Octopus energy company. Anyone use 'em?
Discussion
Just starting to look into the money saving potential of the Agile tariff and wondering at what price point it makes sense to heat a 300ltr cylinder with electricity rather than gas. Obviously, when the unit price drops to negative then it’s a no brainer but where do the scales tip in favour of electric over gas and how regularly does this occur?
Linked to this, and perhaps one for the Home Assistant thread, but can anyone recommend a smart fused switch than I can use to replace the current dumb ones which control my two immersion coils.
Thanks
Linked to this, and perhaps one for the Home Assistant thread, but can anyone recommend a smart fused switch than I can use to replace the current dumb ones which control my two immersion coils.
Thanks
anotherbigspender said:
Just starting to look into the money saving potential of the Agile tariff and wondering at what price point it makes sense to heat a 300ltr cylinder with electricity rather than gas. Obviously, when the unit price drops to negative then it’s a no brainer but where do the scales tip in favour of electric over gas and how regularly does this occur?
Gas costs about 7p/kWH...anotherbigspender said:
Linked to this, and perhaps one for the Home Assistant thread, but can anyone recommend a smart fused switch than I can use to replace the current dumb ones which control my two immersion coils.
Interested in this too. Ideally one with current metering built-in. I'd be reluctant to use no-name Chinese stuff with a 3KW load.silentbrown said:
anotherbigspender said:
Just starting to look into the money saving potential of the Agile tariff and wondering at what price point it makes sense to heat a 300ltr cylinder with electricity rather than gas. Obviously, when the unit price drops to negative then it’s a no brainer but where do the scales tip in favour of electric over gas and how regularly does this occur?
Gas costs about 7p/kWH...anotherbigspender said:
Linked to this, and perhaps one for the Home Assistant thread, but can anyone recommend a smart fused switch than I can use to replace the current dumb ones which control my two immersion coils.
Interested in this too. Ideally one with current metering built-in. I'd be reluctant to use no-name Chinese stuff with a 3KW load.An immersion heater will always be pretty much 100% efficient.
anotherbigspender said:
Just starting to look into the money saving potential of the Agile tariff
I changed to Agile at the start of March as an experiment (from Intelligent as I have an EV), and so far the unit rate on Agile for the month of March has averaged 14p/kWh and that is not cooking between 16:00 and 19:00 and time shifting the dishwasher and washing machine to cheaper periods, but then we were doing that anyway.However that usage included 160kWh of electricity used to charge my EV, so removing that usage and its cost as it isn't relevant to a non-EV household, pushes the average up to 15.5p as the EV was being charged at the very cheapest periods which was mostly overnight.
Just checking I see that over the month of March the Tracker tariff averaged 18.5p/kWh, so 15.5p to 18.5p isn't a huge difference, and with Tracker you are obviously not pushed to when in the day you use electricity as you are with Agile and its fluctuating price.
My conclusion is that Agile is an interesting tariff, but as a money saver - perhaps, but probably not enough for most people to bother with.
I was on Agile last year but moved to Intelligent in November. My March bill had an average unit rate of 17.4p because my wife and I both work from home most of the time so can't load shift as much as we would like into the overnight period. We also only charge the EV about 40-60kW per week at the most since I have free charging at work.
I'm thinking it may be worthwhile moving back to Agile for me as I can be quite flexible when charging the car and would likely save more from changing 28p to the usual 10-20p daytime rate than I can at the moment from shifting use to the 7.5p overnight rate. There is no escaping the 4-7pm period for me for kids dinners etc but it worked for me previously as long as we didn't use the washing machine or dishwasher at that time.
The wife is also talking about getting a sex pond/hot tub in the garden so I think this would work well with cheaper weekend rates as we wouldn't be using it at 4am...
I'm thinking it may be worthwhile moving back to Agile for me as I can be quite flexible when charging the car and would likely save more from changing 28p to the usual 10-20p daytime rate than I can at the moment from shifting use to the 7.5p overnight rate. There is no escaping the 4-7pm period for me for kids dinners etc but it worked for me previously as long as we didn't use the washing machine or dishwasher at that time.
The wife is also talking about getting a sex pond/hot tub in the garden so I think this would work well with cheaper weekend rates as we wouldn't be using it at 4am...
