Octopus energy company. Anyone use 'em?
Discussion
Pot Odds said:
Would be interested in more details of this experimental tariff. We switched to Octopus a couple of months ago having bought a 30kw Leaf and are now waiting for them to fit a smart meter (which they aren't doing atm due to Covid19) so I can access their 'Go' tariff. Obviously a 8.30 to 12.30 'Go' style tariff would be of interest as it would open up a lot more practical use for us beyond just the car. What are the KWh rates on this experimental tariff - feel free to PM me if its not something you can post publically.
Thanks
PO
I’ve dropped you a message!Thanks
PO
BMR said:
Why are other suppliers not doing this.
There isn't - or hasn't been - the demand for it. We are also in a time of exceptionally low prices for gas and electricity. UK power over the last weekend was the lowest it has ever been - indeed it was the first time you could buy an day, let along an entire weekend of wholesale power at negative prices.
However
If we have a cold, dry and still winter, then those on the Ocotpus tariff will be paying a lot more than those on fixed contracts. The max price on the Octopus tariff (33p/kwh), is more than twice, maybe even 3 times, what your fixed price contract will cost.
it is the future, for some people, but not for everyone. Having domestic appliances which work with the smart meter is the next step, so for example your fridge and freezer could shut down for half an hour at the most expensive point of the day, while your washing machine could be set to come on at 4am when power is cheapest.
Condi said:
it is the future, for some people, but not for everyone. Having domestic appliances which work with the smart meter is the next step, so for example your fridge and freezer could shut down for half an hour at the most expensive point of the day, while your washing machine could be set to come on at 4am when power is cheapest.
As a smart meter fitter I use exactly what your saying for the customers who can’t believe that I’ve fitted a meter (that measures usage same as old) which doesn’t automatically save their money. The Comms Hubs can be paired with quite a few assets I believe so yes I can see the day your appliances will use the grid at efficient times
Just a little update... We had a delay in switching tariffs due to the delay in getting the meter installed and a further delay in getting it added to Octopus' system. Octopus said they would adjust our bill when it was all sorted.
Last night I had an email doing just that. The saving seems incredible, about 1/3 the price.
"The Smets2 electric meter was installed on xxxxx February and you had to wait until the xxxxxxx March to begin on the Agile tariff, a total of 51 days. You were charged £189.91 for this on the ordinary tariff, whereas on the agile tariff this would have cost you £62.73.
The difference between these figures is £127.18 so I have credited this figure to your account."
I have no connection with Octopus other than a satisfied customer.
I will run the full analysis as soon as I get a chance.
Last night I had an email doing just that. The saving seems incredible, about 1/3 the price.
"The Smets2 electric meter was installed on xxxxx February and you had to wait until the xxxxxxx March to begin on the Agile tariff, a total of 51 days. You were charged £189.91 for this on the ordinary tariff, whereas on the agile tariff this would have cost you £62.73.
The difference between these figures is £127.18 so I have credited this figure to your account."
I have no connection with Octopus other than a satisfied customer.
I will run the full analysis as soon as I get a chance.
Condi said:
There isn't - or hasn't been - the demand for it.
We are also in a time of exceptionally low prices for gas and electricity. UK power over the last weekend was the lowest it has ever been - indeed it was the first time you could buy an day, let along an entire weekend of wholesale power at negative prices.
However
If we have a cold, dry and still winter, then those on the Ocotpus tariff will be paying a lot more than those on fixed contracts. The max price on the Octopus tariff (33p/kwh), is more than twice, maybe even 3 times, what your fixed price contract will cost.
it is the future, for some people, but not for everyone. Having domestic appliances which work with the smart meter is the next step, so for example your fridge and freezer could shut down for half an hour at the most expensive point of the day, while your washing machine could be set to come on at 4am when power is cheapest.
I'm a young (ish) techie .... and that sounds incredibly complicated ... and crap , for your home WiFi environment. We are also in a time of exceptionally low prices for gas and electricity. UK power over the last weekend was the lowest it has ever been - indeed it was the first time you could buy an day, let along an entire weekend of wholesale power at negative prices.
