How to getthe best out of Octopus Flux

I'll be getting off Flux in a few months. My work are part of Octopus EV salary sacrifice scheme which I've used to order an EV. Octopus do a special EV saver tariff when you get a car through them which is 6p/kWh off peak so that will be very sweet when winter comes (assuming the car arrives by then of course). Hopefully the 15p export lasts until then, but considering Flux's day export rate didn't drop this time around and October is expected to see an increase, I'd be surprised if it did.
 
reef said:
I'll be getting off Flux in a few months. My work are part of Octopus EV salary sacrifice scheme which I've used to order an EV. Octopus do a special EV saver tariff when you get a car through them which is 6p/kWh off peak so that will be very sweet when winter comes (assuming the car arrives by then of course). Hopefully the 15p export lasts until then, but considering Flux's day export rate didn't drop this time around and October is expected to see an increase, I'd be surprised if it did.
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It's a great scheme :)
Went to send you a DM, but can't :( have you already ordered??
 
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I have a GivEnergy all in one system with two batteries alongside Solar PV.
Does anyone know what Intelligent Flux tries to do?
My house has high electric consumption and in the winter I expect to deplete the batteries each day (before the off peak rates) 7 months of the year. Based on that usage, is there any value (for me as the consumer) switching to Intelligent Flux?
 
darkblade said:
I have a GivEnergy all in one system with two batteries alongside Solar PV.
Does anyone know what Intelligent Flux tries to do?
My house has high electric consumption and in the winter I expect to deplete the batteries each day (before the off peak rates) 7 months of the year. Based on that usage, is there any value (for me as the consumer) switching to Intelligent Flux?
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I've been on it since early May. I'll be switching back to agile in September, its not a good winter tariff.

For summer though, its very good. Basically your battery becomes the grid, you export most of you generation and they will generally fully export your battery over the 3 hour window 4-7pm although they can and do also export from the battery at other times of the day if they need to. You will see your import energy go up a lot, but also export goes up a lot. You wont be using your battery to power your home you will be using grid and solar generation only, exception being during the times they choose to discharge the battery.

If I were you i'd look at a different tariff now until next spring.
 
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200sols said:
I've been on it since early May. I'll be switching back to agile in September, its not a good winter tariff.

For summer though, its very good. Basically your battery becomes the grid, you export most of you generation and they will generally fully export your battery over the 3 hour window 4-7pm although they can and do also export from the battery at other times of the day if they need to. You will see your import energy go up a lot, but also export goes up a lot. You wont be using your battery to power your home you will be using grid and solar generation only, exception being during the times they choose to discharge the battery.

If I were you i'd look at a different tariff now until next spring.
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Great, thanks for this. My thinking was to stick with the standard flux tariff and charge the batteries (and heat the hot tub) during the off peak hours.
With Agile, what are the off peak windows and prices like compared to the standard flux tariff?
 
darkblade said:
Great, thanks for this. My thinking was to stick with the standard flux tariff and charge the batteries (and heat the hot tub) during the off peak hours.
With Agile, what are the off peak windows and prices like compared to the standard flux tariff?
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I will jump in for 200 here.

Agile has no set peak off peak other than 4-7pm is price inflated where as the rest of the day is close to market price.

Agile can be high, even for all 24 hours, or have significant periods cheap or even negative.
00:00 - 00:30 7.72p/kWh
00:30 - 01:00 7.35p/kWh
01:00 - 01:30 7.06p/kWh
01:30 - 02:00 6.17p/kWh
02:00 - 02:30 5.1p/kWh
02:30 - 03:00 1.32p/kWh
03:00 - 03:30 2.54p/kWh
03:30 - 04:00 0.99p/kWh
04:00 - 04:30 2.65p/kWh
04:30 - 05:00 -0.07p/kWh
05:00 - 05:30 2.27p/kWh
05:30 - 06:00 2.54p/kWh
06:00 - 06:30 4.3p/kWh
06:30 - 07:00 7.72p/kWh
07:00 - 07:30 3.75p/kWh
07:30 - 08:00 8.02p/kWh
08:00 - 08:30 1.82p/kWh
08:30 - 09:00 2.21p/kWh
09:00 - 09:30 1.19p/kWh
09:30 - 10:00 -2.21p/kWh
10:00 - 10:30 1.32p/kWh
10:30 - 11:00 -0.44p/kWh
11:00 - 11:30 0.99p/kWh
11:30 - 12:00 -0.44p/kWh
12:00 - 12:30 -0.34p/kWh
12:30 - 13:00 -1.5p/kWh
13:00 - 13:30 -0.28p/kWh
13:30 - 14:00 -2.03p/kWh
14:00 - 14:30 -0.34p/kWh
14:30 - 15:00 0.27p/kWh
15:00 - 15:30 -1.32p/kWh
15:30 - 16:00 0p/kWh
16:00 - 16:30 10.67p/kWh
16:30 - 17:00 17.07p/kWh
17:00 - 17:30 21.67p/kWh
17:30 - 18:00 25.89p/kWh
18:00 - 18:30 30.85p/kWh
18:30 - 19:00 31.95p/kWh
19:00 - 19:30 21.39p/kWh
19:30 - 20:00 21.39p/kWh
20:00 - 20:30 21.17p/kWh
20:30 - 21:00 21.17p/kWh
21:00 - 21:30 22.6p/kWh
21:30 - 22:00 19.51p/kWh
22:00 - 22:30 19.05p/kWh
22:30 - 23:00 15.84p/kWh

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Last winter it was a lot cheaper than flux, this year may be totally different as you just cant predict it. If we get cold spells with little wind the price can go very high on agile so its a trade off. You can switch to flux at anytime though and you can automate most of the agile charging with givenergy.
 
200sols said:
Last winter it was a lot cheaper than flux, this year may be totally different as you just cant predict it. If we get cold spells with little wind the price can go very high on agile so its a trade off. You can switch to flux at anytime though and you can automate most of the agile charging with givenergy.
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Not sure why the intelligent flux isn't set to automate all that with the GivEnergy system - instead it seems to be setup to benefit the supplier more than the consumer. I guess that would be too good a proposition in larger user volumes.
 
darkblade said:
Not sure why the intelligent flux isn't set to automate all that with the GivEnergy system - instead it seems to be setup to benefit the supplier more than the consumer. I guess that would be too good a proposition in larger user volumes.
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There is nothing to automate on intelligent flux, you haven't understood the tariff if you think that. Octopus will control your system and you will have no say in how they use it, in return you get a very attractive set of rates and the largest battery possible - the grid.
 
If you have a GivEnergy or Growatt battery storage system, check out Wonder Watt. It automates the selection of the cheapest charge windows based on latest daily agile half hourly rates.
I think that Intelligent Flux might be better in the summer months when the solar output is higher as you will get better export rates than Agile.

Trouble is, I've seen that it's not easy to switch from Intelligent Flux to Agile, as Octopus seem to retain a hidden API key that tends to override the Wonder Watt integration.
 
Ron-ski said:
Finally got all my data showing in the app for July.

929.34 kWh exported and 622.10 imported.

That equates to £185.27 for export, £87.63 import plus £17 standing charge.

I've not got any data (gas or electric) showing for the 24 August yet :(
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We didn't have 23rd yesterday so must have been an update issue somewhere
23rd has appeared over night
 
Thanks, hopefully its just a blip, but given the problems I've had its frustrating, and it always takes so much effort to get it sorted. We are in the middle of a built up area, so really shouldn't have any communication issues with smart meters, although this time the gas readings were getting through, so the issue was between the electric meter and its attached coms hub.

Getting it sorted has taken many weeks, and many phone calls. All the times I explained import and export data was missing, and asked for a manual request for smart data after they started working again (they were out 25 July to 7 August), none of the Octopus staff requested the export data, only the import data, even when I asked if they had all the half hourly readings, they said yes. I then phoned again and specifically asked if they had requested export data - no they hadn't, and its a separate request.
 
Ron-ski said:
Thanks, hopefully its just a blip, but given the problems I've had its frustrating, and it always takes so much effort to get it sorted. We are in the middle of a built up area, so really shouldn't have any communication issues with smart meters, although this time the gas readings were getting through, so the issue was between the electric meter and its attached coms hub.

Getting it sorted has taken many weeks, and many phone calls. All the times I explained import and export data was missing, and asked for a manual request for smart data after they started working again (they were out 25 July to 7 August), none of the Octopus staff requested the export data, only the import data, even when I asked if they had all the half hourly readings, they said yes. I then phoned again and specifically asked if they had requested export data - no they hadn't, and its a separate request.
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They do seem to have gone downhill a bit, but I guess all those new customers mean more staff so a lot must be newer.

I just got my credit for missing powerup. But the CS agent who has been chasing got it credited as a special as the powerup team hadn't gone back to her in over a week.
 
Switched back to agile on Monday. Cancelled the Octopus API access in givenergy portal the same day and can confirm I've had no control issues.
darkblade said:
Trouble is, I've seen that it's not easy to switch from Intelligent Flux to Agile, as Octopus seem to retain a hidden API key that tends to override the Wonder Watt integration.
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200sols said:
Switched back to agile on Monday. Cancelled the Octopus API access in givenergy portal the same day and can confirm I've had no control issues.
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Ha, yesterday I switched off agile and back to Go
I don't generate enough solar this time of year to make it worth the risk vs a large chunk into batteries at a fixed price.
Plus powerups often align with cheap agile.
Looks like they forgot to switch off my 15p fixed export as well so on the off chance I generate a load I may get the 15p export.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Ha, yesterday I switched off agile and back to Go
I don't generate enough solar this time of year to make it worth the risk vs a large chunk into batteries at a fixed price.
Plus powerups often align with cheap agile.
Looks like they forgot to switch off my 15p fixed export as well so on the off chance I generate a load I may get the 15p export.
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No EV here but just a FYI. Last year people who switched away from flux were were left with the flux export and Octopus corrected it and rebilled them months down the line. They werent happy. Personally I messaged them on X and got them to switch me over to fixed as it left me on IOF export as well.
 
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200sols said:
No EV here but just a FYI. Last year people who switched away from flux were were left with the flux export and Octopus corrected it and rebilled them months down the line. They werent happy. Personally I messaged them on X and got them to switch me over to fixed as it left me on IOF export as well.
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Yeah I expect they may. As I said though dont expect to export really now.
I don't have an EV either, well we do have a hybrid but its never plugged in as it doesn't get reimbursed.

Im not sure why they still penalise Go specifically with a "low" export rate. When Intelligent go and flus etc all have much higher export rates.
It made sense when they had a you cant import for less than we pay for export rule, but thats long gone with all the new tariffs.

I will probably let them know tbh, but maybe once they fix my missing free leccy payment.
 
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