Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

SDK^ · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:13

Octopus Saving Sessions : 13,288 (£16.61)

The convenience of having battery storage; I schedule the battery to discharge during the sessions, meaning we can carry on as normal, just pulling from the battery and not the grid

Then my wife puts the dishwasher on at 10pm, forgetting to set a 3 hour start timer :cry:

Usage for the 23rd

Curlyriff · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:19

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I am saying your logic is flawed.
TBH its typical "lower user" logic.

I disagree with penalising, I am saying we should be moving to variable cost.
If the total cost of every unit consumed is less (it should be as it will encourage movement to lower cost periods) everyone in total will pay less.
The spikes will be lower and hence the additional very expensive loads will be lower or not used

Variable pricing would naturally punish those who didn't switch.

WFH, children, medical requirements, low income etc, the majority would or should see lower bills.

WFH, Children, medical requirement would all see higher bills because they would not be able to swtich their usage out of the peak times at all. That is the point, WFH maybe.

off-peak power though is 11pm to 8am so how do you shift all your usage to off peak or even the majority for any of those people? The lower cost periods are currently during sleeping hours which doesn't make just shifting to variable as peak/off-peak the majority would still all be on peak with that time. Absolute peak times are 5pm to 8pm. So now do we need 3 variable times.

Day Peak (8am - 5pm)
Evening Peak (5pm - 8pm)
Off-Peak (8pm - 8am)

Where does the variable switch come in because at moment our standard isn't correct to being able to load shift the majority of people. Medical will always be at issue as those people are having to use medical equipment 24/7 and their usage is already signficantly higher. I feel your logic is flawed because the reality is for most it would cost signifcantly more than they are already paying.

413x · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:20

CaptainRAVE said:
For £1 is not even worth my time signing up.

This.

Better use of time would be to wander the streets for an hour and pick up loose change.
Much better ways to spend time to gain a pound than this.

What would make me change? Having a cheap unit happy hour. If I knew between hours of 10am and 11am unit rate was half every Wednesday for example I'd put the dishwasher and tumble dryer on during that time. Minimal faff.

I'm not going to mess around with points and savings and averages over arbitrary times for pennies

One More Solo · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:21

Curlyriff said:
Penalising is awful idea though. I am already only using between 1.3kWh to 3kWh a day depending if I am in or not. Why should I get penalised when I am already minimising the usage? How does that work for those with babies that need warmed milk or similar when they need it and thus might have to use the power during these penalised periods etc. What about those whom are heavy user due to home medical equipment that are already struggling.

I'm not advocating either way, just saying that the current incentive scheme is not enough to change behaviours for most people.

Variable pricing OTOH seems like a good idea.

413x · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:24

One More Solo said:
I'm not advocating either way, just saying that the current incentive scheme is not enough to change behaviours for most people.

Variable pricing OTOH seems like a good idea.

Absolutely. Especially when the current scheme is random. It's not every week or anything.
It needs to be regular, worth it and measurable.

Not this stupid points system. I hate points. Points are only used to manipulate people into thinking they are getting more than they are.

Only way I'd care about the current system is if I was watching my money to the pound.

Just make a discounted unit rate per day for a time frame. Job done.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:36

Curlyriff said:
WFH, Children, medical requirement would all see higher bills because they would not be able to swtich their usage out of the peak times at all. That is the point, WFH maybe.

off-peak power though is 11pm to 8am so how do you shift all your usage to off peak or even the majority for any of those people? The lower cost periods are currently during sleeping hours which doesn't make just shifting to variable as peak/off-peak the majority would still all be on peak with that time. Absolute peak times are 5pm to 8pm. So now do we need 3 variable times.

Day Peak (8am - 5pm)
Evening Peak (5pm - 8pm)
Off-Peak (8pm - 8am)

Where does the variable switch come in because at moment our standard isn't correct to being able to load shift the majority of people. Medical will always be at issue as those people are having to use medical equipment 24/7 and their usage is already signficantly higher. I feel your logic is flawed because the reality is for most it would cost signifcantly more than they are already paying.

Day peak is not those times at all
No wonder your struggling

Take a look at something like Octopus agile pricing (which is time of use based) and see how much it varies with only a few relatively short real peak periods

Sinbad2000 · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:40

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Day peak is not those times at all
No wonder your struggling

Take a look at something like Octopus agile pricing (which is time of use based) and see how much it varies with only a few relatively short real peak periods

Yeah no

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 26 Jan 2023 at 14:53

Sinbad2000 said:
Yeah no

Thats because its capped
If you could see real graph it would be nothing like that.