However
If we have a cold, dry and still winter, then those on the Ocotpus tariff will be paying a lot more than those on fixed contracts. The max price on the Octopus tariff (33p/kwh), is more than twice, maybe even 3 times, what your fixed price contract will cost.
it is the future, for some people, but not for everyone. Having domestic appliances which work with the smart meter is the next step, so for example your fridge and freezer could shut down for half an hour at the most expensive point of the day, while your washing machine could be set to come on at 4am when power is cheapest.
imagine having to spend 20 quid extra per device just to save a couple of quid per year.
i much prefer a fixed rate, you kno what you're getting. and for people like me who WFH so i often have 2 or 3 computers up , i also (because i'm weird) much prefer un-natural light (IE i have blackout blinds shut with lights on, yes it's "not energy efficient" and "think of the polar bears").
xjay1337 said:
I'm a young (ish) techie .... and that sounds incredibly complicated ... and crap , for your home WiFi environment.
imagine having to spend 20 quid extra per device just to save a couple of quid per year.
i much prefer a fixed rate, you kno what you're getting. and for people like me who WFH so i often have 2 or 3 computers up , i also (because i'm weird) much prefer un-natural light (IE i have blackout blinds shut with lights on, yes it's "not energy efficient" and "think of the polar bears").
Hi xjay,imagine having to spend 20 quid extra per device just to save a couple of quid per year.
i much prefer a fixed rate, you kno what you're getting. and for people like me who WFH so i often have 2 or 3 computers up , i also (because i'm weird) much prefer un-natural light (IE i have blackout blinds shut with lights on, yes it's "not energy efficient" and "think of the polar bears").
it is an interesting point of view, especially for a young , techncal type person.
I would have agreed with you in the past - I never bought-in to the whole Smart meter thing as the claims were clearly nonsense... no-one watches the in-home display and controls their demand. However, with newer tariffs like that from Octopus (others exist in various other countries too), you can minimize your spend.
There are two elements; What is in it for me, and what is in it for the supply industry.
The what is in it for me, is largely a cost benefit.
For the supply industry, it means they can resource for a lower overall demand - which feeds back to point 1 - it makes it cheaper for you.
I am surprised I have had 'buy-in' from Mrs NIFAN - she gets the energy rates early evening, then decides if the washing machine and/or dishwasher should go on with 3, 6 or 9 hours delay.
There really isn't an issue with a few extra 10's of WiFi (or Zigbee or other radio devices) on your home network. The size of the data is tiny, and the messages are not that frequent - only every few seconds.
As posted above, savings can be large. Two months would have cost us £189 on a fixed rate, it actually cost us £62 on Agile.
Note: Our usage pattern may not be typical, we have a reasonable base load through the day running some servers, PCs and CCTV, with the odd peak for showers and cooking. Our cooking DOES hit the peak rate time - but even so, the lower rate still sees us make a saving.
Again, I have no connection with Octopus, so it doesn't matter to me - but it is a good way to go, and there will be more of this in the future.
The main problem is there isn't presently a 'box' that you can buy from e.g. Currys, that will just work when you take it out of the packaging. This will come, and when people see the benefits it will take off. Maybe there is actually a case for the energy suppliers to push this, as it is in their own interests too.
The extra cost per device is interesting... at present that is true - only high end manufacturers are offering this technology built-in and charging a premium. The actual WiFi module that is used is cheap. You can get Sonoff devices which incorporate one of these modules for less than £5. In due course there won't be an extra cost for the appliance, the costs of doing it are so low.
This has been a long time comming - it must be 20+ years since I was looking at the forerunner of this stuff (LonWorks) for building management.
I am presently working on (as a hobby project) battery storage systems - would be good to buy all power at 'best' and use our stored power when the supplier is charging the most.
People seem a bit frightened of the technology, I don't think it is 'there yet' for the average consumer, but is definately on its way.
PS. If you are on here.... thanks Andy!
I've been on Agile for a few months now, we appear to be averaging 7.5p/kWh over the last 30 days which is a decent saving over our previous fixed price tariff.
We pay a bit more to cook dinner, but everywhere else we're saving. I tend to shift the dishwasher and laundry outside 4-7pm. I discovered that all of our appliances have a fairly idiot-proof delay function built in, so manually avoiding those hours isn't particularly arduous when you've already got to load them by hand.
I've automated our previously-unused immersion heater using a cheap 20A smart switch and IFTTT. This appears to be having a positive influence on our gas bill on days when it makes sense to use electricity to heat water.
I built a little webpage that displays our current unit rate and the price over the next few hours - http://hampton.org.uk/octopus/current/ we leave it running on an old phone in the kitchen.
It's easy to get carried away and start looking at battery storage solutions or more complicated scheduling solutions but as others have pointed out wholesale rates may change and you're entirely at the mercy of Octopus offering this product. For now it's great, I've invested next to nothing and with minimal effort we're reducing our energy spend.
We pay a bit more to cook dinner, but everywhere else we're saving. I tend to shift the dishwasher and laundry outside 4-7pm. I discovered that all of our appliances have a fairly idiot-proof delay function built in, so manually avoiding those hours isn't particularly arduous when you've already got to load them by hand.
I've automated our previously-unused immersion heater using a cheap 20A smart switch and IFTTT. This appears to be having a positive influence on our gas bill on days when it makes sense to use electricity to heat water.
I built a little webpage that displays our current unit rate and the price over the next few hours - http://hampton.org.uk/octopus/current/ we leave it running on an old phone in the kitchen.
It's easy to get carried away and start looking at battery storage solutions or more complicated scheduling solutions but as others have pointed out wholesale rates may change and you're entirely at the mercy of Octopus offering this product. For now it's great, I've invested next to nothing and with minimal effort we're reducing our energy spend.
No ideas for a name said:
Hi xjay,
it is an interesting point of view, especially for a young , techncal type person.
I would have agreed with you in the past - I never bought-in to the whole Smart meter thing as the claims were clearly nonsense... no-one watches the in-home display and controls their demand. However, with newer tariffs like that from Octopus (others exist in various other countries too), you can minimize your spend.
There are two elements; What is in it for me, and what is in it for the supply industry.
The what is in it for me, is largely a cost benefit.
For the supply industry, it means they can resource for a lower overall demand - which feeds back to point 1 - it makes it cheaper for you.
I am surprised I have had 'buy-in' from Mrs NIFAN - she gets the energy rates early evening, then decides if the washing machine and/or dishwasher should go on with 3, 6 or 9 hours delay.
There really isn't an issue with a few extra 10's of WiFi (or Zigbee or other radio devices) on your home network. The size of the data is tiny, and the messages are not that frequent - only every few seconds.
As posted above, savings can be large. Two months would have cost us £189 on a fixed rate, it actually cost us £62 on Agile.
Note: Our usage pattern may not be typical, we have a reasonable base load through the day running some servers, PCs and CCTV, with the odd peak for showers and cooking. Our cooking DOES hit the peak rate time - but even so, the lower rate still sees us make a saving.
Again, I have no connection with Octopus, so it doesn't matter to me - but it is a good way to go, and there will be more of this in the future.
The main problem is there isn't presently a 'box' that you can buy from e.g. Currys, that will just work when you take it out of the packaging. This will come, and when people see the benefits it will take off. Maybe there is actually a case for the energy suppliers to push this, as it is in their own interests too.
The extra cost per device is interesting... at present that is true - only high end manufacturers are offering this technology built-in and charging a premium. The actual WiFi module that is used is cheap. You can get Sonoff devices which incorporate one of these modules for less than £5. In due course there won't be an extra cost for the appliance, the costs of doing it are so low.
This has been a long time comming - it must be 20+ years since I was looking at the forerunner of this stuff (LonWorks) for building management.
I am presently working on (as a hobby project) battery storage systems - would be good to buy all power at 'best' and use our stored power when the supplier is charging the most.
People seem a bit frightened of the technology, I don't think it is 'there yet' for the average consumer, but is definately on its way.
PS. If you are on here.... thanks Andy!
Damn, it crashed so I lost my post. In summary would you choose Agile over Go? it is an interesting point of view, especially for a young , techncal type person.
I would have agreed with you in the past - I never bought-in to the whole Smart meter thing as the claims were clearly nonsense... no-one watches the in-home display and controls their demand. However, with newer tariffs like that from Octopus (others exist in various other countries too), you can minimize your spend.
There are two elements; What is in it for me, and what is in it for the supply industry.
The what is in it for me, is largely a cost benefit.
For the supply industry, it means they can resource for a lower overall demand - which feeds back to point 1 - it makes it cheaper for you.
I am surprised I have had 'buy-in' from Mrs NIFAN - she gets the energy rates early evening, then decides if the washing machine and/or dishwasher should go on with 3, 6 or 9 hours delay.
There really isn't an issue with a few extra 10's of WiFi (or Zigbee or other radio devices) on your home network. The size of the data is tiny, and the messages are not that frequent - only every few seconds.
As posted above, savings can be large. Two months would have cost us £189 on a fixed rate, it actually cost us £62 on Agile.
Note: Our usage pattern may not be typical, we have a reasonable base load through the day running some servers, PCs and CCTV, with the odd peak for showers and cooking. Our cooking DOES hit the peak rate time - but even so, the lower rate still sees us make a saving.
Again, I have no connection with Octopus, so it doesn't matter to me - but it is a good way to go, and there will be more of this in the future.
The main problem is there isn't presently a 'box' that you can buy from e.g. Currys, that will just work when you take it out of the packaging. This will come, and when people see the benefits it will take off. Maybe there is actually a case for the energy suppliers to push this, as it is in their own interests too.
The extra cost per device is interesting... at present that is true - only high end manufacturers are offering this technology built-in and charging a premium. The actual WiFi module that is used is cheap. You can get Sonoff devices which incorporate one of these modules for less than £5. In due course there won't be an extra cost for the appliance, the costs of doing it are so low.
This has been a long time comming - it must be 20+ years since I was looking at the forerunner of this stuff (LonWorks) for building management.
I am presently working on (as a hobby project) battery storage systems - would be good to buy all power at 'best' and use our stored power when the supplier is charging the most.
People seem a bit frightened of the technology, I don't think it is 'there yet' for the average consumer, but is definately on its way.
PS. If you are on here.... thanks Andy!
Standard 4 bed house, 3 kids (so lots of washing - normally set to run at 5am), I work from home so laptop, network kit etc along with 2 TVs, Xbox oh and a plug in hybrid (of which Volvo will pay for the electric for the first year).
pmanson said:
Damn, it crashed so I lost my post. In summary would you choose Agile over Go?
Standard 4 bed house, 3 kids (so lots of washing - normally set to run at 5am), I work from home so laptop, network kit etc along with 2 TVs, Xbox oh and a plug in hybrid (of which Volvo will pay for the electric for the first year).
Do you have a smart meter that can give you half-hourly readings?Standard 4 bed house, 3 kids (so lots of washing - normally set to run at 5am), I work from home so laptop, network kit etc along with 2 TVs, Xbox oh and a plug in hybrid (of which Volvo will pay for the electric for the first year).
You will obviously need one for Agile, and if you do have one, can you get those half-hourly readings from Octopus?
On Agile, we can access that data, so can calculate the difference precisely.
If you don't have access to those readings, can you estimate a day's usage?
eg. for us, 750W 'base load' plus 9kW for 10 minutes at 07:00 for showers and 1 hour at 3kW for the oven at tea-time.
Here is our 'cost' graph for the last 24 hours... Blue is the fixed rate, Red is Go, Green is Agile. You can see that the Agile undercuts the Go tariff other than between 17:00 - 19:00
The graph varies daily, but is always a similar shape.
Our usage pattern from yesterday... looks like we took advantage of the lowest rate for the washing machine around 03:00 and the dishwasher probably went on at 15:00 on that day.
