Smart Tariffs (Octopus) in the App and people's experience of them

What functionality is there in the Smart Tariffs part of the Giv Energy app? I'm on the Octopus standard variable at the moment so not sure I could even get the smart tariffs part of the Giv Energy app working.

Every time I look at the current price of electric on the Agile Tariff it's way cheaper than what I pay for the standard variable (e.g. it's currently 0.52p/kWh), so I'm considering going with that. Even at peak times, which I imagine are 4pm to 7pm it's still less than the SV. I've only been watching it for a few days so this may be a blip, as you put your postcode in, I guess that it's area specific? There are a few windfarms nearby so I wonder if that is what has made the price so low?

What are the export prices like on Agile? I was told by an Octopus team member that it only gets up to about 14p/kWh, so not sure if this has changed. When my fixed export tariff kicks in in a few weeks I will be on 15p/kWh

TRBob I'm starting to look into the Agile Import pricing at the moment, I've seen some sub-15p/kWh but that wasn't an official source to need to double check. If I can start to import at a cheaper rate now my battery isn't getting charged much/at all then it makes sense.

As for Agile Export, at the moment it's rarely above 15p/kWh, so I'm moving onto Fixed Outgoing shortly. In the summer however I was seeing 60p+, even as high as 80p with an average of 25-31p according to my bills.

Cdent I'm starting to look into the Agile Import pricing at the moment, I've seen some sub-15p/kWh but that wasn't an official source to need to double check. If I can start to import at a cheaper rate now my battery isn't getting charged much/at all then it makes sense.

As for Agile Export, at the moment it's rarely above 15p/kWh, so I'm moving onto Fixed Outgoing shortly. In the summer however I was seeing 60p+, even as high as 80p with an average of 25-31p according to my bills.

Thank you for that, I thought that if you're on Agile Export you have to be on Agile Import and vice versa? What was your import tariff when you had Agile Export?

We are on Agile export, and not on Agile import. For import we are on the standard Octopus capped rate (ex Avro)

octopus Agile variable for export though there isn't much of that at the moment and the prices lately are very low, my import is octopus "flexible avro" which is listed as 33.73 per kwh with 47.5 per day standing charge. I don't think you can join flexible avro now

Thank you both, I've just spoken to Octopus and they're currently not accepting new signups to Agile whilst they review it all, without an EV my only option is the Standard Variable at the moment.

TRBob I'm on the standard price cap, Occupier Flexible I think it's called. You don't have to be on Agile for both.

The only one you can't be on is Agile Outgoing and Go/Go Faster.

TRBob
I have just asked Octopus to move me from 'standard' Octopus Flexible to 'Eco 7' Octopus Flexible. You need to phone them for this, but this tariff is available to anyone with a smart meter as well as those with an 'old' Economy 7 meter.

The night rates are 7 hours at 15.62 p/kWh, compared to 4 hours at 12 p/kWh for Octopus Go new users. And you can have Eco 7 and Outgoing/ Agile Outgoing at the same time.

Baychattan what are the day rates on that tarrif and standing charge per day?

positor1
Flexible Eco 7 - 7 hours at 15.62 p/kWh, typically 00:30 to 07:30, day rate 41.63 p/kWh, standing charge 41.72 p/day

I have also just moved to Outgoing Fixed, which pays 15 p/kWh for export. I have moved from Outgoing Agile, which isn't paying much at all at the moment. So, if you 'overfill' the batteries at the night rate and end up exporting from the solar panels during the day you only 'lose' 0.62 p/kWh plus round trip losses. And if you are an early riser you get breakfast in at the night rate 😁.

This seems to me to be a 'safer' approach than going for Go/SEG, which has 4 hours of 12 p/kWh in the early hours of the morning but only 4.1 p/kWh export. When 'Go' was at 7.5 p/kWh the maths was different.

Just so your aware, they have pulled the agile from their line up as it was too appealing.
Agile is directly linked to gas prices and usage. Currently the country is warmer than normal, people are holding off putting their heating on and all storage in Europe is 90%+ full ready for the winter.
The average off peak price in October is 24p per kwh.
The average off peak price in August when Europe scrambled to hoard was 35p per kwh.

Don't be fooled but the current lows, winter is coming and every country will be paying through the nose.
Keep stability until next feb-march then reassess.

Baychattan I have just asked Octopus to move me from 'standard' Octopus Flexible to 'Eco 7' Octopus Flexible. You need to phone them for this, but this tariff is available to anyone with a smart meter as well as those with an 'old' Economy 7 meter.

The night rates are 7 hours at 15.62 p/kWh, compared to 4 hours at 12 p/kWh for Octopus Go new users. And you can have Eco 7 and Outgoing/ Agile Outgoing at the same time.

Yes it's looks to be a good move, I'm unsure atm whether to change right away until the battery discharge issue is resolved, I don't want to pay to charge the battery only to have it all disappear and then end up paying more in the daytime.

Also the weather forecasts are deceiving, had a few days of 100% high cloud, but it's been fairly transparent so we manage to still do heat pump/washing machine/dishwasher through the day and mostly if not fully charge the battery, but you could get a day where its a bit thicker and you get a lot less solar, bit of a gamble.

How long did it take them to move you from Flexible to ECO 7. I rang them to ask for the same thing on 25th October , and I'm still waiting to be switched

Karen It took a week to move from flexible fixed to flexible Eco7.

I rang Octopus one Monday and asked to move tariff. The agent said it would take a few days, and they would get back to me. The following Monday I rang again, and the (different) agent completed the switch. Apparently there is some back end work needed that the phone agent can't do, but the back end people don't complete the switch.

So, ring Octopus again, and the change-over should be completed whilst you are on the phone.

Many thanks - I'll try again on Monday. The first lady I spoke with on the Tuesday said it would be completed by Friday. The lady I spoke to on the friday said it took a week, so I rang back the following Wednesday and that lady did something on her computer and told me it would be done by this friday - but still no joy. Maybe they are all busy trying to integrate Bulb customers into the system? I just wish they would hurry up a bit cos as the weather has turned I'm having to top up the battery at full price. Looks like its back on the phone next week!

Woopee! Thanks Baychattan, it worked. I rang today and the background work had been done - just needed switching over. All done now, so I can breath a sigh of relief when it comes to battery top-up time!.

Do you have any advice on charging strategies. I believe the battery can't support the house when it is charging, so is it best to go for a long slow charge overnight or a short hard one (about 2 hours sees the batteries full if I am at 50% charged). If you go for the short rapid charge is it best to do it as soon as ECO 7 kicks in, or to run through the night on battery and charge at around 5.00am. How much spare space do you leave for solar charging during the day at the moment? Just trying to get some tips on how to make the most of the off peak

Karen You don't mention what plant you have (but note that you can charge from PV, so must have hybrid) but my view is that the batteries would be stressed less with a longer slow charge than short and fast. The house load will be supported from grid at your E7 tariff rate during the charge. Using the energy directly from grid during this period eradicates inverter losses on that energy. We set our Charge to % at about 50% in late summer, 65% now but will increase that to maybe 80% as days get shorter to ensure we can support house load entirely from PV/battery until the next off-peak window opens.

Hi Tim,
I have an 8.2 battery, solis inverter and AC3.0 (no hybird inverter). If I can fill the battery from solar then it generally goes down from 100% at about 3pm to 58-62% by 9.00am the following morning. But the last couple of days any solar has just about been enough to run the base load.

I might try 65% tonight and see how it goes. Just to clarify I leave ECO mode on , set the % charge to 65% set the timed charge to run from 00.30 to 7.30? As long as the battery is already below 65% there should be no battery discharge and it will gradually fill to 65% and then just hover there?

1.

Karen set the timed charge to run from 00.30 to 7.30

If that's your E7 window, then yes. As long as the inverter ECO mode is enabled, the battery will support house load during the timed charge window until it falls to your Charge to % value (65% as you suggest). Once it hits that value, it will bounce around at that level plus or minus a percent or two and the house load will be supported from grid until the end of the timed charge period, when the battery will revert to support house load in ECO mode.

If the battery is below the Charge to % at the start of the window, it will charge up to that value at your (Battery Options) Charge Power from the start of the window. This time of year, you could probably reduce your Charge Power to give the battery the longer slow charge you mentioned.

I find this facility really useful as it means I can set the Charge to % to reflect the general seasonal trend for available PV rather than changing it every day. As long as it's high enough to get us through a regular day to reach the next off-peak window, the battery will minimise peak-time grid import but also soak up any PV which the weather deems to grant us.

The optimum charge to % depends on the relative sizing of your battery compared with the daily household consumption, and the variability of the solar generation.
It is best to err on the side of caution, so better to use a slightly higher % to charge to at the cheap rate than risk running out of charge and consuming at the peak rate when there are consecutive poor generation days.

Karen My Eco7 night rate is 15.62 p/kWh and day rate of 41.63 p/kWh, and I am on Octopus Outgoing Fixed with an export rate of 15 p/kWh.

My 'winter' strategy is to set the battery to charge to 100%, 00:35 to 07:25. The 5-minute safety margin is to allow for slight clock differences between systems.

The battery dips until the solar output meets the house demand, the timing of which depends on the weather. On a very dull rainy day this can be 'never', on a 'good' day this is an hour or so. It can take from a few to many hours for the solar output to bring the battery back to 100%, depending on the weather. Mid to late afternoon, as daylight starts to fail the house is running off the battery until 00:35.

As winter deepens, solar output becomes less significant. By January it isn't much at all, so the house is running off the battery almost all the day.

Since my export rate is only slightly less the my 'night' import rate, but my 'day' import rate is nearly 3 times as much as either, my strategy is to avoid 'day' rate import at all cost, rather than minimise export. I am also somewhat sceptical about using the day ahead weather forecast to predict the next days solar output, as the weather forecasts aren't that accurate here in the Yorkshire Dales. With my import/ export rates, the penalty for over-estimating the next days solar output is significant (41.63 - 15.62 = 25.01 p/kWh). whilst the penalty for playing safe and filling the battery to 100% is just 0.62 p/kWh plus round-trip losses of say 10%, so say 2 p/kWh overall.

Many thanks. I have only tried one charge period on ECO7 so far and allowed a 15 minute gap each side of the time period. I guess when I get more confident I will reduce that to 5 mins like you. I am also trying to avoid the big peak time penalty. My one charge so far was to 80% (I was going to try 65% but bottled it at the last minute!) and that saw me through all of yesterday where there was only 0.6kw of solar. Today is sunny in the south so I may not need to charge overnight. I'm hoping that if I overfill the battery and there is more sun than expected the iboost will mop it up and give me some hot water rather than exporting (I picked the agile export tariff and I'm not sure that was a good idea for the winter!Still, I think watchful waiting may be the best approach over my first PV winter and then review everything in the spring). Thanks again. Karen

Karen It seems to be quite easy and quick to swap between Agile Outgoing and Fixed Outgoing (and presumably back again). I was on Agile outgoing over the summer when the Agile rates were high, and changed a couple of weeks ago when the Agile rates had dropped to very low. All I did was go to the Octopus website and filled in the application for Outgoing Fixed - you have to go through the rigmarole of uploading your MCS certificate, DNO confirmation email etc again - and the next day I was on Outgoing Fixed. I am keeping an eye on the Agile Outgoing rates, and if/when the winter weather kicks in and the Agile rates rise above the Fixed rates I will (try to) change back to Agile Outgoing.

On a related note, I got my first Octopus bill yesterday after changing to Eco7, and there are some howlers in it! They have got the day and night rates swapped, ie night is high rate, day is low rate, and they have billed TOTAL consumption at BOTH day and night rates! So check your bills very, very carefully.