price is less than 34p/kWh then I assume I pay less but if it’s more does the EPG bring it back down to that price?
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I didn't think Agile was available for new customers but I see I was wrong. Waiting with great interest for answers to this.
/edit Found this:

Agile customers are able to check energy prices for the following day online and through the Octopus app at 4:30pm every day. This allows them to see when the cheapest windows will be the next day, giving them control over their consumption and a better idea of their daily spend. As a simple rule of thumb, because there is always a large peak between 4pm and 7pm, all Agile customers need to do is adjust their consumption away from that time to benefit overall from the tariff. While extreme price spikes are rare and short-lived, typically lasting 30 minutes to an hour, they do happen. To protect customers from this, Agile includes Price Cap Protect, ensuring customers never pay more than 35p per kWh.
Sauce: https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/agile-report.pdf
 
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fez said:
From what I understand, your house has to be reasonably thermally sound or they simply can't keep up with the heat loss and you end up with a system that costs an absolute fortune to run and doesn't actually give you a warm house.
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Yeah certainly not ready for the masses yet. Due to our ***** housing. But efficiencies and improvements and maybe new tech will come soon.
 
Sinbad2000 said:
I didn't think Agile was available for new customers but I see I was wrong. Waiting with great interest for answers to this.
/edit Found this:

Agile customers are able to check energy prices for the following day online and through the Octopus app at 4:30pm every day. This allows them to see when the cheapest windows will be the next day, giving them control over their consumption and a better idea of their daily spend. As a simple rule of thumb, because there is always a large peak between 4pm and 7pm, all Agile customers need to do is adjust their consumption away from that time to benefit overall from the tariff. While extreme price spikes are rare and short-lived, typically lasting 30 minutes to an hour, they do happen. To protect customers from this, Agile includes Price Cap Protect, ensuring customers never pay more than 35p per kWh.
Sauce: https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/agile-report.pdf
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Be warned price cap potentially going up in April.
 
squerble said:
You've actually hit on the issue - poorly insulated. Insulating our housing is the biggest thing we need right now.

As for the green technology, it is ASHP/GSHP. They'll take our domestic energy usage down to a third of what it is now.
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Until government provide cash for insulating rather than wasted projects (I'm looking at you Hs2) ASHP just won't be viable for the vast majority.

Who's going to spend 10-20+k on the whole thing?

Even if cost of the machines come down I can't see it being cost effective for most for a long time.

I'd have one absolutely, if the cost wasn't astronomical
 
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Sinbad2000 said:
I didn't think Agile was available for new customers but I see I was wrong. Waiting with great interest for answers to this.
/edit Found this:

Agile customers are able to check energy prices for the following day online and through the Octopus app at 4:30pm every day. This allows them to see when the cheapest windows will be the next day, giving them control over their consumption and a better idea of their daily spend. As a simple rule of thumb, because there is always a large peak between 4pm and 7pm, all Agile customers need to do is adjust their consumption away from that time to benefit overall from the tariff. While extreme price spikes are rare and short-lived, typically lasting 30 minutes to an hour, they do happen. To protect customers from this, Agile includes Price Cap Protect, ensuring customers never pay more than 35p per kWh.
Sauce: https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/agile-report.pdf
Click to expand...
I would definitely consider agile if I get booted off go faster... however I don't think my home battery system is capable of automatically tying into the system.
one exists but it's not mine and I am not changing it just for that.
as it stands I have set charging for my batterym it's the same every day (my cheap rate). if I want to change this I need to go in the attic.

for agile to really work for me I need my system to fully integrate and monitor my energy usage and then configure ittself daily when to charge, and then also to make sure that 1) I have enough battery charge for when energy is at its more expensive and 2) not to be too conservative and to make sure the battery is as discharged as possible so can recharge when energy is a tnits cheapest.

personally it isn't practical for me to configure manually.
 
RE home insulation and house breathing

I am pretty fed up to be honest. 10 years ago I got full wall and loft insulation, heavily discounted with government grant.
it still cost me iirc £500 .since then we have some issues with black mould (not terrible but it's a pain)

I am now getting phonecalls offering to remove it for again around £500. this is wrong imo. I was pressured to have it done in the 1st place. if it's not fit for purpose it should be removed FOC and replaced with what does work imo
technically the original job was not fit for purpose.
 
bigmike20vt said:
RE home insulation and house breathing

I am pretty fed up to be honest. 10 years ago I got full wall and loft insulation, heavily discounted with government grant.
it still cost me iirc £500 .since then we have some issues with black mould (not terrible but it's a pain)

I am now getting phonecalls offering to remove it for again around £500. this is wrong imo. I was pressured to have it done in the 1st place. if it's not fit for purpose it should be removed FOC and replaced with what does work imo
technically the original job was not fit for purpose.
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Leave it in, leave it alone. There's no need to remove it.
 
GaryTheSnail said:
So complain to them then tell them to redo it or fix the problem.
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The company who installed mine went belly up in 2015.... actually it is confusing as a google confirms they did go under and are now defunct........ but equally they still have a web page, and seem to be trading.

so i guess they managed to go into administration, then sold their name or something to someone else.... (it was the Mark Group)

but getting them to fix the problem wont be easy. i could contact the CIGA i suppose....... I am not sure your advise of just live with it is great however....... we may do as it happens, i am still unsure, our black mould issue is only slight and the house IS warmer and we use a lot less gas than we used to, which is great in the current climate..............

but some people have had some awful problems, with £10K+ worth of damage as well as health issues.
 
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Yaayuh! said:
December's gas bill: £530


LOLOLOLOLOL
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christ! just for gas? is that a business or do you have a big house?

We have pretty much made all the cuts we can without being too put out (i am taking the brunt of the saccrifices whilst WFH but we have a 7 year old and am not gonna have him feeling too cold, esp as he has some mild chest issues.)

what we pay is irrelevant as we are all on different tarrifs but in december we used 384kwh of electricity (most off peak pricing thankfully and 1243kwh of gas in essentially a fairly large 4 bed house

a lot more than usual, but we were at home over xmas a lot and had elderly family staying. definitely felt the pinch tho, hopefully this will be our highest monthly use of the year.
 
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Just checked my octopus account. I was ready for some bad news. Couldn't stay on the gravy train forever.

-£360

That will stay in negative for as long as it can. This year I am changing the way I look at finance. Everything is going on credit cards and 0% loan offers. I'm not spending any of my own money until I absolutely have to. Protection is the main reason.
 
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