Go back a year or so when the pricing was not artificially limited so you can see what the half hourly pricing really looks like.
It used to go negative at times as well.

You can see a lot of the data here

Octopus Agile East Midlands | Energy Stats UK

View historical tariff data for Octopus Agile East Midlands back to 2018. Claim £50 of free credit when joining Octopus Energy.

www.energy-stats.uk

Your graph would look different with out the 35p cap, look how its evolved to reflect real market prices.

AGILE-18-02-21 – The original version capped at 35p per unit
AGILE-22-07-22 – The cap rose to 55p
AGILE-22-08-31 – The cap was increased to 78p
AGILE-VAR-22-10-19 – This version raised the cap to £1 per unit and also introduced a new formula.
AGILE-FLEX-22-11-25 – Cap stays at £1 per unit but new formula only deducts 17.9p from higher unit prices.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:02

Example, 26th Jan 2019, 26th Jan 2020 see how short but relatively high the real peaks are

2019-01-26T00:00:00Z	00:00	A	Eastern_England	12.348
2019-01-26T00:30:00Z	00:30	A	Eastern_England	13.671
2019-01-26T01:00:00Z	01:00	A	Eastern_England	12.306
2019-01-26T01:30:00Z	01:30	A	Eastern_England	11.025
2019-01-26T02:00:00Z	02:00	A	Eastern_England	10.3425
2019-01-26T02:30:00Z	02:30	A	Eastern_England	10.038
2019-01-26T03:00:00Z	03:00	A	Eastern_England	10.3635
2019-01-26T03:30:00Z	03:30	A	Eastern_England	9.786
2019-01-26T04:00:00Z	04:00	A	Eastern_England	9.66
2019-01-26T04:30:00Z	04:30	A	Eastern_England	9.4815
2019-01-26T05:00:00Z	05:00	A	Eastern_England	9.9225
2019-01-26T05:30:00Z	05:30	A	Eastern_England	9.9225
2019-01-26T06:00:00Z	06:00	A	Eastern_England	11.1825
2019-01-26T06:30:00Z	06:30	A	Eastern_England	11.025
2019-01-26T07:00:00Z	07:00	A	Eastern_England	10.3635
2019-01-26T07:30:00Z	07:30	A	Eastern_England	10.584
2019-01-26T08:00:00Z	08:00	A	Eastern_England	11.445
2019-01-26T08:30:00Z	08:30	A	Eastern_England	11.802
2019-01-26T09:00:00Z	09:00	A	Eastern_England	12.1275
2019-01-26T09:30:00Z	09:30	A	Eastern_England	12.5685
2019-01-26T10:00:00Z	10:00	A	Eastern_England	12.348
2019-01-26T10:30:00Z	10:30	A	Eastern_England	12.348
2019-01-26T11:00:00Z	11:00	A	Eastern_England	12.264
2019-01-26T11:30:00Z	11:30	A	Eastern_England	12.264
2019-01-26T12:00:00Z	12:00	A	Eastern_England	11.823
2019-01-26T12:30:00Z	12:30	A	Eastern_England	11.823
2019-01-26T13:00:00Z	13:00	A	Eastern_England	11.2875
2019-01-26T13:30:00Z	13:30	A	Eastern_England	11.2875
2019-01-26T14:00:00Z	14:00	A	Eastern_England	11.466
2019-01-26T14:30:00Z	14:30	A	Eastern_England	11.6865
2019-01-26T15:00:00Z	15:00	A	Eastern_England	11.2455
2019-01-26T15:30:00Z	15:30	A	Eastern_England	11.907
2019-01-26T16:00:00Z	16:00	A	Eastern_England	24.4545
2019-01-26T16:30:00Z	16:30	A	Eastern_England	29.547
2019-01-26T17:00:00Z	17:00	A	Eastern_England	31.0275
2019-01-26T17:30:00Z	17:30	A	Eastern_England	32.613
2019-01-26T18:00:00Z	18:00	A	Eastern_England	30.849
2019-01-26T18:30:00Z	18:30	A	Eastern_England	29.526
2019-01-26T19:00:00Z	19:00	A	Eastern_England	14.217
2019-01-26T19:30:00Z	19:30	A	Eastern_England	13.23
2019-01-26T20:00:00Z	20:00	A	Eastern_England	11.6865
2019-01-26T20:30:00Z	20:30	A	Eastern_England	11.361
2019-01-26T21:00:00Z	21:00	A	Eastern_England	11.6865
2019-01-26T21:30:00Z	21:30	A	Eastern_England	11.361
2019-01-26T22:00:00Z	22:00	A	Eastern_England	11.6865
2019-01-26T22:30:00Z	22:30	A	Eastern_England	11.025
2019-01-26T23:00:00Z	23:00	A	Eastern_England	10.3425
2019-01-26T23:30:00Z	23:30	A	Eastern_England	10.143

