Anything bad about Octopus? Looking to switch to them.

[sharpener]

Octopus seem generally to be pretty good, from what I've heard. They did refuse to supply us, though, saying that they would only offer their E7 tariff to customers that could have a smart meter, not those that already had an E7 meter.

I, too, have been trying to pin down rates, and have found a cheaper supplier than Octopus if you are on Economy 7. These are the prices I got this morning from E-ON for the Southern Region, BEFORE the new government cap comes in on the 1st October:

Day rate = 32.0720 p/kWh

Night rate = 16.4350 p/kWh

Standing charge = 41.4100 p/day

Just got the new pricing from Scottish Power wef 1/10/22.

Daytime units are up from 35 to 45p, night-time units are down from 16p to 11. This is great for battery system users, so perhaps worth hanging fire until October 1.

We are on an old E7 meter, it appears to be set to 2300 - 0000 and 0100 - 0700 (!). We have ended up with Scottish Power again on two occasions, after Yorkshire Energy and the Orbit went bust. So it looks as though they will accept non-smart meter customers for new accounts (unless that was an OFGEM stipulation at the time)

[Oldgreybeard]

Just got the new pricing from Scottish Power wef 1/10/22.

Daytime units are up from 35 to 45p, night-time units are down from 16p to 11. This is great for battery system users, so perhaps worth hanging fire until October 1.

We are on an old E7 meter, it appears to be set to 2300 - 0000 and 0100 - 0700 (!). We have ended up with Scottish Power again on two occasions, after Yorkshire Energy and the Orbit went bust. So it looks as though they will accept non-smart meter customers for new accounts (unless that was an OFGEM stipulation at the time)

That would be absolutely fantastic for us, if they offered that tariff down here. It does look as if suppliers are lowering the night time E7 tariffs, and if that trend continues across the whole country it will be absolutely brilliant for those with batteries and EVs.

One snag I've run into with both a fairly large battery, night storage heating (in effect), night hot water heating and an EV, is the the Octopus Go off-peak period is just way, way too short. I cannot possibly charge the car, the hot water and the battery in four or five hours, if I tried I'd have the meter cabinet up in flames, I'm sure. Being able to spread things out over 7 hours makes a big difference, as it's rare for the hot water to take more than an hour and a half to charge, so by staggering things I can usually manage to get enough from the 7 hour off-peak period.

I think we may see a big resurgence in Economy 7 over the next year or two. It's always been a very useful tariff, but now it's really coming into it's own again, largely because it is just so easy to set times for things to come on overnight, with no need to check to see when the cheap period is that day.

[sharpener]

That would be absolutely fantastic for us, if they offered that tariff down here.

Where is "down here"? We are down in Devon, you can't get much more "down" than that.

The other looming problem is the discontinuation of the radio teleswitch service from Droitwich, allegedly because there aren't any replacement valves for the transmitter (you can't get the glassblowers you know). Even for 100s of kW I would have thought it feasible to design a solid-state alternative, if they had a mind to.

[198 kHz is practically DC these days. I can remember when you could get long wave OK with a Mullard OC45 germanium transistor or 3, whereas you had to use the OC44 for medium wave as it had a better hf performance. Now we think nothing of having 2.4 GHz stuff all round the house.]

What is going to happen to E7 customers like us who can't have a smart meter because the mobile coverage is so carp?

[Oldgreybeard]

That would be absolutely fantastic for us, if they offered that tariff down here.

Where is "down here"? We are down in Devon, you can't get much more "down" than that.

The other looming problem is the discontinuation of the radio teleswitch service from Droitwich, allegedly because there aren't any replacement valves for the transmitter (you can't get the glassblowers you know). Even for 100s of kW I would have thought it feasible to design a solid-state alternative, if they had a mind to.

[198 kHz is practically DC these days. I can remember when you could get long wave OK with a Mullard OC45 germanium transistor or 3, whereas you had to use the OC44 for medium wave as it had a better hf performance. Now we think nothing of having 2.4 GHz stuff all round the house.]

What is going to happen to E7 customers like us who can't have a smart meter because the mobile coverage is so carp?

We are lucky, because SSE couldn't get a smart meter to work here (no signal) they swapped it out for a brand new Economy 7 meter, that doesn't use the old R4 teleswitch system. I presume it's either locked to mains frequency or has an accurate crystal controlled clock. Either way it seems to be very accurate.

AFAIK, the meter we have has a 20 year projected life, so as it was installed in 2019, we should be OK for a few years yet. It's a digital meter, with an internal time clock, set to switch to the night rate at 23:30 GMT and to the day rate at 06:30 GMT. Only slight issue I've had it finding time switches that are dumb, and don't automatically adjust for BST, as our E7 slot remains locked to GMT.

[SafetyThird]

We have a fairly new meter, fitted 3 years ago and a big clunking switch for E7 but I don’t think that actually does anything since we removed the storage heaters that were on a separate consumer unit. Ours switches from 01:20-08:20 currently for its E7 hours.

Looks like waiting until 1/10 is worthwhile, not sure if our rates would change automatically but for the sake of a couple of days we might as well hang on until then.

[NikoV6]

Been with them for about 4 years, Octopus Go tariff for charging battery and car overnight is great

Customer service is excellent, much badgering of them got my Smart meter installed even though they said I could not get a signal! We can

Referral link if you do join - Share £100

https://share.octopus.energy/loyal-cloud-540

MoDs please remove link if not appropriate

Thanks Niko, looks very likely we'll join and I'll use that link at the time.

No worries, glad to help!

[AE-NMidlands]

I have just read the first bad thing I've ever seen about Octopus - I think - and the complaint turns out to be mostly unjustified!

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/ ... isnt-fixed
Octopus Energy isn’t dealing fairly with my complaint about changes to my fixed-rate tariff.

"I started a new contract in August last year, having transferred from Avro Energy just before it collapsed.
The contract was called Octopus Price Promise July 2021 V1 and ran until September 2023."
/snip/
Based on the documents you shared with me, I can understand your confusion, but Octopus Energy says it was laid out in the terms and conditions and other emails sent to you that this was a fixed-term, not a fixed-price, tariff.

After you complained, the Energy Ombudsman ruled in Octopus’s favour, but said it should make a financial gesture because the matter could have been handled faster.
Octopus says: “Our price promise tariff guarantees the rates a customer pays for their energy will always be £50 below the price cap. All customers have to accept T&Cs after reading about the tariff they have chosen.

“We’ve given the customer a goodwill gesture of £75 because we’d usually expect to get back to a query more quickly.”

[SafetyThird]

Had an email from Good Energy yesterday with their price increase from Oct 1st




So the price is going up but monthly outgoings may be lower with the government help. Yeah, but no.

Will be moving to octopus but will wait until the first of October to get whatever off peak rate they run from then.

[ALAN/ALAN D]

I got Good Energy Email yesterday.

Without Government Energy Price Guarantee.

Standing Charge 49.68p
Day rate 70.50p
Night rate 53.03p


Why do prices vary through out the U.K.

[Stinsy]

Why do prices vary through out the U.K.

Because in the old days power stations were in cities. So people in rural areas paid more to cover the additional transmission. Nowadays wind turbines are in the countryside. But city-folk still pay less...