Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

OFGEM really are a waste a space.

In my mind, an industry regulator serves two important purposes; protect and safeguard the industry its regulating but also protect the consumer ensuring best possible outcomes.

I work in the financial services industry and say what you like about the FCA, they do an alright job of both counts, especially when it comes to protecting the consumer. Their guidelines to firms are all around ensuring best possible outcomes for consumers and they've taken strong action against lots of lenders over the years.

I despair at OFGEM, I really do. The consumer really is an absolute after thought behind protecting the cartel of companies it regulates.
 
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With the new guideline prices, my bill might come down by about 12% - not as much as I'd like to see, but it's better than nothing.

Understandably, there's a lot of all-round frustration regarding the standing charges. Weren't we told that this was to pay for all new renewable energy, to help prevent us being so vulnerable to gas and oil prices in the future?
 
GuruJockStrap said:
OFGEM really are a waste a space.
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agree the female director who resigned because they weren't overhauling the standing charge (& removing usage components, impacting poor most) said it all,
they just maintain status quo - but not a priority for Rishi ... and Keir is just tilting at windmills


McPhee said:
No. The difference is that Octopus are using variable pricing in conjunction with day-ahead rates. So Agile, for example, is 2.2x the wholesale cost, plus an extra 12p per kWh between 4pm and 7pm. There's a 100p cap, but that means their profit margin is protected up to £400 per MWh wholesale costs.

Suppliers went bust because they were relying on market stability to protect profitability, rather than buying energy ahead or varying their retail prices with changing costs.
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Octopus are still only drip feeding a small % of clients onto the tracker tarifs, and they have fallback of hedged purchase on svr to finance the majority, and provide sanctuary to the tracker/co users if the prices shoot up this winter,
they are getting useful data from customer behaviour on these (experimental) tarifs though, which might help more widely decouple the electric price to gas.
Absence of stabilization charges which they would be liable to if they opened these contracts widely to everyone, is a current loophole with which they are taking their gamble.
 
Forgive me for the question that's probably been asked 1000 times. But for someone who's currently on Flexible Octopus, is there a better tariff I should be on for Octopus?

Electricity is 33p/kWh (48p standing charge)
Gas is 10p/kWh (27p standing charge)
 
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Steedie said:
Forgive me for the question that's probably been asked 1000 times. But for someone who's currently on Flexible Octopus, is there a better tariff I should be on for Octopus?

Electricity is 33p/kWh (48p standing charge)
Gas is 10p/kWh (27p standing charge)
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Tracker. But it has a 6 month waiting list.

If you have a smart meter, you can likely move your electricity straight over to Agile though. I'm averaging around 17p per day for electricity on Agile at the moment.
 
SDK^ said:
Otctopus have a 9month wait to rejoin if you leave a tracker
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interesting is that just for tracker , or are they changing other T&C's too.

wondering if they are doing that to entice people to join octopus and then transfer
.. and circumvent ongoing ofgen restrictions
Condition 22B. Requirements to make all tariffs available to new and existing customers 22B.1 Subject to paragraph 22B.2, the licensee must ensure that all its Tariffs are available to, and are capable of being entered into by, both new and existing Domestic Customers. 22B.2 Paragraph 22B.1 does not apply to: (a) A Closed Fixed Term Tariff; (b) A Collective Switching Tariff; (c) A Dead Tariff which complies with standard condition 22D; and (d) Tariffs only offered to a particular group of Domestic Customers defined on the basis of criteria specified by the licensee, provided that the criteria do not in any way relate to whether or not the Domestic Customer is a new or existing Domestic Customer

24A.1 If the licensee is an Acquiring Supplier in respect of a Domestic Customer, and the Losing Supplier Loss Trigger is met in respect of that Domestic Customer, it must pay the Market Stabilisation Charge (if any): (a) calculated in accordance with the guidance issued by the Authority on this SLC 24A; and (b) administered in accordance with the requirements of the Retail Energy Code, to such person as may be specified in the Retail Energy Code and for the benefit of the relevant Losing Supplier.
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i need to contact OCtopus at some point..... i am not interested in trackers, but would like to know if they are ok flip flopping between intelligent and Flux.

ideally i would like to be on Flux April - September and intelligent octopus between october and March

but they may think that is a bit of cakeism . Either way i will be changing to IO come october after only being on Flux for 6 months, however i didnt qualify for IO when i chose to go onto Flux, where as i do now.
 
bigmike20vt said:
i need to contact OCtopus at some point..... i am not interested in trackers, but would like to know if they are ok flip flopping between intelligent and Flux.

ideally i would like to be on Flux April - September and intelligent octopus between october and March

but they may think that is a bit of cakeism . Either way i will be changing to IO come october after only being on Flux for 6 months, however i didnt qualify for IO when i chose to go onto Flux, where as i do now.
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It will depend on your EV milage and your export capability but for most the difference in cost between the two is very little.

If you are skewed towards higher milage then IO works out better, if you have a massive solar array then flux and don’t drive much then but really it’s very minimal.

A bad August for solar could be the difference as could having a heavy milage month over the summer. it’s very much a case of getting a spreadsheet out and doing the math.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
It will depend on your EV milage and your export capability but for most the difference in cost between the two is very little.

If you are screed towards higher milage then IO works out better, if you have a massive solar array then flux and don’t drive much then but really it’s very minimal.
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maybe for some but for my use case i will save a significant amount of cash if i can flip flop.

right now i can charge my car at work for 14p kwh. (more than IO but less than Flux cheap rate and on top of that flux is only 3 hrs).

in the summer months i am making bank with flux, i expect if i charge my car at work i will have negative combined energy bills from May through to August, with April and September being close to zero.

in winter however my solar panels are not useless, but not that far off (a couple of kwh per day) at this point i am relying far more on my battery and my ability to push energy use off peak.... and it is there where the 7.5p 6hrs off peak of IO really shines. At this point i would also charge my car at home as well (7.5p is less than 14p)

this month for instance i have exported 321kw at an average of around 26p a kwh and i have imported 132kwh at 20.5p kwh and still with 6 days to go.

IO is on the SEG so that 26p export average is reduced to........ 4.2pkwh iirc.

i doubt we will do much more than 8 - 10k miles per year in the car with around 2.7miles per kwh.

IF i cant flipflop and have to stick, then i think IO will edge it.
 
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