Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

I’m not defending OFGEM here (or the suppliers) but a part of their remit is to ensure suppliers remain viable (E.g. they can be profitable). If it isn’t sufficiently profitable, players would just exit the market as many have done in the past like npower. It has to actually be worth participating in the market and be sustainable.

At the end of the these are private business and we live in a capitalist country. Their purpose is to make a profit. The profits made by say BG (excluding the rest of centrica) are not huge. £x million sounds like a big number but it really isn’t when you literally have millions of customers who spend >£2k with them a year.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I’m not defending OFGEM here (or the suppliers) but a part of their remit is to ensure suppliers remain viable (E.g. they can be profitable). If it isn’t sufficiently profitable, players would just exit the market as many have done in the past like npower. It has to actually be worth participating in the market and be sustainable.

At the end of the these are private business and we live in a capitalist country. Their purpose is to make a profit. The profits made by say BG (excluding the rest of centrica) are not huge. £x million sounds like a big number but it really isn’t when you literally have millions of customers who spend >£2k with them a year.
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I understand the need to ensure the market is viable. However, the upshot of that seems to be at the detriment to domestic households. Whatever efforts are made to reduce usage, be more efficient, change usage behaviours is now offset by the presenting a drop in unit costs but which are then subsidised by increasing the standing charges to ensure a certain margin of profitability for the suppliers. This will only get more pronounced as households become more efficient whether that is through move to solar / EV / battery storage or other technologies.
 
darkgen said:
I understand the need to ensure the market is viable. However, the upshot of that seems to be at the detriment to domestic households. Whatever efforts are made to reduce usage, be more efficient, change usage behaviours is now offset by the presenting a drop in unit costs but which are then subsidised by increasing the standing charges to ensure a certain margin of profitability for the suppliers. This will only get more pronounced as households become more efficient whether that is through move to solar / EV / battery storage or other technologies.
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The counter argument to that is the cost of maintaining a customers account who buys in 1,000 kwh to someone who uses 10,000 kWh is probably negligible to the retailer.

Edit: to add to the above, it’s likely the poorer in society will have the biggest bills going forward because they can’t afford to invent in Solar or they are in rental accommodation so can’t.
 
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My renewal offer has come through. Interesting that they are now variable rarther than fixed terrms on Go.





My car and charger are not compatible with Intelligent so i'm going to, have to, stay on Go. I think i'll add some mnore PV soon as 9.5p has doubled what I was paying 18 months ago. The ROI is looking like it might work now.
 
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john_smith said:
My renewal offer has come through. Interesting that they are now variable rarther than fixed terrms on Go.

My car and charger are not compatible with Intelligent so i'm going to, have to, stay on Go. I think i'll add some mnore PV soon as 9.5p has doubled what I was paying 18 months ago. The ROI is looking like it might work now.
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It's worth getting the Octopus Compare app and using it to compare their other tariffs too. The EV-specific tariffs aren't necessarily the cheapest. Tracker and Agile have been hundreds of pounds cheaper than Go for me YTD. The difference is about £80 this past month alone!

Also, it's quite amusing to think that by roughly doubling my charging costs (vs Go) I'm saving around 40% on my electricity bill. It does make it difficult to answer the running costs question :cry:
 
McPhee said:
It's worth getting the Octopus Compare app and using it to compare their other tariffs too. The EV-specific tariffs aren't necessarily the cheapest. Tracker and Agile have been hundreds of pounds cheaper than Go for me YTD. The difference is about £80 this past month alone!
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The problem is this compares usage with the way you used the tariff you are on, not the way you would have used the tariff you are comparing with.

I have a battery and therefore Go is very cheap for me, my average unit cost paid won't be miles above the Go rate as the battery can power the house for most of the day, even in Winter.
 
john_smith said:
Do you have a battery? I draw most of my annual energy during the go window and export very little.
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the battery is the key to really maximising your savings be it Go, IO or any of the variable price packages.

i would say IF we could be certain these packages will be around for the next 5 years+ then everyone who is not thinking of moving should get one.

the problem is it is possible as more people use off peak it will flatten the curve (as per design) and the big price swings may get smaller
 
HungryHippos said:
The problem is this compares usage with the way you used the tariff you are on, not the way you would have used the tariff you are comparing with.

I have a battery and therefore Go is very cheap for me, my average unit cost paid won't be miles above the Go rate as the battery can power the house for most of the day, even in Winter.
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I'm the same. As long as I can get 4 hours then it's only the unit rate that matters. Lowest wins.
 
john_smith said:
I'm the same. As long as I can get 4 hours then it's only the unit rate that matters. Lowest wins.
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That's how I work my system, so long as I get 4 hours at a very cheap rate I'm good.
Battery covers all the day rate.

