Soldato
My electric meter has been broken for months, unable to get readings ...interesting conversation coming up with Octopus on average rates and usage charge 
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Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
- Thread starter DXP55
- Start date
Associate
Been a good week on agile, 55% cheaper than tracker. Only things we load shift is dish and clothes washer as well as avoid cooker during 4-7pm. When its negative or near 0 I get my jollies on and use the clothes drier
Soldato
- Joined
- 28 Oct 2011
- Posts
- 8,562
Quick question:
With Octopus now and have been for years and staying with them whatever.
Fixed deal ends Oct 15th (with £150 exit fees), however they have told me about their 49 day rule, which means as soon as my Smart Meter is installed on the 13th of Sept I can set something new up.
I'm a low level user of both Elec and Gas - I'm intruiged by the tracker and agile tariffs (yes I'm prepared to risk the ups and downs) - but what do you think would be my best option?
With Octopus now and have been for years and staying with them whatever.
Fixed deal ends Oct 15th (with £150 exit fees), however they have told me about their 49 day rule, which means as soon as my Smart Meter is installed on the 13th of Sept I can set something new up.
I'm a low level user of both Elec and Gas - I'm intruiged by the tracker and agile tariffs (yes I'm prepared to risk the ups and downs) - but what do you think would be my best option?
Soldato
Tracker is a slight gamble IMO, its likely to be lower price most of the time. There is tiny risk of a large price rise but you can come off tracker. IIRC its got a 9 month cool down however so you really need to be certain to come off it.
Agile is very different, 30 minute pricing. Can vary a hell of a lot day by day. So its not just about low/high user, but also when.
Take a look at this and you can flick back day by day to see the pricing.
Latest Agile Octopus Prices Dashboard
View current and future Agile Octopus tariff rates for your region.
www.agiledashboard.co.uk
I would say the real target of agile is to avoid completely or minimise usage on 4-7pm
You can also have a play with https://agile.octopushome.net/compare-your-consumption options very top left
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Soldato
- Joined
- 28 Oct 2011
- Posts
- 8,562
Tracker is a slight gamble IMO, its likely to be lower price most of the time. There is tiny risk of a large price rise but you can come off tracker. IIRC its got a 9 month cool down however so you really need to be certain to come off it.
Agile is very different, 30 minute pricing. Can vary a hell of a lot day by day. So its not just about low/high user, but also when.
Take a look at this and you can flick back day by day to see the pricing.
Latest Agile Octopus Prices Dashboard
View current and future Agile Octopus tariff rates for your region.
I would say the real target of agile is to avoid completely or minimise usage on 4-7pm
You can also have a play with https://agile.octopushome.net/compare-your-consumption options very top left
Right thanks.
I'm not someone who is going to run my life around minimising usage at the peak times, and that window is most likely to be when I'm at home a lot anyway. So I think my best best is the tracker option - I'm assuming there's trackers for both G and E?
Soldato
Yeah TBH I think agile you need to be able to load switch out of 4-7pm and so it suits eg retirees, people with home batteries etc
Normal 9-5 working folk with no batts etc its unlikely to be beneficial
Yeah both gas and elec have trackers.
You can google for them as well, I don't have a link, but you can get the tracker history fairly easily to see what you think.
Bear in mind at start of year tracker had an algorithm change which on average added about 2p to the unit price. Agile didnt get the same change, so that did change the dynamics when comparing the two tariffs a bit. It made me switch back to agile, as I fed my data into octopus compare and did see Agile would save me about £6 a month (and this was with me doing no load switching). My load is spread out fairly evenly across the 24 hour period.
So my suggestion is dump your smart meter data into the octopus compare app, and it will calculate where you sit on the tariffs. From 4-7pm its a lot more expensive but for much of the rest of the day its usually cheaper than tracker, with some days having huge savings in the morning.
So my suggestion is dump your smart meter data into the octopus compare app, and it will calculate where you sit on the tariffs. From 4-7pm its a lot more expensive but for much of the rest of the day its usually cheaper than tracker, with some days having huge savings in the morning.
