End of the 5p cheap rate!

[nowty]

Ha ha!

I think I owe EDF an apology! It was E-ON who were promoting an EV charging tariff with super-high "peak" prices that ran 24/7 to which they applied a credit to make the electricity you put in your BEV during the cheap period 4p/kWh.

This tariff by EDF actually represents a genuine attempt to compete with Octopus. No mention of charging batteries or running your dishwasher during the cheap period as a side-benefit though. I wonder if they have a "fair use" policy?

Here it is: https://www.eonnext.com/tariffs/next-drive

Hmmmm, I fear Octopus Intelligence tariff might end up going this way. A rebate is a dodgy way of getting round the rules, I'll have to find a way of running the whole house off the car charger.

[Tinbum]

I'll have to find a way of running the whole house off the car charger.

Possible, with V2G chargers , a little inefficient but still cheaper electricity.

[Stinsy]

However if wholesale prices are cheap, free, or even negative during whatever time period, why shouldn't consumers benefit if they inconvenience themselves to shift their usage to those times? Particularly those who have invested in batteries to do so.

Energy provider wins.

Customer wins.

Where is the problem?

[nowty]

I note Octopus has provided an update on switching between tariffs and their hedging policies which indirectly goes someway to explain why the 5p cheapslot ain't viable anymore.

We’ve recently made a change to how often you can switch between our Agile Octopus and Octopus Go smart tariffs. These tariffs offer customers the ability to unlock cheaper (and greener) electricity prices by using energy at particular times. They work best with that change in behaviour, and are designed for the long term.

For our fixed tariffs, we buy a customer’s energy for the 12 months ahead and price the tariff so that there’s a small margin for us to cover the costs of doing business. Our Flexible (SVT) tariffs follow the market more closely so can go up or down (but we’ll always give fair notice of any changes) and are bought in advance too, but for shorter periods..

Agile Octopus is designed to do away with all that: with prices based on the day-ahead wholesale market and charged based on what a consumer actually uses each half hour. Agile Octopus customers are then able to adapt when they use their energy, in particular avoiding peak times, to make significant savings.

We don’t hedge the consumption of Agile customers - ie. we don’t buy their energy in advance, The whole point is that prices reflect the current wholesale market. But we do hedge fixed tariffs (including Octopus Go). As such, if Agile customers switch to a fixed tariff, we then hedge their expected consumption - we buy it in advance at fixed prices. If customers then switch back to Agile, we’re stuck with having bought it according to standard consumption, but then paying for it according to the prevailing wholesale market every half hour.

So customers moving from Agile to fixed tariffs is ok, moving back the other way is harder for us.

Octopus Go is a great tariff with its off-peak rate of only 7.5p between 00.30 and 04.30, so it’s not surprising it’s seen as attractive. Octopus Go is hedged according to the expected consumption profile of a Go customer - that is, we buy your energy in advance for every half hour, based on our experience of typical Go customers. So if a Go customer switches back and forth between other tariffs, and changes consumption patterns, our hedging no longer works. So, as with Agile, we need to reduce the speed at which people can switch back and forth between Go and other tariffs.

We’ve retained the ability to leave smart tariffs at any time - if they’re not for you we don’t want you locked into them. We’ve just added the 30 day restriction to prevent the “back and forth” which can undermine the way they’re designed to work. Of course, as ever with Octopus, there’s no exit fees and no lockins.

And we’re delighted to be at the vanguard, to be moving from a world where customers never switched, to one where we have had some customers looking at intraday switching, powered by our APIs which are still a unique feature of Octopus. This is an incredible journey, together, bringing the cleaner, greener, cheaper future of energy into the present.

[snootsandfruits]

End of the cheap 5p rate, but also the end of any cheap gas rates!

We're currently paying less than 4p/kWh with a tariff that we only signed onto a few months ago, and I note that all of the new fixed tariffs that are listed are more than double that (at least 8.36p) - being greater than the new cheap 4h and 5h leccy rate (7.5p and 8.25p)

Which actually means that long term, our ASHP calculations look *better* than they did before.

[Stinsy]

"intraday switching"

I'm sure when I signed up to "GO" they warned me I'd need to give 14 days notice to switch onto another "smart" tariff. Imagine switching tariff several times a day? That's going a bit far! Looks like they've made it 30-days now.

I'd like Octopus to do a hybrid so Go customers can benefit when wholesale prices go negative. Even if they gave us free slots or extra cheap slots if the plunges occur outside our normal cheap period. Maybe that is what they're trying with "Intelligent"?

They've allowed people to shift temporarily on to Agile before, on weekends when they know the grid will be saturated.

[Stinsy]

End of the cheap 5p rate, but also the end of any cheap gas rates!

We're currently paying less than 4p/kWh with a tariff that we only signed onto a few months ago, and I note that all of the new fixed tariffs that are listed are more than double that (at least 8.36p) - being greater than the new cheap 4h and 5h leccy rate (7.5p and 8.25p)

Which actually means that long term, our ASHP calculations look *better* than they did before.

Don't worry too much "Flexible Octopus" (the variable tariff) is 3.82p/kWh for gas.

[snootsandfruits]

It is right now, but I can't see it staying that way for long.

[Oliver90owner]

I look at my bill and work out the cost per unit I have actually paid. Last month, leccy cost very close to 22p/unit and gas cost 4.8p/unit.
Our power bill is less than many similar properties, so the standing charge makes up a greater % of our bill than that ‘many’.

That is inclusive of standing charges and VAT. My wife insists on cooking the main meal mostly with peak rate leccy. Knocking that usage off might have reduced our leccy unit-cost to about 15p although that is skewed a bit by Christmas cooking with leccy. Roll on lighter evenings and more solar (need some on the west facing side of the roof).

Figures for November leccy and gas were 21p and 5.3p per unit respectively. Ignoring the standing charge leccy would have been just over 15p and gas is 4p. Dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier and dehumidifier are (generally) run on E7, along with my breakfast usage.

[Stinsy]

I paid 8.48p/kWh for electric in December including standing charge and VAT. Thought that was pretty good given the next-to-zero solar I managed to harvest!