My fix ends 24th Sept , "Go faster", just renewed to good old "GO" today as Go faster is no more.


My new Go Rates.

Day unit rate​

31.41p per kWh

Night unit rate​

9.50p per kWh

Standing charge​

60.18p per day.........Ouch!

Exit fee:​

£0
Prices include VAT.

On the plus side First 8 months of the year actual electric cost is just under £50 for the 8 month period(No SC included)

Last time I charged the batteries from the grid was on the 31st of January.
Batteries are a real life saver to cover the peak/day rates, Go faster day rate is 42.29p

I export nothing to the grid from my house.
 
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HungryHippos said:
The problem is this compares usage with the way you used the tariff you are on, not the way you would have used the tariff you are comparing with.

I have a battery and therefore Go is very cheap for me, my average unit cost paid won't be miles above the Go rate as the battery can power the house for most of the day, even in Winter.
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You're not wrong. But my behaviour didn't change that much moving from Go to Agile. I still charged my car overnight, and then went about my day as normal. Agile has generally had a lower unit rate than Go for 17-20 hours per day for months. The average peak price on Agile over the past three months is basically the same as the daytime price on Go. So there wasn't much reason to faff about with load shifting. I'm not moving dinner time to save 10p per kWh :cry:

I've paid an average of 16p per kWh on Agile. If I'm working this out right, I would need to shift 68% of my use into the 0:30 to 4:30 period to equal that price on Go (and that's on the July 23 version - it would have been 74% on the previous version). I guess that's trivial if you have home battery storage, V2G, drive a lot (in an EV which is charged at home) or simply have low household electricity use. But there will be many who won't get anywhere close to this usage pattern. A comparison app offers an easy way to get an idea of the cost difference between tariffs.
 
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McPhee said:
You're not wrong. But my behaviour didn't change that much moving from Go to Agile. I still charged my car overnight, and then went about my day as normal. Agile has generally had a lower unit rate than Go for 17-20 hours per day for months. The average peak price on Agile over the past three months is basically the same as the daytime price on Go. So there wasn't much reason to faff about with load shifting. I'm not moving dinner time to save 10p per kWh :cry:

I've paid an average of 16p per kWh on Agile. If I'm working this out right, I would need to shift 68% of my use into the 0:30 to 4:30 period to equal that price on Go (and that's on the July 23 version - it would have been 74% on the previous version). I guess that's trivial if you have home battery storage, V2G, drive a lot (in an EV which is charged at home) or simply have low household electricity use. But there will be many who won't get anywhere close to this usage pattern. A comparison app offers an easy way to get an idea of the cost difference between tariffs.
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Yes easily done on my end I think, without an EV I was able to shift 80-85% of my usage into the 00:30 - 04:30 by filling the battery each night last Winter (Dec/Jan so worst time of the year).

Battery is capable of storing around 50% of daily usage (8.2 kWh, daily usage about double that), but it only needs to last for 20 hours not 24 as the cheap rate covers some regular usage as well.

Solar does add some peak units that would otherwise cost more, even in Dec/Jan a few kWh generated is enough to mostly get from one Go off-peak rate to the next.
 
Battery and solar does make you the extreme case, most of the UK is plain simple consumer of peak hours electric. We arent close to most shifting from what they were doing a decade ago I guess.

Who has V2G setup, thats very rare still. I did see an old USA video where they simply went to a local shop and bought some tool to plug in and implement it themselves, plus all USA cars are much bigger
 
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I did very little deliberate shifting on agile, and it did end up a little cheaper vs tracker (when avg unit rate was comparable to tracker). Thats because naturally my load is shifted throughout the 24 hour period. I have non standard usage pattern.

But of course tracker often has lower unit rate vs agile average.
 
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Had smart meters installed today, will check out the Octopus tracker tariff. Is it still worth it?
 
V_R said:
Had smart meters installed today, will check out the Octopus tracker tariff. Is it still worth it?
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Defo still worth if it you can get on.
Electric went up recently but this is today's pricing (in north east)

Screenshot-2023-09-01-20-00-20-737-com-android-chrome-edit-2.jpg


Keep track on here https://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/North-East-England

Change the drop down on tracker prices to where ever you are.

Should be the default for anyone not on dual electric rates or have an electric car in my opinion.
 
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What is going on with octopus ? I submit meter readings end of.the month , Im a single person using hardly any energy? Last month's billing was ok and the month before , I was £44 in credit in mid August, submitted my meter reading on 31st aug. no change in gas from last month, low electric. On the 31st aug after meter rereading they took payment, fine , in Im in credit still, logged on today when my direct debit goes in and now I'm in debit ?


Has there been a big surge in cost this month or something ? Why did they charge me twice ? They are only supposed to charge you when you submit readings

Time for a smart meter I think
 
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