Octopus energy company. Anyone use 'em?

Octopus energy company. Anyone use 'em?

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Discussion

eein

1,424 posts

275 months

Saturday 11th January
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Byker28i said:
eein said:
Byker28i said:
Trustmeimadoctor said:
Condi said:
Trustmeimadoctor said:
Are we going to see really high gas prices now we have less than a week's gas reserve. I mean that's obviously ignoring the fact we still have gas coming in to the country and it is getting warmer from Sunday smile
Centrica, the same company who run the UK's largest gas storage facility and are wanting government funding to bring more of it back into use?

It's not "news". The UK has very little storage anyway, we rely much more on piped gas and LNG from abroad.
Indeed bring back the gasometer!
I said this the other day. Gas pressure is noticeably low, so much that when the boiler lights, the gas ring on the cooker noticeably drops for a second, or goes out if on a very low simmer.
Gasometers stopped being necessary when the gas grid updated to be able to store gas through varying the pressure in the system, mostly in the 40" national backbone. This creates more storage capacity than all the gasometers did
Interesting, thanks. Cold then affecting pressure? Physically or just through the increased demand?
I'm not sure why the pressure at the house end will be lower, sounds plausible that it's due to sudden changes in demand or maybe their pressure control for that last delivery leg lacks the ability to control that quickly.

Overall the UK gas network has more pressure than it needs. It is mostly pressurised from the north sea, ie the original underground pressure. This is so high that they need to reduce the pressure, and interestingly that reduction is now performed in a way that captures the energy from the reduction and that energy is used to power all the gas stations you see around the country (typically where the gasometers used to be). So there's a bit of an irony that the gas grid infrastructure is fully powered by zero emission energy - the pressure reduction.

tight fart

3,160 posts

283 months

Saturday 11th January
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I had been looking to swap mum over to a better tariff, she only has electricity and is with EDF with a cheap rate over night.
It’s taken 3 weeks to find out the hours of the cheap rate, apparently it varies and it will be on your bill. It wasn’t.
Nor when I logged on there app.
I finally got a reply back yesterday, 00.30 to 07.30
Yet when I google it it shows 8 or 9pm start time.

LordGrover

33,795 posts

222 months

Monday 13th January
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Accelebrate said:
Mark-ri571 said:
Got my IO Go bill the other day. Still managing to keep my average price pkwh down by load shifting and smart charging the car when we need to use appliances in daytime eg ovens , washing machine etc

Nice. I seem to always average 14.xp/kWh on IO, with minimal effort put into load shifting. I seem to remember paying 14p to npower about a decade ago.

Similar; I don't load-shift much but do try to ensure car is charged in the window.

gangzoom

6,943 posts

225 months

Monday 13th January
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^Our average electricity usage is 8p/kWh, Go and home battery. Gas usage over last week was a different mater. For next winter probably need to get some kind of curtains/blinds for the 5 meter full-height gable end glazing to reduce some heat loss :O.


Condi

18,313 posts

181 months

Monday 13th January
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£18 of gas in a single day?! Jesus.

Trustmeimadoctor

13,935 posts

165 months

Monday 13th January
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Condi said:
£18 of gas in a single day?! Jesus.
And near as damn it 18kwh! My highest was 3.92 if I exclude showers!

1 hour paid there is at least 4.5 hours for me or that 1 day paid for almost 4 full days for me and I'm heating 24x7

gangzoom

6,943 posts

225 months

Monday 13th January
quotequote all
Trustmeimadoctor said:
And near as damn it 18kwh! My highest was 3.92 if I exclude showers!

1 hour paid there is at least 4.5 hours for me or that 1 day paid for almost 4 full days for me and I'm heating 24x7
Last week was the highest usage by far, week before average gas use was 150kWh, before that just over 110kWh.

There is no issues for me, the house has a stupid amount of glazing which we love, and has usage this week I suspect will be down by 25% compared to last week.

The glazing brings so much extra light into the house 365 days a year, I'm quite comfortable taking a hit for the 1 week or so of really cold weather we get every year.