2020-01-26T00:00:00Z	00:00	A	Eastern_England	6.615
2020-01-26T00:30:00Z	00:30	A	Eastern_England	8.778
2020-01-26T01:00:00Z	01:00	A	Eastern_England	5.733
2020-01-26T01:30:00Z	01:30	A	Eastern_England	4.5465
2020-01-26T02:00:00Z	02:00	A	Eastern_England	7.497
2020-01-26T02:30:00Z	02:30	A	Eastern_England	5.0715
2020-01-26T03:00:00Z	03:00	A	Eastern_England	7.497
2020-01-26T03:30:00Z	03:30	A	Eastern_England	5.0715
2020-01-26T04:00:00Z	04:00	A	Eastern_England	6.174
2020-01-26T04:30:00Z	04:30	A	Eastern_England	5.0715
2020-01-26T05:00:00Z	05:00	A	Eastern_England	5.292
2020-01-26T05:30:00Z	05:30	A	Eastern_England	5.292
2020-01-26T06:00:00Z	06:00	A	Eastern_England	5.292
2020-01-26T06:30:00Z	06:30	A	Eastern_England	5.292
2020-01-26T07:00:00Z	07:00	A	Eastern_England	6.09
2020-01-26T07:30:00Z	07:30	A	Eastern_England	5.4705
2020-01-26T08:00:00Z	08:00	A	Eastern_England	4.41
2020-01-26T08:30:00Z	08:30	A	Eastern_England	7.056
2020-01-26T09:00:00Z	09:00	A	Eastern_England	5.9535
2020-01-26T09:30:00Z	09:30	A	Eastern_England	8.82
2020-01-26T10:00:00Z	10:00	A	Eastern_England	7.392
2020-01-26T10:30:00Z	10:30	A	Eastern_England	8.1585
2020-01-26T11:00:00Z	11:00	A	Eastern_England	7.938
2020-01-26T11:30:00Z	11:30	A	Eastern_England	7.455
2020-01-26T12:00:00Z	12:00	A	Eastern_England	8.82
2020-01-26T12:30:00Z	12:30	A	Eastern_England	9.786
2020-01-26T13:00:00Z	13:00	A	Eastern_England	9.702
2020-01-26T13:30:00Z	13:30	A	Eastern_England	9.4815
2020-01-26T14:00:00Z	14:00	A	Eastern_England	9.4815
2020-01-26T14:30:00Z	14:30	A	Eastern_England	8.1585
2020-01-26T15:00:00Z	15:00	A	Eastern_England	7.476
2020-01-26T15:30:00Z	15:30	A	Eastern_England	9.4815
2020-01-26T16:00:00Z	16:00	A	Eastern_England	22.6905
2020-01-26T16:30:00Z	16:30	A	Eastern_England	25.7775
2020-01-26T17:00:00Z	17:00	A	Eastern_England	25.7775
2020-01-26T17:30:00Z	17:30	A	Eastern_England	25.7985
2020-01-26T18:00:00Z	18:00	A	Eastern_England	25.7775
2020-01-26T18:30:00Z	18:30	A	Eastern_England	24.4545
2020-01-26T19:00:00Z	19:00	A	Eastern_England	11.025
2020-01-26T19:30:00Z	19:30	A	Eastern_England	9.597
2020-01-26T20:00:00Z	20:00	A	Eastern_England	9.9225

HungryHippos · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:17

Curlyriff said:
Aye I have no problem. I wasn't expecting anything. I am just confused why someone would suggest the way to possibly go is to penalise people instead. How would it work. I just wanted to see some more thought about it. Such as if you went that way

Base daily usage allowance to be agreed 5kWh a day or something

Medical exemption for those that use medical equipment at home, be that a general blanket exemption or it needs further assement where medical equipment gets an allowance on top of daily

Those with children under 4yrs (preschool) get a higher daily allowance of say 10kWh

Work From Home have 10kWh allowance for days accordingly.

That sort of thing. But it huge amount of admin work and to make sure it is not abused so then is it worth the cost relative.

