Smart Export Guarantee - which company

Having had my GivEnergy system with 8.2 kWh battery since September last year I realise that its about time that I sorted this out. I am keeping with Octopus Go for my electricty supplier as I have the 'qualifying' ev. I apprecaiate that I am not going to get rich by exporting our excess but I might as well try to get a few pennies back from someone as the excess is going into the grid anyway. And if I can claw back some pennies to offset some of the recent price rise - every little helps!!
I have done some research but wanted to reach out to other users for advice as those offering SEG all seem to have various criteria and when a battery is in the consumers set up that can make things more complicated or disqualified.
So any recomendations from those with experince for someone (me) who is looking to get this sorted inreadiness for the UK spring, summer and beyond?

Thanks

Scottish Power 5.5p, So Energy 5p

I am on Go Faster and joined Octopus SEG export only which is 4.1p as I was on Agile and might switch back, maybe.

GrahamShaul I am keeping with Octopus Go for my electricty supplier as I have the 'qualifying' ev.

You may find that as you will be able to change back to Go, you can move to Agile and then go on to Outgoing Agile. My 5.4kWp Solar and Giv 8.2 battery kept my house powered from April to mid September without any import required (except for when the battery couldn't meet the house demand when using our electric oven in the early evening). My export income more than offset the higher import cost on Agile In August and September, so I will almost certainly do the same this year unless I go onto flexible tariff instead.

What I have found is that the first year is a learning curve and that you need to keep looking at all options to get the most out of solar and a battery in conjunction with Agile Outgoing tariff.

It depends on your use, but always look at the net cost of import costs - export income as the cheapest incoming tariff is not necessarily the lowest overall cost.

I recently applied for my SEG with octopus. I'm not yet a customer for their supply as I'm still on a fixed rate deal and it doesn't make sense to change off this until it has expired. Anyway, the point I want to make is that some companies do not allow a battery as part of the system and refer to this as brown energy/electricity. I think Scottish Power falls into this one from memory. Just something for you to watch out for when deciding who to set up the SEG with.

GrahamShaul I'm looking into this as well, just researching currently. I came across this, thought I'd share:
https://www.octopusreferral.link/octopus-energy-seg-tariffs/

I'm not with Octopus yet but am looking to try and join them once my home battery arrives. I need a supplier and tariff that will let me change my battery during the night at a cheaper rate. I don't have an EV though at the moment.,

Firstly I am on a fixed tarrif with octopus and on fixed agile export. (7p ish export), you don’t lose the fixed import. It was something I clarified before signing up to it.
Secondly, if you find a tariff that gives you cheap import at night, let me know because octopus officially don’t let you sign up for it without an ev. I wasn’t happy lying to say I had one when I asked.

anglefire Know what you mean. If there is excess energy (one reason they normally sell cheap to encourage people to charge at these times) when why do they have to make a differentiation to EV or Home Battery?

I wonder what they will put in their T&C next, when people can start using the battery from their car to plug into the house to power it. Kinda nearly the same result.

steve I totally agree. Many cars do it now. The ioniq5 does it for one. Not sure about the ENYAQ iv. Two cars I have been looking at - though finding it very hard to make the numbers work.

anglefire Yep, same. I own my car, oldish but works. I fully work from home, so hardly use it. Getting a new EV and making the monthly payments for it to mostly sit on the drive (or be a BIG battery to the house) doesn't make sense at the moment.

steve I’m the opposite. I sometimes work from home but it’s sporadic. I’m doing less miles than before as I can remote into quite a few sites which is brilliant. So I have reduced my mileage down to about 18k from 25-30. Though some of that is not going abroad on holiday which was 2-3k a year.

But a friend of mine has recently got a id3 long range and his 3000 miles has cost £75 in electric.
Mine even averaging 50mpg is over 4x that.
But still the numbers don’t work.

I went for Go export, this is not the best rate with£15 lost potential every 1000KWh when compared to the best on the market.
For the £15 I can look at the octopus app daily seeing all my energy usage in and out. I also can switch to agile with one email for both. I would jump to agile in march but I'm worried about not getting back onto go after the summer (no EV).

hamilton If it works. My Octopus export is flaky to say the least! Missing export data for November, got a full months worth of data in December, not had any data since December 31st. Apparently the issue is there end and I will not miss out on any export. Oddly when I was on Agile it worked great, but since switching to go..... Dunno, they do eventually get it sorted out and you do not lose anything. But it is flaky.

steve Octopus - PowerLoop. I have a V2G, whihc is essentially a battery. I get to charge it at 5p and discharge it to the grid at 15p during peak request. Will not make me rich, but some days the net electric bil is zero.

You do need Givenergy to make V2G work.

THALL i use the octopus app and it hasn't missed a day of readings in 1 month

hamilton Oh the app is lovely. But their backend to collect data from my smart meter seems to be the issue. But only on my Export, the incoming is spot on.

I'm with OVO as they were offering 4p export per unit at the time, it's paid quarterly and you have to send readings.

Looking at most other SEG options you either needed to be with that company for supply side or other fees etc were involved.

The brown energy aspect is an interesting things as it could have been from PV first.

Thanks all for your input. Decison made and I have now signed up for the Octopus scheme currently paying 4.1p per unit and it doesn't get complicated as Octopus Go for my import is unaffected. So its not 'smart' but there is no gamble involved. A very straightforward application form though of course is is yet to be processed so fingers crossed that all goes smoothly. In case anyone can advise, and I did try on the website to find info, what is the frequency of payment on this and how is that made?
Bring on the sunshine!

Oh, I didn't think you could get export payment from Octopus if you were on Go?

pjb904 You can, but only their Octopus Outgoing Smart Export Guarantee offering which is 4.1p per kw

pjb904
From the Octopus website:
Our SEG tariff is perfect for people who’d like to join Octopus for their energy export, but stay with a different supplier for their import tariff (i.e., the power your home uses from the grid). It’s also a great option for people who want to use Octopus Go for their import tariff, and are also keen to keep getting paid for their exports at the same time.

Agreed that 4.1pence per unit isn't going to make me rich but it will help to offset the price rise on the 00:30 to 04:30 unit rate for charging the car which is the majority of my electricty import. Our usage of full rate electricty thanks to the battery is minimal

GrahamShaul erm, yes, the website says it's ideal for Go customers. BUT the links they supply always lead you to the dead end 'sorry it isn't possible if you are currently on Go'
Two calls to Octopus Cust Service today gave me different links that always end up there :-(

pjb904
I used the link on the page https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/categories/tariffs/seg-tariff/
Scroll quite some way down
'Once you have the information above, you can get started with Octopus' Smart Export Guarantee tariff.'

which was https://form.asana.com/?hash=f795e91a1a35e11d746dc8d62594db8867f45127e2166a16b309544647aefcd4&id=1198086703095946

I hope that is helpful

GrahamShaul Thanks - did they enrol you onto SEG ?

Its a work in progress but all seems to be in place from 27th Fab as I spoke to someone in their helpdesk this morning. There was a hiccup due to the MPAN (but I don't recall the details as to why) But in the call she said that the enrolement was happening. I will confirm when all is active

GrahamShaul Delay due to MPAN (for me at least) was the local DNO taking longer than suggested to generate a new MPAN my meter for export. So totally outside Octopus's control. Might be a different reason for you but for me it was the local DNO.

My DNO won't generate an MPAN because they claim not to have the relevant "DNO approval to fit system" letter - which I had already sent them!
So my application for Octopus agile outgoing is stalled, just as my array is starting to generate more than we can use as the sun climbs higher in the sky.