Edited by gangzoom on Monday 13th January 09:20

Trustmeimadoctor

13,935 posts

165 months

Monday 13th January
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If you can afford it and it's something you can live with then fair play to ya as long as your warm and safe

gangzoom

6,943 posts

225 months

Monday 13th January
quotequote all
Trustmeimadoctor said:
as long as your warm and safe
Honestly last week the gas bill was the last thing on my mind, this is the 'brook' at the end of the garden!!!





This was the footpath at the end of the garden, how it normally looks and last week.....Looking at whats going in LA, the gas bill really is not even worth an afterthought, though clearly how much energy we all use directly contribute, but the reality is its all bit too late now (from the climate side).






Byker28i

69,548 posts

227 months

Monday 13th January
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You could do what they did near us a few years back. Dredge the stream leading to the local catchment lake, but not onwards, which was downhill.

Houses near that bit of the stream were/are fine... but the road and other houses flooded half a mile away...

Greshamst

2,282 posts

130 months

Sunday 19th January
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Another brutal day on agile tomorrow.

I know you take the rough with the smooth, but it’s an annoying one as Monday is a WFH day and when I usually do most of my washing/cooking/ ironing/ life admin for the week.

Condi

18,313 posts

181 months

Sunday 19th January
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Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be similar, sorry to say. Thursday and Friday will be cheaper again.

Sheets Tabuer

19,834 posts

225 months

Sunday 19th January
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My smart meters still don't work, it's been 6 months now, I've raised complaints but they are simply not interested.

I'm getting estimated bills that are quite frankly wild.

I wish I'd never gone anywhere near octopus.

Chris Type R

8,202 posts

259 months

Sunday 19th January
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I jumped ship today to Cozy.

mikey_b

2,219 posts

55 months

Sunday 19th January
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I’m with Octopus and have fully functioning smart meters. In a week’s time though I’m collecting an EV which is compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go. How long should it take to switch over from my current tariff (the normal Flexible one) to IOG?

Then I’ll have to get an EV charger installed. AIUI, if the car is compatible with IOG, then I don’t need to use one of theirs which can control the charging schedule. So am tempted to call some local electricians to see if they can fit a basic 7kW unit more cheaply than the ~£800 Octopus want for their guys to do it. Is this a sensible plan of action? Basic chargers are available from Screwfix off the shelf, so not sure that I need a fancy-pants one from Octopus.

Greshamst

2,282 posts

130 months

Sunday 19th January
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Chris Type R said:
I jumped ship today to Cozy.
Think I’m gonna do this after midnight

clockworks

6,439 posts

155 months

Sunday 19th January
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mikey_b said:
I’m with Octopus and have fully functioning smart meters. In a week’s time though I’m collecting an EV which is compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go. How long should it take to switch over from my current tariff (the normal Flexible one) to IOG?

Then I’ll have to get an EV charger installed. AIUI, if the car is compatible with IOG, then I don’t need to use one of theirs which can control the charging schedule. So am tempted to call some local electricians to see if they can fit a basic 7kW unit more cheaply than the ~£800 Octopus want for their guys to do it. Is this a sensible plan of action? Basic chargers are available from Screwfix off the shelf, so not sure that I need a fancy-pants one from Octopus.
You won't be able to switch to Intelligent Go until you've got a compatible car OR charger plugged in. Octopus do a check for comms with the charger or car as part of the switch via the app.

It's worth getting a charger that's compatible with Octopus, just in case you change cars at some point, or the car manufacturer stops third party access.
If that happens, and you have got a non-comoatible charger, you'll get kicked off Intelligent Go and switched to Go.

You could switch now to Go, by saying you are using a random car with a granny charger, then switch to Intelligent Go once you've got the car and charger.

TheAngryDog

12,561 posts

219 months

Sunday 19th January
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We are on the daily tracker and it's starting to not be worth being on as it's above the cap more often than not.

Probably take the eon.nxt 7% below the cap tariff.

RichB

53,243 posts

294 months

Sunday 19th January
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clockworks said:
<clip> You could switch now to Go, by saying you are using a random car with a granny charger...
Does 'granny charger' just mean plugged into a 13a socket?

Road2Ruin

5,665 posts

226 months

Sunday 19th January
quotequote all
RichB said:
clockworks said:
<clip> You could switch now to Go, by saying you are using a random car with a granny charger...
Does 'granny charger' just mean plugged into a 13a socket?
Yes