Just a warning to Octopus customers - having had an 8.2kWh storage battery installed, today (16 Nov 2022) I find that there is no Octopus tariff available to me which will enable me to charge the battery in the early hours of the morning at off-peak rate. Agile Octopus is no longer available for incoming electricity from the grid (but still available for export). The Octopus Go tariff is only available if you have an electric vehicle.
You can get Economy 7, I'm on E7 tariff
I discovered the same thing yesterday when I contacted Octopus. Bit annoying as the GivEnergy website seems to still be promoting Octopus on its website. It's also strange that if I had a hybrid car I could download cheaper electricity for the both the car and my GivEnergy battery. My other issue is, does not loading up the battery (due to these short sun-free days) cause any long term problems to the battery with regard to things like longevity or capacity of the battery?
when i phoned yesterday I received an email link to get a quote and that was for a standard variable rate, almost identical to my current supplier - Utility Warehouse
Pinnell9908 I have just completed the transfer to Octopus energy who put you on a standard variable tariff whilst they establish that the meter readings are coming through and then you can get transferred to another tariff (I expect to go onto the Go tariff within a couple of weeks).
I switched to Octopus recently. You go on the flexible tariff to start with for a couple of weeks and then they will move you onto other tariffs. I switched to ECO 7. I have to admit this wasn't as simple as I hoped and took 3 weeks and numerous calls as I hadn't been on ECO 7 before and they have to get this both set up on their system and on the National Database. It's not as cheap as Octopus Go, but isn't bad (about 15p/KW off peak). Someone said on another post that the Agile tariff hasn't disappeared for good, but that Octopus have withdrawn it from new customers while they figure out how to align it with the Price cap requirements. I think the guy posting said he had spoken to someone at Octopus about it?
mjbeaumont just apply for Go, say you have a hybrid on order and go from there. They don't ask for proof apparently. But as @ispookie666 E7 is a good shout, you get longer at the lower price, but it's not as low as Go.
First thing you do is get with them on a flexible tariff. You'll be paying the same as you are now so not a problem. I can give you a referral code which gives you £50 and me £50 if you like.
Once you're with them, contact them (I've found Twitter DMs to be great and anything I've asked for has been sorted out well within the same day) and say you'd like to go on Octopus Go. They'll send you a link and you just accept the conditions. If you talk to anyone and they ask you whether you have an EV or not, just say 'yes' 🙂
They did ask me what I had and I said it was the wifes so wasn't sure of exact model etc but that it was an MG thing (take your pick here from brands). Nothing else was ever said about an EV.
Within the next 2 days I was on the new tariff 🙂
The E7 from now until April is a great shout. But Agile is meant to be coming back sometime. Their new Agile VAR version applied the government price cap and that made the price basically ZERO pence. Even now this half an hour its only 18p. Not sure what the tariffs will be like from April though!
You CAN switch to Octopus Go even if you don't have an EV, just tell them that you do/have one on order. Your house battery will behave exactly like an EV regardless, just smaller.
Paul44 Don't believe there is unfortunately....if you use
https://share.octopus.energy/lemon-kiwi-588
or just tell them the lemon-kiwi-588 if you have to enter the code somewhere
Good luck!!!
Pinnell9908
I shared your concern as I too am still not on a split rate tariff due to problems getting a smart meter installed and the battery charging in single digits per day but being 1% by the following morning.. So recently I just charged the battery to 30% from the grid and then on the portal inverter settings went to battery options and set the slider for battery discharge power to 0. That way the battery will hold on to that charge but also top up slowly every day from the limited winter solar. I'm getting about 4 to 5% solar addition every day currently. One advantage of this beside protecting the health of the battery is that I have reserve energy for the potential impending grid power cuts.
Must ask you all for some advice please as a new battery owner!
I am on octopus as well and want to configure the inverter such that I charge overnight during the economy seven hours and then in order to help the grid (and hopefully get remuneration for it later on!) to discharge only to the house from 16:00 hours to 17:00 hours or longer.
I can get the inverter to charge during the night and I can get it to discharge from 16:00 hours onwards but I can't get the two to operate together. The settings keep on changing....
Additionally, I'd like it to work out what to do between 07:00 and 16:00.
Any thoughts please???
TChapman eco mode won't work if timed discharge is on. It'll go to off.
The two ways of doing this are - some form of automation, API, GivTCP, home assistant to set the settings for you. (Various threads about that).
Or just go for eco mode with a timed charge. Does it matter if you run out before 5pm? Any peak rate avoidance is better than nothing? Does it matter what time you use the stored energy?
(Apart from if you want to be nice to the grid and perhaps make some money during the saving sessions).
TChapman as per TX200 set your mode to eco, I have mine set to charge between 01:00 and 06:30 as at 15p a KWH and it being the wee hours it doesn't matter if I use the grid, I have also set my max discharge rate at 500w that might sound counter productive IMHO it isn't I have a 8.2kw battery and if I was using 500w an hour would get 16hrs from the battery , I don't the house consumes with my help approx. 200w to 300w an hour.
if I use the oven or the hob the first 500w is supplied via the battery the remaining is supplied via the grid I'm comfortable with that level of Grid use it's pennies in the long term of things.
I also use GivTCP to alter the charge to rate depending on Solar forecast, this is and interesting concept and I'm waiting for the start of longer days to see if it going to payback the effort to put it in place
Long and short of it I get a full higher rate day out of the battery with little daytime grid feed and shift most of my cost to cheap rate with the benefit of what little sunshine we get charges the battery and runs the house
You can set up schedule atomations here if you sign up. This is Octopus using Giv's API. A cool tool.
https://smart-energy.octopushome.net/
I suspect what TChapman is attempting to do is to reduce his reliance on the grid at peak demand times which tends to be that 17:00 - 19:00 period hence their ask.
Thank you folks, looks like I'm going to have to look at the automation but then again this requirement is going to become very commonplace for everyone in the near future I think.
The reason I need the battery to kick in at scheduled times is that for example - today between 1730 and 1830, Octopus are offering 1800 Octopoints (worth £2.25 each) for every kilowatt hour that I don't use off the grid. If you imagine the full peaktime three hour period, seven days a week as we get into the winter and colder then you can see that would be substantial payback.
So I really do need that mixture of charging overnight with discharge only to the house starting at 1600 for example.
It could be that the grid will also start paying £3 a kilowatt-hour for those people that feed into the grid during the peak times but, I don't think they've finalised anything yet....
This is just a trial, much like the Big Dirty Turn Down that they tried earlier in the year. There absolutely no suggestion that this is going to happen for 3 hours per day, seven days per week.
No you're quite right, there is no guarantee that this will continue but, regardless of any possible payments I'd like to ease any pressure on the grid for that time anyway...
Set the inverter on Eco mode (use the portal) and then enable a Timed Charge to coincide with your off peak times. Set the battery to the level that you want to exit the Timed Charge period at.
The system will then minimise grid usage, prioritising charging and battery usage before importing. That's the best way to minimise the load on the grid. The system will operate in "fire-and-forget" mode and will need next to no manual intervention.
Timed Discharge doesnt seem to play nicely and will require a lot of manual intervention.
Thank you I'm going to set the inverter now to the eco-mode because whenever I try any of the other settings it changes everything every day, this morning it didn't even charge overnight..
When I started this project around Easter time I did see an article saying that the National Grid would be paying £5 per kilowatt hour for small generators to feed in during the peak times. These days, it seems to be limited to the £3 'avoid using' incentive. I can't find any references back to the feed in now...