Octopus Tariffs

[CharlieB]

Hey folks. Unashamadely trying to pick your brains here so I don't have to trawl too much myself. I'm looking to change supplier for two properties. If you've already done the research for similar situations and narrowed down to 1 or 2 tariffs please let me know. Doesn't need to be octopus but I'm kind of assuming they're going to be best.

1. Heat Pump tariff. ASHP was connected up last night. It's an old and drafty farmhouse but it seems to be working ok - we've never wanted to keep temp anything above 17 degrees anyway. I'm guessing just a simple peak and off-peak for now, though I'm thinking about a big thermal store in the future to be able to play more games witih time-shifting our demand). We'll hopefully get an electric car before too long if that makes any difference.

2. FIT tariff that pays a semi-decent amount for export. This is a farm holiday cottage with a 10kW wind turbine, so 90% of the power is exported. Currently with Good Energy and paid a pittance for export. Having a relatively low standing charge is important there as the place isn't occupied much.

There are 'smart' meters in both properties but neither of them are actually working. Surprise! ASHP one being fixed tomorrow hopefully, and other one mid Feb.

[Ken]

The answer to 1) depends on how much leccy you can shift to cheap night rate and how much you need to use at peak time early evening.

The answer to 2) is to give up the deemed export and go for the max export which with Octopus is 15p/kwh. If you then went to say Intelligent Octopus which is cheap at night then i can envisage you not even having a positive leccy bill.

[Andy]

The answer to 1) depends on how much leccy you can shift to cheap night rate and how much you need to use at peak time early evening.

The answer to 2) is to give up the deemed export and go for the max export which with Octopus is 15p/kwh. If you then went to say Intelligent Octopus which is cheap at night then i can envisage you not even having a positive leccy bill.

Check that they allow you to phone in the export numbers for the 15p. I'm not sure if they require a working smart meter for that. As most do. Don't be too hasty to give up on your fit export until you have checked this with any supplier.

[Stinsy]

Octopus make this really complicated and their web is terrible, so I understand your frustration.

However the reality is really simple: if you can (or can be bothered to) timeshift your consumption the IOG is the best tariff by far. If you don’t qualify for IOG then vanilla Go is 2nd best. If you can’t be bothered to timeshift then Tracker is really good. All the other tariffs might seem great in principle but they’re all very expensive compared with IOG.

For export: OO is best, it pays a flat 15p/kWh and you can have it in addition to your FiT payments (you just have to detach the deemed export). But you can be in the position of buying electric at 7.5p/kWh on IOG and selling it for 15p/kWh on OO.

[Andy]

Most of their tariffs require smart meters that are communicating at 30 minute intervals. If it you have old Smets 1 meters then they will change them for SMETS 2 meters. However if like me you have no SMETS 2 signal in the area then you are out of luck.

[nowty]

From their Octopus Outgoing page,
https://octopus.energy/smart/outgoing/

"You'll need a smart meter from which we are able to receive half-hourly export data."

[richbee]

Octopus make this really complicated and their web is terrible, so I understand your frustration.

However the reality is really simple: if you can (or can be bothered to) timeshift your consumption the IOG is the best tariff by far. If you don’t qualify for IOG then vanilla Go is 2nd best. If you can’t be bothered to timeshift then Tracker is really good. All the other tariffs might seem great in principle but they’re all very expensive compared with IOG.

For export: OO is best, it pays a flat 15p/kWh and you can have it in addition to your FiT payments (you just have to detach the deemed export). But you can be in the position of buying electric at 7.5p/kWh on IOG and selling it for 15p/kWh on OO.

For both IOG and Go you have to have an EV - which may be OK for the future, but not yet according to the original post. It does seem that IOG is the gold standard, especially if you have a home battery too - 6 hours of mad-cheap electricity.

Cosy is the Octopus heat pump specific tariff - it gives 2 off peak slots from 4-7am and 1-4pm currently at 16p/kWh, but with peak slot from 4-7pm at ~40p/kWh. So if you can push your heat pump to eg run hot water in the cheap slots, could be good.

They also have Flux, which need s a battery system, so currently no good.

[CharlieB]

Many thanks all, particularly Stinsy. This has already grown legs as I thought it might! For now thinking about the ASHP house, where I actually live:

In general I don't currently have much scope for time-shifting demand yet (only thermal mass of the house and it's big and drafty so I fear HP will need to be on many hours a day for now). And no EV so Go tariffs seem to be out. To my surprise Tracker does look tempting - I like the idea a lot as a geek, and although the prices could in theory be highest in the winter when we're using the HP most in practise they seem to still be lower than non trackers.

What am I missing? ( https://energy-stats.uk/dashboards/ We're in SE Scotland, but I can't beleive it's that much different from Yorkshire).

I'll probably try to turn HP off during peak times anyway, as marginal carbon on the grid is huge then.

[Fintray]

Many thanks all, particularly Stinsy. This has already grown legs as I thought it might! For now thinking about the ASHP house, where I actually live:

In general I don't currently have much scope for time-shifting demand yet (only thermal mass of the house and it's big and drafty so I fear HP will need to be on many hours a day for now). And no EV so Go tariffs seem to be out. To my surprise Tracker does look tempting - I like the idea a lot as a geek, and although the prices could in theory be highest in the winter when we're using the HP most in practise they seem to still be lower than non trackers.

What am I missing? ( https://energy-stats.uk/dashboards/ We're in SE Scotland, but I can't beleive it's that much different from Yorkshire).

I'll probably try to turn HP off during peak times anyway, as marginal carbon on the grid is huge then.

Charlie to see SE Scotland details click on the Tracker tab at the top of the page then scroll down to Southern Scotland and the correct graphs will appear.

[CharlieB]

Thanks Fintray. Much the same but if anything the wholesale price tracker is an even better deal compared to the peaks of the other tariffs in SE Scotand than in Yorkshire. No idea what sort of locational pricing feeds into that..