Been with them for a while and generally been impressed with them but had smart meters fitted recently which the gas one stopped communicating to octopus after 7 days of fitting. Emailed them multiple times and heard nothing back. I now need to take time out of my work day to speak to them because what’s the point of a smart meter that isn’t smart?
It communicates with the display thing but isn’t showing in the app. The meter has been in for over a month now so should all be set up.
Not too impressed with no email response - before they have got back to me in a day or 2 at the most - this has been 2 emails in just under 2 weeks.
It communicates with the display thing but isn’t showing in the app. The meter has been in for over a month now so should all be set up.
Not too impressed with no email response - before they have got back to me in a day or 2 at the most - this has been 2 emails in just under 2 weeks.
Edited by SteBrown91 on Sunday 7th April 17:41
SteBrown91 said:
Been with them for a while and generally been impressed with them but had smart meters fitted recently which the gas one stopped communicating to octopus after 7 days of fitting. Emailed them multiple times and heard nothing back. I now need to take time out of my work day to speak to them because what’s the point of a smart meter that isn’t smart?
It communicates with the display thing but isn’t showing in the app. The meter has been in for over a month now so should all be set up.
Not too impressed with no email response - before they have got back to me in a day or 2 at the most - this has been 2 emails in just under 2 weeks.
Two suggestions.It communicates with the display thing but isn’t showing in the app. The meter has been in for over a month now so should all be set up.
Not too impressed with no email response - before they have got back to me in a day or 2 at the most - this has been 2 emails in just under 2 weeks.
Firstly look at either the alternative third party apps (Hugo, Loop, Bright, etc.) or ww.n3rgy.com to see if they have the data, as that will tell you if the issue is between your meter and the DCC or if it is between the DCC and Octopus.
Secondly use a direct message from X (Twitter) to contact them as they seem to pick those up faster than emails and usually within 24 hours, and there is also a record of your conversation.
My experience of the meter stopping communicating is that it is usually a three stage process - them asking the DCC again for the data, and if that doesn't work then asking the DCC to do a remote reboot, and then if that works then asking the DCC for the data again. Only if that all fails does it need an engineer to come out and physically 'turn it off and on again' and as the meter stores a year's worth of data then it should then flow to the DCC.
When I asked recently why mine had stopped working for a few days until the solved it remotely they sent me this which sort of explains how the whole thing is a complex mess - https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-is...
SpidersWeb said:
Two suggestions.
Firstly look at either the alternative third party apps (Hugo, Loop, Bright, etc.) or ww.n3rgy.com to see if they have the data, as that will tell you if the issue is between your meter and the DCC or if it is between the DCC and Octopus.
Secondly use a direct message from X (Twitter) to contact them as they seem to pick those up faster than emails and usually within 24 hours, and there is also a record of your conversation.
My experience of the meter stopping communicating is that it is usually a three stage process - them asking the DCC again for the data, and if that doesn't work then asking the DCC to do a remote reboot, and then if that works then asking the DCC for the data again. Only if that all fails does it need an engineer to come out and physically 'turn it off and on again' and as the meter stores a year's worth of data then it should then flow to the DCC.
When I asked recently why mine had stopped working for a few days until the solved it remotely they sent me this which sort of explains how the whole thing is a complex mess - https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-is...
I have also had a better experience using Twitter rather than email.Firstly look at either the alternative third party apps (Hugo, Loop, Bright, etc.) or ww.n3rgy.com to see if they have the data, as that will tell you if the issue is between your meter and the DCC or if it is between the DCC and Octopus.
Secondly use a direct message from X (Twitter) to contact them as they seem to pick those up faster than emails and usually within 24 hours, and there is also a record of your conversation.
My experience of the meter stopping communicating is that it is usually a three stage process - them asking the DCC again for the data, and if that doesn't work then asking the DCC to do a remote reboot, and then if that works then asking the DCC for the data again. Only if that all fails does it need an engineer to come out and physically 'turn it off and on again' and as the meter stores a year's worth of data then it should then flow to the DCC.
When I asked recently why mine had stopped working for a few days until the solved it remotely they sent me this which sort of explains how the whole thing is a complex mess - https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-is...
When my meter stopped working I had a similar process to you, although at the point of the engineer power cycle, he also booked me in for a replacement. It turned out that my meter was incompatible with the home mini and it would only send data to either Octopus or the DCC and not both. He said that they were under strict instructions not to use that particular model for anyone on Octopus for that reason.
