Octopus are really only competive with their intelligent tariffs now.
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Associate
They seem to be getting folk at renewal, just only offering the variable at the renewal.
Soldato
I renewed mine with 3mths left to go and they added another 12mths onto it……
Associate
Sweet I'll keep my fingers crossed then
Soldato
I went down the HA 'rabbit hole' (really quite simple though) to charge my battery at any time the rate is the IOG charging rate. Sometimes (recently very frequently actually), the charging windows are at very useful times of the day. Today I got a random hour between 3pm and 4pm. which meant I made it through the evening to 9pm on battery despite some heavy usage. Now I'm back in the IOG cheap zone until 7am. I'm not gaming the system, the car is set to soak up as many electrons as it can get and stop at 80%. These little bonuses just come along and I take them! I've had 4 or 5 hours during the daytime as well if the car is here during the day for whatever reason. In comparison, I don't think the Eon tariff would work as well for me, but I accept there's not a lot in it for anyone with a set-and-forget sort of approach to battery management!
Soldato
Well a few things, firstly I rate Octopus massively above EON.
I have never had any issues with Octopus than missing bills, which they will correct pretty quickly.
I have been with EON previously and they were terrible. I have heard of people waiting 3 months for export to be sorted. Far from ideal.
I also have a gas boiler and my gas bills are higher than my elec bills, I use Octopus tracker for gas which itself saves a chunk.
I think most of the suppliers will hover around similar pricing eventually.
I have switched tariffs, was on agile last summer.
Lastly I benefit from powerups and free sessions. Which I think are likely to exceed the benefit from EON.
Doesn't make sense considering they just literally expanded the fixed outgoing rate to normal go customers.
It may be that for agile they are making both variable. I was on agile with fixed export which felt wrong that I could be getting paid to export whilst the grid was overloaded and I could be paid to import
I've been on Octopus and Eon, more than once. My billing issues with Octopus are noted in this thread, yes they sorted it quickly with minimum effort from me but it still happened. Zero issues when on Eon.
That said, export on Eon is still in the dark ages of electricity billing and FIT contracts. Despite having smart meter data, it is a manual meter reading once per year and a big credit on your account. I think they will do it quarterly if you ask.
That said, export on Eon is still in the dark ages of electricity billing and FIT contracts. Despite having smart meter data, it is a manual meter reading once per year and a big credit on your account. I think they will do it quarterly if you ask.
Associate
I've never been with Eon to comment, but we have had a number of issue with octopus too in the past, including getting our Solar export set up as it happens. They're alright when it's working though.
They haven't. What people used to get was Outgoing Octopus Fixed. This product no longer exists and it's now just Outoging Octopus for everyone. It still pays 15p/kWh right now, but it's no longer fixed, and the assumption is that's because they'll want to lower it in future. I don't think anyone expects them to increase it, and you'd only stop it being fixed if you intended to change it after all, which is being taken to mean only one thing.
Source: https://octopus.energy/export-tariffs/
Doesn't make sense considering they just literally expanded the fixed outgoing rate to normal go customers.
It may be that for agile they are making both variable. I was on agile with fixed export which felt wrong that I could be getting paid to export whilst the grid was overloaded and I could be paid to import
They haven't. What people used to get was Outgoing Octopus Fixed. This product no longer exists and it's now just Outoging Octopus for everyone. It still pays 15p/kWh right now, but it's no longer fixed, and the assumption is that's because they'll want to lower it in future. I don't think anyone expects them to increase it, and you'd only stop it being fixed if you intended to change it after all, which is being taken to mean only one thing.
Source: https://octopus.energy/export-tariffs/
As a counterbalance, I've not had any issues with eon, nor any issues with them setting up my export account for SEG
(And even when my account was £1000 in credit, it was a quick phone call to get them to refund £900...back into my account within the week)
(And even when my account was £1000 in credit, it was a quick phone call to get them to refund £900...back into my account within the week)
Last edited:
They’ve done this on all of their smart tariffs to react to changing market conditions.
Your right to say it might be ready to go down but in reality they still need to be competitive with other suppliers. While Eon are offering 16.5p, I can’t see this changing.
Last edited:
Soldato
Yeah it makes sense for them to tweak stuff. The one thing that has been constant since my solar journey started is that the tariffs etc change constantly and you need to be aware and ready to change.
In order to maximise benefit that is.
Like I said agile felt wrong, being paid 15p to export when the grid was negative/zero. Happened quite a bit in the summer when I had already charged the batts, we had all washing etc done and solar was kicking in mid afternoon for me.
In order to maximise benefit that is.
Like I said agile felt wrong, being paid 15p to export when the grid was negative/zero. Happened quite a bit in the summer when I had already charged the batts, we had all washing etc done and solar was kicking in mid afternoon for me.
Soldato
Just renewed my octopus fixed export to March 2026. That will do!
Last edited:
Associate
This is exactly what I was told when I switched to Octopus Go and Outgoing Octopus last week. The export tariff rate is no longer fixed and will be reviewed every three months (Jan, Apr, July, October you'd presume).
The positive side of me wants to hope it won't go down due to EON etc, but then I've just come off of Flux which has been seriously neutered this time around.
Soldato
Replying to myself here, but the issue was my huge predicted generation broke the spreadsheet
Now he's fixed it, it looks more correct now.Flux appears to be pretty good, not the best, but still good, especially as I don't have an EV or heat pump yet.
Soldato
Hmmmm so my EV has just had its update for V2H. So, I could charge at work and then discharge into the house and or grid, which clearly I won’t do.
Pretty much open to abuse this surely.
Would be ideal for extra storage though, especially when we get a heat pump.
Will need to look into complications with home batteries and solar.
Pretty much open to abuse this surely.
Would be ideal for extra storage though, especially when we get a heat pump.
Will need to look into complications with home batteries and solar.
Last edited:
Soldato
dont you need a different charger and lead to do that??
Soldato
Yeah you do, surely worth it though? Easy enough to wire into my home as well.
Soldato
Greenhouse is now down and in january that big tree at the back is being felled…..was a busy weekend. Before any tree huggers chime in the tree itself has ash die back and we have been advised to take it down, before it starts falling on its own.
New big shed and greenhouse being built once i take other shed down, which will can then house the 8 new panels for the new bigger inverter being fitted next week.
New big shed and greenhouse being built once i take other shed down, which will can then house the 8 new panels for the new bigger inverter being fitted next week.
Last edited:
Soldato
Isn't that two separate tree's?