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Soldato
Wow that's good tool. I'd have saved £7 on Agile over 8 months compared to tracker, so not worth it for me.
Could it be worth it to go on Agile instead of Intelligent Go when I get my EV? The reason I ask is that while the overnight rate becomes 7.5p, the day rate is higher than I'm currently paying on tracker. Does Agile tend to beat or match the 7.5p IG overnight rate anyway? Or there is possibility for beating 7.5p at some times during the day?
On average it does not beat the 7.5p offered by IOG in the overnight slots however if you dont need to charge everyday the chance of picking up cheaper units is higher. The agile day rates outside 4-7pm have been on average well below the IOG day rate.
Often when agile is cheap some of the cheapest slots are in the 1pm-4pm times.
You can see average prices in each slot for the last year here https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-agile-southern-england/ just change your region.
If you use many units in the 4-7pm slots you will probably be worse off, sometimes it spikes a lot higher. Last winter it got up to about 60p, potential to go much higher in a prolonged cold spell.
For me without a battery agile would be too much hassle.
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Associate
IOG is 7p now, btw.
Soldato
A lot would depend on how many miles you will do I think.
You certainly would have times with agile that beat IG, but are you there then.
As discussed previously, cheap grid times are around 2-4am and 2-4pm as the grid is greener they spread out from those times.
Agile is never cheap from 4-7pm, thats when its loaded to make it expensive on top of the grid costing more.
So pretty much agree with 200sols. You could make agile work but its going to be more work where as IG is very simple.
You can switch between Octopus smart tariffs. Most have a 1 month cooldown to go back. So you cant flip on and off Agile for example based on weather
But you could go IG for Sept-March and agile for the summer.
If I was you I would go onto IG for the winter and you can see how your ability to make good use of the 7p units works out.
Agile can seem odd. Its expensive all day today, but I have a 12-2:30pm powerup so free leccy.
Soldato
My electric meter has been broken for months, unable to get readings ...interesting conversation coming up with Octopus on average rates and usage charge
How come it has been left like that for so long.?
Our gas meter is being changed as I type this, by Morrison on behalf of EDF. It has taken two months or so of continued emails and finally escalated to complaints before this has happened.
Both of gas and electric meters are SMET 2
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One of ours is a bit iffy, will stop doing readings for a few weeks and then comes back online. The average tracker rates seem fine anyway, we don't really increase usage on cheap days.My electric meter has been broken for months, unable to get readings ...interesting conversation coming up with Octopus on average rates and usage charge
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Soldato
I only noticed it when I took a look at my bill - "Estimated". Went and had a look, its stuck on some screen saying Initialising. I believe it's the V1 of the smart meters, so doesn't surprise me. In addition to that, my Gas meter has always had issues connecting to it, so I'm hoping this will be a replace both job and finally have them both working properly.
Fortunately, I am on tracker so like you said - likely just average days + last 3 months usage or something similar.
Associate
5.22p for gas on tracker here tomorrow. Getting closer to the standard cap.
'Worries' with supply in Norway and around the world coupled with heightened geopolitical risk are pushing prices higher. Also hedge funds https://energynews.pro/en/hedge-funds-add-to-european-gas-market-volatility/
Soldato
UK's Most Productive Windfarm Comes Online
Another windfarm (103 turbine called Viking Farm by SSE) in Scotland comes online with enough output for 500,000 homes....
In relation to what @Mercenary Keyboard Warrior has been saying:
You've got to question why a farm that can produce enough to power 500,000 homes, located within a population of 23,000 people (so, at a guess, 15,000 homes at most) sees no additional benefit from hosting this level of energy production right on their doorstep for the benefit of the rest of the UK.
Another windfarm (103 turbine called Viking Farm by SSE) in Scotland comes online with enough output for 500,000 homes....
In relation to what @Mercenary Keyboard Warrior has been saying:
You've got to question why a farm that can produce enough to power 500,000 homes, located within a population of 23,000 people (so, at a guess, 15,000 homes at most) sees no additional benefit from hosting this level of energy production right on their doorstep for the benefit of the rest of the UK.
Associate
This is the one that's already claimed over £2mil in constraint payments this month isn't it?