After the reset and the historic data being sent over, the meter failed again before the new one could be fitted and at that point, I lost all data and was charged at the price cap rate for my usage over the period despite about half of my use being at the overnight rate. Following the replacement, everything has been fine with the new meter for about 5 months now.
SpidersWeb said:
Two suggestions.
Firstly look at either the alternative third party apps (Hugo, Loop, Bright, etc.) or ww.n3rgy.com to see if they have the data, as that will tell you if the issue is between your meter and the DCC or if it is between the DCC and Octopus.
Secondly use a direct message from X (Twitter) to contact them as they seem to pick those up faster than emails and usually within 24 hours, and there is also a record of your conversation.
My experience of the meter stopping communicating is that it is usually a three stage process - them asking the DCC again for the data, and if that doesn't work then asking the DCC to do a remote reboot, and then if that works then asking the DCC for the data again. Only if that all fails does it need an engineer to come out and physically 'turn it off and on again' and as the meter stores a year's worth of data then it should then flow to the DCC.
When I asked recently why mine had stopped working for a few days until the solved it remotely they sent me this which sort of explains how the whole thing is a complex mess - https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-is...
Cheers I’ll look at those sites - I don’t have a Twitter account and have no interest in signing up. Hopefully I don’t have a long wait if I call them this week.Firstly look at either the alternative third party apps (Hugo, Loop, Bright, etc.) or ww.n3rgy.com to see if they have the data, as that will tell you if the issue is between your meter and the DCC or if it is between the DCC and Octopus.
Secondly use a direct message from X (Twitter) to contact them as they seem to pick those up faster than emails and usually within 24 hours, and there is also a record of your conversation.
My experience of the meter stopping communicating is that it is usually a three stage process - them asking the DCC again for the data, and if that doesn't work then asking the DCC to do a remote reboot, and then if that works then asking the DCC for the data again. Only if that all fails does it need an engineer to come out and physically 'turn it off and on again' and as the meter stores a year's worth of data then it should then flow to the DCC.
When I asked recently why mine had stopped working for a few days until the solved it remotely they sent me this which sort of explains how the whole thing is a complex mess - https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-is...
I wouldn’t mind calling so much if they have call centres open in the evenings like almost any other provider or company. Closing at 5pm is just silly.
SteBrown91 said:
Cheers I’ll look at those sites - I don’t have a Twitter account and have no interest in signing up. Hopefully I don’t have a long wait if I call them this week.
I wouldn’t mind calling so much if they have call centres open in the evenings like almost any other provider or company. Closing at 5pm is just silly.
What tariff are you on? If its just flexible i’d keep quiet and hope to go 12 months unnoticed, then you’ll get some gas for free.I wouldn’t mind calling so much if they have call centres open in the evenings like almost any other provider or company. Closing at 5pm is just silly.
Philvrs said:
What tariff are you on? If its just flexible i’d keep quiet and hope to go 12 months unnoticed, then you’ll get some gas for free.
I am on flexible but they are still estimating my usage so don’t think I’ll get anything for free - also the screen in the house is still logging the usage so I’d just risk a massive bill to sort out later clockworks said:
silentbrown said:
anotherbigspender said:
Just starting to look into the money saving potential of the Agile tariff and wondering at what price point it makes sense to heat a 300ltr cylinder with electricity rather than gas. Obviously, when the unit price drops to negative then it’s a no brainer but where do the scales tip in favour of electric over gas and how regularly does this occur?
Gas costs about 7p/kWH...anotherbigspender said:
Linked to this, and perhaps one for the Home Assistant thread, but can anyone recommend a smart fused switch than I can use to replace the current dumb ones which control my two immersion coils.
Interested in this too. Ideally one with current metering built-in. I'd be reluctant to use no-name Chinese stuff with a 3KW load.An immersion heater will always be pretty much 100% efficient.
CivicDuties said:
I've also wondered this. I've been assuming that once the Agile price is below my gas price pre kwh, I'm good to switch to immersion heating for the hot water. Have been using a timer plug on it to catch some overnight cheap rates, and I had it on this weekend all through the negative rate periods, which were extensive.
This is what I am thinking, but using IFTTT and a smart switch so I can set and forget.Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff