Octopus energy company. Anyone use 'em?

[pingu393]

dhutch said:

pingu393 said:

I'm assuming you have the Tesla app.

Go to Settings

Then Powerwall

100% Backup / 0% Time-based Control

I'm now drawing 5.0kW into the wall. The washing machine has just gone on, but it hasn't really started yet. Wifey just asked if I wanted a cuppa, so it's now 8.3 from the grid. - KERCHING

All bonkers!

Totally bonkers...

It cost us £2.88 to earn £11.70

[Armchair_Expert]

okgo said:

"From 01/04/2023, you'll be paying £341.75 on the 1st of each month"

So I've been running the account through winter with a 250 a month payment and its currently -£15. I thought the support was continuing and the cap or whatever wasn't happening, so how come they jacking it up such an amount do we think?

Well mine has come right down so clearly your burning too much juice. Adjust your usage, might help your bills.

[okgo]

Armchair_Expert said:

Well mine has come right down so clearly your burning too much juice. Adjust your usage, might help your bills.

Well naturally the bills will go down, thats obvious from my previous years, we use not much electric but spend a lot on gas, and its been cold for ages it feels now, I suppose maybe there are some rises they have baked into the year I have no clue about - £66 is stopping so that's one, is there a price rise coming that's official too?

[Trustmeimadoctor]

My 23rd results just in 6136 points or £7.67 may day usage was £2.93

I got more in that session than all the others combined
I cut down 90% or 2.56kwh

[Mikey G]

7136 points for me which is £8.92, the days electricity cost me £3.08 so a nice little profit of £5.84 for the day.
I didnt even turn anything off for the saving session just a normal evening in front of the TV

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Same here couldn't be botherd not playing on the Xbox

Edited by Trustmeimadoctor on Wednesday 29th March 19:39

[Greshamst]

Well it’s easy to guess which day I wasn’t home and couldn’t use the in-day adjustment!

[Mark-ri571]

We only managed to use about 4.5kw ( oven, washing machine etc) during the 2.30 to 5.30 period on 23rd March. I didn’t get home until after 5.15 so didn’t get much chance to charge car.Switched off as much as possible during the saving period and got £2.62 . My consumption during the 3 hour gaming period cost about £1.80.

[Silverage]

I really went for it this time and managed a personal best of £21. No idea how much it cost me to “ earn” the saving. It says I saved over 7kw during the magic hour.

[pingu393]

Silverage said:

I really went for it this time and managed a personal best of £21. No idea how much it cost me to “ earn” the saving. It says I saved over 7kw during the magic hour.

How did you manage that?

I charged a Tesla battery from 20% to full, ran a washing machine for three hours and a dryer for two hours, and still only got £11.

[Silverage]

pingu393 said:

Silverage said:

I really went for it this time and managed a personal best of £21. No idea how much it cost me to “ earn” the saving. It says I saved over 7kw during the magic hour.

How did you manage that?

I charged a Tesla battery from 20% to full, ran a washing machine for three hours and a dryer for two hours, and still only got £11.

I had my car charging for three hours, two loads through the washing machine, one through the dishwasher. I did some ironing and ran the oven’s self cleaning cycle. Then I went out for the evening at 5:30.

[Philvrs]

Saving session wasn’t a new record kWh for me but the higher points rate meant it was my best one yet.

[hepy]

£13 on the 23rd, total of about £60 so far. Now I’m on the tracker rate, I just charge the car, run the dishwasher and washing machine in the two hour cycle (all of which I would have done anyway).

It’s the car charging that has the biggest impact.

[Armchair_Expert]

Little bit of flux in the tracker rates I see, although still stable.

So, if the rates rise and people decide to come off the tracker and go back to the standard tariff - 1) do other people who are on the wait list get to go on the tracker and 2) once you come off presume you can't then easily rejoin without going into a queue?

[HughG]

Anyone else had problems with the last sessions not being counted? Octopus can't tell me why

[Mikey G]

Armchair_Expert said:

Little bit of flux in the tracker rates I see, although still stable.

So, if the rates rise and people decide to come off the tracker and go back to the standard tariff - 1) do other people who are on the wait list get to go on the tracker and 2) once you come off presume you can't then easily rejoin without going into a queue?

It would have to rise above the variable tariff for a reasonable amount of time before I would consider leaving. I have saved a few quid for a couple of months now which means I could take a hit for a couple of weeks without panicking and still would have paid less than the variable tariff.

I cannot see the price rising anytime soon though, if anything a little further to fall.

[KTF]

There are mutterings on the various facebook groups that the numbers for the last saving session are wrong. The rough formula is:

Take your usage from 4 hours before to 1 hour before. Divide it by 3 and minus the usage during the session to get the saving amount.

For the 15th using the formula above it is very close so all OK (numbers are kWh).

7.25 used in the gaming window (3 of the 4 hours before)
2.41 (above divided by 3)
.138 used in saving session
2.27 should be the 'saving'

Octopus show 2.36 so close enough.

For the 23rd its low for me using these workings.

5.67 used in the gaming window (3 of the 4 hours before)
1.89 (above divided by 3)
.136 used in saving session
1.754 should be the 'saving'

Octopus are showing a 1.40 saving for the 23rd which is 20% less than expected and also what others are reporting.

Edited by KTF on Thursday 30th March 11:58

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

KTF said:

The rough formula is:

Take your usage from 4 hours before to 1 hour before. Divide it by 3 and minus the usage during the session to get the saving amount.

Not really. I know you’re deliberately simplifying it, but your simplification goes way too far and leaves out the comparison against usage over the last 10 days.

Your usage during that 3 hour window is compared against your average usage during the same 3 hour window over the last 10 working days, excluding other event days. The difference is then added to, or subtracted from, your baseline usage (which is your average usage over the last 10 working days during the 1 hour event window). The resulting adjusted baseline is compared against your actual usage during the event itself to yield your reduced usage (if any).

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

hepy said:

It’s the car charging that has the biggest impact.

^^^ This, multiplied by a thousand.

I really hope they change the calculation methodology for next winter, because there are some real absurdities at the moment.

Firstly, people with EVs have a really unfair advantage. The calculation actually encourages them to charge their car during the day when they would normally charge overnight, and earn a colossal amount. That is quite clearly not a good thing from a grid load-balancing point of view, which is ultimately the whole point.

The other absurdity is the case of a household that goes out for the whole day and turns everything off before they go. They use virtually no electricity all day, which absolutely ruins their result because of their low usage during the 3 hour on-day adjustment period. It’s absolutely crackers!

From what I’ve read, the purpose of the on-day adjustment is to take account of weather conditions, so that people relying on electric heating aren’t penalised. But the system shouldn’t be open to manipulation the way it currently is. I don’t understand why they can’t use an aftercast of the temperature in your postcode region and adjust things based on that.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Thursday 30th March 12:44

[silentbrown]

Having just switched to Octopus, I hope they'll be able to get my smart meter working. British Gas have been utterly useless.