camelot-forum.co.uk

Hello Gents
Sounds Maybeee to good. Ref “ guarantee homebuyers no energy bills “
OCTOPUS ENERGY has handed the UK an energy crisis lifeline after teaming up with housebuilder Ilker Homes with a scheme to guarantee homebuyers no energy bills
It does not say how long the guarantee will last.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/ ... eg-jackson

I am surprised the Express has picked up on this, but it is good news anyway. Octopus are leading on what the govt. should be doing already have done (again.) I saw

While Octopus is guarantying [sic] zero bills for a 12-month period, both company heads expect that the zero tariff will become permanent further down the line.
Mr Carter said: “By 2030, we hope there is zero incremental cost.”

so at least it isn't an open-ended commitment for us.

I do wonder though whether the adage that "people don't appreciate what they don't pay for" will apply and they will waste it. SWMBO just read out a news item she found where people were quoting the fact that the family were now only having one shower a week each as an example of their fuel poverty! I guess their water won't be metered either...

If you negotiate all the ad’s and fluff, it states the guarantee would be for 12 months, though it is expected a ‘zero tariff’ would be available by then.

At the moment it’s a proposal, with a pilot on two semi’s.

Will people accept a premium of £8-10K on the purchase price (be bonkers not to) ?

Good that someone is biting the bullet to bring about change.

Octopus are limiting the free energy to 10 MWh's which is quite a lot, I only just generate a little over that with 12kW of PV. However, I wonder if Octopus are including the heatpump heat extraction in this as the wording is "homeowners would only have to pay energy bills if they use over 10MWh of energy."

So its not clear to me if the 10MWh is on import or the whole usage including all Solar PV generation and Heatpump energy extraction.

Mr Jackson said: “We think [the homes] could be self-sufficient forever., - Some of us are in this situation already.

As to their new tariff down the line, there has been some speculation on the facebook Octopus groups about "GO" being replaced with "Intelligent Octopus" which makes sense as they are trying to tout it to EVs. And a new "Heatpump" tariff, don't know the details, but I suspect it might be along the lines of an E10 tariff (several cheap / cheaper slots during the day). Other speculation that Agile might be ditched because the prices are prone to swing to extreme levels.

While this column is just mainly journalistic hype, the future possibilities are apparent - if one really searches below the surface.

Residential areas fitted out with modular, prefabricated, well-insulated homes - with a full roof of PV (not just the 3.6kW normally allowed at present) and with communal borehole GSHP systems - plus an energy tariff that is nearer to parity for payment for energy returned to the grid would be a panacea for many home buyers.

Octopus are good at this sort of thing and would gain a lot of custom from competitors, should they introduce such a tariff. They already supply a several-hour night-rate of 7.5p/unit, so not implausible. Likely the homeowner might only have to pay the standard daily charge for the supply?

It won’t help most of us, but I’m sure Octopus Energy are carefully doing their sums…

FT has a picture off the PreFab houses, that's quite a lot of solar (20 panels a side), don't know if its on both sides, but the shadows suggest its an east/west orientation so could be and that may well generate 10MWh.

If the solar panels fail to generate enough energy, the homes are still connected to the grid and can draw energy without it affecting their bills, added Jackson.

So the guarantee might be part net metering with a guarantee to make up to 10MWh including the Solar PV generation. In that case the guarantee might not be such a big liability for Octopus.

nowty wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:16 pm
So the guarantee might be part net metering with a guarantee to make up to 10MWh including the Solar PV generation. In that case the guarantee might not be such a big liability for Octopus.

It might be like the Tesla tariff where it was a 11p/kWh either direction, and if the houses are really well insulated they may be able to stay within the 10MWh target.