Oh.. use my code and you get £50 off too (to be fair - pick anyone's code and you will get £50!)
Accelebrate said:
I've been on Agile for a few months now, we appear to be averaging 7.5p/kWh over the last 30 days which is a decent saving over our previous fixed price tariff
I would say we are similar. I estimated the saving to be 50% before we switched... turns out it is a bit better than that.Accelebrate said:
We pay a bit more to cook dinner, but everywhere else we're saving. I tend to shift the dishwasher and laundry outside 4-7pm. I discovered that all of our appliances have a fairly idiot-proof delay function built in, so manually avoiding those hours isn't particularly arduous when you've already got to load them by hand.
Same. Appliances have a 3/6/9 hour delay button - just hit the right one at start up and you can easily match the tariff.Accelebrate said:
I've automated our previously-unused immersion heater using a cheap 20A smart switch and IFTTT. This appears to be having a positive influence on our gas bill on days when it makes sense to use electricity to heat water.
Same... I even 'waste' that power on negative pricing events even if we don't want the hot water. I am using a 'local' controller as I don't like control via third-parties over the internet (my tin foil hat is firmlly fixed)Accelebrate said:
I built a little webpage that displays our current unit rate and the price over the next few hours - http://hampton.org.uk/octopus/current/ we leave it running on an old phone in the kitchen.
Yes, I have Hass/Home Assistant or whatever they call it this week. Current rate shown on a web page I can easily browse to on my phone.Accelebrate said:
It's easy to get carried away and start looking at battery storage solutions or more complicated scheduling solutions but as others have pointed out wholesale rates may change and you're entirely at the mercy of Octopus offering this product. For now it's great, I've invested next to nothing and with minimal effort we're reducing our energy spend.
Yes, but it is a small financial investment here... more done for the feeling of 'beating the system'. I would say the few smart switches we have, have only cost less than £100. That includes 3 fan controllers automating the control of the bathroom humidity.No ideas for a name said:
pmanson said:
Damn, it crashed so I lost my post. In summary would you choose Agile over Go?
Standard 4 bed house, 3 kids (so lots of washing - normally set to run at 5am), I work from home so laptop, network kit etc along with 2 TVs, Xbox oh and a plug in hybrid (of which Volvo will pay for the electric for the first year).
Do you have a smart meter that can give you half-hourly readings?Standard 4 bed house, 3 kids (so lots of washing - normally set to run at 5am), I work from home so laptop, network kit etc along with 2 TVs, Xbox oh and a plug in hybrid (of which Volvo will pay for the electric for the first year).
You will obviously need one for Agile, and if you do have one, can you get those half-hourly readings from Octopus?
On Agile, we can access that data, so can calculate the difference precisely.
If you don't have access to those readings, can you estimate a day's usage?
eg. for us, 750W 'base load' plus 9kW for 10 minutes at 07:00 for showers and 1 hour at 3kW for the oven at tea-time.
Here is our 'cost' graph for the last 24 hours... Blue is the fixed rate, Red is Go, Green is Agile. You can see that the Agile undercuts the Go tariff other than between 17:00 - 19:00
The graph varies daily, but is always a similar shape.
Our usage pattern from yesterday... looks like we took advantage of the lowest rate for the washing machine around 03:00 and the dishwasher probably went on at 15:00 on that day.
Oh.. use my code and you get £50 off too (to be fair - pick anyone's code and you will get £50!)
Over the last 3 months our average usage has 22.5 units p/day - up from 17.5 unit p/day in the three months prior to this. Driven in part by more home usage (kids at home all day) + the car charging more frequently.
pmanson said:
The meter is a Secure Liberty 100 previously supplied by OVO (it was here when we moved in). I believe from a quick web search that these are compatible.
Over the last 3 months our average usage has 22.5 units p/day - up from 17.5 unit p/day in the three months prior to this. Driven in part by more home usage (kids at home all day) + the car charging more frequently.