The best solution is to get more people onto a tariff like Agile where unit pricing can be set every 30 mins, and then incentivise people with cheaper rates outside of peak hours, potentially charging more for peak hours.

You want to give people a reason to move load, to ultimately save money, that is the best way to do it.

If you pay £0.20 per kwh between 12:00 - 17:00 but £0.60 17:00 - 19:00 then you will do what you can to use stuff in the earlier time slot, and use less in the more expensive later on.

Pricing reflecting grid demand and actual costs to generate the electric you use, it won't work for everyone, but for those who are determined to pay less it will be a way of doing it.

jpaul · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:18

Sinbad2000 said:
Yeah no

still surprising the government EPG permitted them to do that, tax payer subsidising during peaks, but at other times they are not contributing fully to refill coffers,
the people on economy 7 haved been s**** over though.

Sinbad2000 · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:21

jpaul said:
still surprising the government EPG permitted them to do that, tax payer subsidising during peaks, but at other times they are not contributing fully to refill coffers,
the people on economy 7 haved been s**** over though.

On the other hand, during the real peak the other day, the unit rate went above the 32p cap...

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:22

HungryHippos said:
The best solution is to get more people onto a tariff like Agile where unit pricing can be set every 30 mins, and then incentivise people with cheaper rates outside of peak hours, potentially charging more for peak hours.

You want to give people a reason to move load, to ultimately save money, that is the best way to do it.

If you pay £0.20 per kwh between 12:00 - 17:00 but £0.60 17:00 - 19:00 then you will do what you can to use stuff in the earlier time slot, and use less in the more expensive later on.

Pricing reflecting grid demand and actual costs to generate the electric you use, it won't work for everyone, but for those who are determined to pay less it will be a way of doing it.

And extrapolating that on

As more people shift the premium will reduce as the most expensive generation being used in those periods will not be called upon.
The whole system will be drawn to the most effective lowest average rate.

It provides potentially large savings for most individuals, really high savings for those willing to go most out of their way, and an overall lower average to everyone who has for example a high base load due to medical equipment.

Its a total win win, apart for a small subset who use and insist they can only ever use most of their energy when the grid as paying the highest prices possible.
**** them I say.

HungryHippos · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:24

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
And extrapolating that on

As more people shift the premium will reduce as the most expensive generation being used in those periods will not be called upon.
The whole system will be drawn to the most effective lowest average rate.

It provides potentially large savings for most individuals, really high savings for those willing to go most out of their way, and an overall lower average to everyone who has for example a high base load due to medical equipment.

Its a total win win, apart for a small subset who use and insist they can only ever use most of their energy when the grid as paying the highest prices possible.
**** them I say.

For those that really won't change behaviour they can just stay on cap pricing and pay the same all the time, but they will be unlikely to save much in real £ terms and these saving sessions will do nothing for them as well.

The system of variable pricing rewards those who try much better.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:26

Sinbad2000 said:
On the other hand, during the real peak the other day, the unit rate went above the 32p cap...

Its 35p and has been since forever on agile. Well in my area anyway.
It then depends on when someone signed up, if you sign up now (practically mad IMO) its £1 cap.

The summer months and especially windy ones are when the pricing tends to get most peaky, since thats when you often see the negative pricing or silly low pricing times.

I believe they are applying the unit discount max from the government.

HungryHippos said:
For those that really won't change behaviour they can just stay on cap pricing and pay the same all the time, but they will be unlikely to save much in real £ terms and these saving sessions will do nothing for them as well.

The system of variable pricing rewards those who try much better.

I suspect once (I think its inevitable) the majority are coming round to demand pricing you will be able to get a fixed price non TOU tariff, but I expect by then they will be £lol per unit.
I mean to want to be on one your clearly saying you expect to use most when unit prices at grid level are peaking.

Curlyriff · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:35

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Day peak is not those times at all
No wonder your struggling

Take a look at something like Octopus agile pricing (which is time of use based) and see how much it varies with only a few relatively short real peak periods

The peak/off peak for the industry standards is exactly those times and why Economy 7 is built to them. The point is what is classed as peak/off-peak and giving it fixed times, not a moving agile target otherwise people can't aim to load outside of said times. However others have their own version of off-peak

SSE for isntance has 3 options
Off-Peak E starting between 10pm and 12am and last 8 hours from when starts
Off-Peak F 1.30pm to 4pm and 11pm to 7am off peak, all other times on peak
Off-Peak Fx used for storage heaters where cheap is bewtween 4am to 2.30pm and rest all on peak

So yeah within reason the on-peak time is till rather late at night with 11pm average as per tarrifs set which is roughly based on the national grid information provided.