I would guess-timate from the above that you would be better off on Agile.Over the last 3 months our average usage has 22.5 units p/day - up from 17.5 unit p/day in the three months prior to this. Driven in part by more home usage (kids at home all day) + the car charging more frequently.
As far as I know, if it desn't work out for you, you can swap to another Octopus tariff within 24 hours without penalty.
I think you did say Volvo were paying for the first year of EV charging... not sure how that actually works - are you locked to another supplier or do you just submit a bill to Volvo?
I don't know how other providers compare - only Scottish Power who were utterly dreadful in terms of billing.
No ideas for a name said:
I would guess-timate from the above that you would be better off on Agile.
As far as I know, if it desn't work out for you, you can swap to another Octopus tariff within 24 hours without penalty.
I think you did say Volvo were paying for the first year of EV charging... not sure how that actually works - are you locked to another supplier or do you just submit a bill to Volvo?
I don't know how other providers compare - only Scottish Power who were utterly dreadful in terms of billing.
Volvo track charging usage via their app. Then are applying (an unknown) standard rate at the end of the year to work out what is owed to me. As far as I know, if it desn't work out for you, you can swap to another Octopus tariff within 24 hours without penalty.
I think you did say Volvo were paying for the first year of EV charging... not sure how that actually works - are you locked to another supplier or do you just submit a bill to Volvo?
I don't know how other providers compare - only Scottish Power who were utterly dreadful in terms of billing.
I'm assuming their send me a cheque or something at the end of the 12 months for 1,000 units @ 10p = £100 (or similar). So the less I pay for the electric in the first place the better off i'll be.
No ideas for a name said:
Just a little update... We had a delay in switching tariffs due to the delay in getting the meter installed and a further delay in getting it added to Octopus' system. Octopus said they would adjust our bill when it was all sorted.
Last night I had an email doing just that. The saving seems incredible, about 1/3 the price.
"The Smets2 electric meter was installed on xxxxx February and you had to wait until the xxxxxxx March to begin on the Agile tariff, a total of 51 days. You were charged £189.91 for this on the ordinary tariff, whereas on the agile tariff this would have cost you £62.73.
The difference between these figures is £127.18 so I have credited this figure to your account."
I have no connection with Octopus other than a satisfied customer.
I will run the full analysis as soon as I get a chance.
Out of curiosity, how long did you have to wait to get the meter installed? Last night I had an email doing just that. The saving seems incredible, about 1/3 the price.
"The Smets2 electric meter was installed on xxxxx February and you had to wait until the xxxxxxx March to begin on the Agile tariff, a total of 51 days. You were charged £189.91 for this on the ordinary tariff, whereas on the agile tariff this would have cost you £62.73.
The difference between these figures is £127.18 so I have credited this figure to your account."
I have no connection with Octopus other than a satisfied customer.
I will run the full analysis as soon as I get a chance.
I'm needing to change supplier, my current fixed rate has expired and whilst I am bot able to fully utilise the tariff, it may be something that I will move towards.
Also, the reward, is it 50 each?
Meeten-5dulx said:
Out of curiosity, how long did you have to wait to get the meter installed?
I'm needing to change supplier, my current fixed rate has expired and whilst I am bot able to fully utilise the tariff, it may be something that I will move towards.
Also, the reward, is it 50 each?
Waiting for the meter was a problem. It wasn't Octopus' fault, but just waiting for the metering guys to get it booked in.I'm needing to change supplier, my current fixed rate has expired and whilst I am bot able to fully utilise the tariff, it may be something that I will move towards.
Also, the reward, is it 50 each?
I think we switched in November, and was due a meter within 4 weeks. It didn't go in until early Feb, but then there was a problem getting it to show on Octopus' system. As posted this morning - Octopus backdated the calculation so we were not disadvantaged... Can't say fairer than that.
The meter guy was friendly and efficient. Our install was easy for him as it is outside a standing height, in a meter cupboard - no crawling under stairs or anything required.
Once you have a SMETS2 meter, you should be able to switch between suppliers much easier.
The reward is £50 for both the new customer joining AND £50 for the person who has referred you.
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