HungryHippos said:
The best solution is to get more people onto a tariff like Agile where unit pricing can be set every 30 mins, and then incentivise people with cheaper rates outside of peak hours, potentially charging more for peak hours.

You want to give people a reason to move load, to ultimately save money, that is the best way to do it.

If you pay £0.20 per kwh between 12:00 - 17:00 but £0.60 17:00 - 19:00 then you will do what you can to use stuff in the earlier time slot, and use less in the more expensive later on.

Pricing reflecting grid demand and actual costs to generate the electric you use, it won't work for everyone, but for those who are determined to pay less it will be a way of doing it.

Again that is 100%% fine if you are able to shift. What do the people whom physically can't shift. The current on-peak times average from 5pm till 11pm which means you get home from work and can't cook at all as it is all an on-peak rate right now. And what about those whom are forced to use 24/7 medical equipment during their on-peak higher price. They will be stung much harder than those whom are running a dishwsaher and can load shift to after 11pm as example.

jpaul · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:43

HungryHippos said:
If you pay £0.20 per kwh between 12:00 - 17:00 but £0.60 17:00 - 19:00 then you will do what you can to use stuff in the earlier time slot, and use less in the more expensive later on.

^ exactly - this is a myth that there is loads of shiftable stuff - on the news they talked about moving charging your car, washing your clothes, dishwasher , which are easy,
but there is a core of consumption that isn't , which explains why octopus savings are so small,
we need some different time zones in the UK, or take energy efficiently from other zoned countries

reposting

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:47

Curlyriff said:
The peak/off peak for the industry standards is exactly those times and why Economy 7 is built to them. The point is what is classed as peak/off-peak and giving it fixed times, not a moving agile target otherwise people can't aim to load outside of said times. However others have their own version of off-peak

SSE for isntance has 3 options
Off-Peak E starting between 10pm and 12am and last 8 hours from when starts
Off-Peak F 1.30pm to 4pm and 11pm to 7am off peak, all other times on peak
Off-Peak Fx used for storage heaters where cheap is bewtween 4am to 2.30pm and rest all on peak

So yeah within reason the on-peak time is till rather late at night with 11pm average as per tarrifs set which is roughly based on the national grid information provided.

Again that is 100%% fine if you are able to shift. What do the people whom physically can't shift. The current on-peak times average from 5pm till 11pm which means you get home from work and can't cook at all as it is all an on-peak rate right now. And what about those whom are forced to use 24/7 medical equipment during their on-peak higher price. They will be stung much harder than those whom are running a dishwsaher and can load shift to after 11pm as example.

We absolutely should not be giving it fixed times.
Fixed times just draw the wrong behaviour, because the generation is not fixed.

Its archaic thinking.

jpaul said:
^ exactly - this is a myth that there is loads of shiftable stuff - on the news they talked about moving charging your car, washing your clothes, dishwasher , which are easy,
but there is a core of consumption that isn't , which explains why octopus savings are so small,
we need some different time zones in the UK, or take energy efficiently from other zoned countries

reposting

Its all moveable. It doesnt require stonking great batteries, even relatively small batteries could make the majority nigh on none from grid during the genuine grid peaks.

I wouldnt get too hung up on the data from the trial, they were limited in users and time, and electricity was still cheap for most.

Saying that I still dont think its the right way of doing it, but again, its based on the industry model they use and suspect they will rethink for next year.

Curlyriff · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:53

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
We absolutely should not be giving it fixed times.
Fixed times just draw the wrong behaviour, because the generation is not fixed.

Its archaic thinking.

Its all moveable. It doesnt require stonking great batteries, even relatively small batteries could make the majority nigh on none from grid during the genuine grid peaks.

I wouldnt get too hung up on the data from the trial, they were limited in users and time, and electricity was still cheap for most.

Saying that I still dont think its the right way of doing it, but again, its based on the industry model they use and suspect they will rethink for next year.

Okay if you don't know when peak is because it is agile, how do you know when to load shift to and not to get stung by a higher charge? When do I know if I can cook at 6pm, 7pm, 8pm if the price where the load is high and thus the unit charge is higher falls on that day? Without giving fixed times there is no way to be able to plan when you can move or load shift out a time frame.

robj20 · 26 Jan 2023 at 15:57

Why are they messing around with points. Why not just automatically credit your account?