thinking of jumping to Agile - thoughts?...

Hi there, last Feburary I started to do the sums and agile and battery were a no brainer. Once I fitted my system in July plans changed and the energy crisis started so I went straight to Go faster 8:30pm for 5 hrs @5.5p.

I've kept an eye on the figures but it never made sense at all to move to agile. Fast forward to last week and its now a constant that the price for buying energy is lower than the price for exporting it (capped at 35p import and hitting 45p export atleast 3hrs per day.

I have 5kwp system and use around 10kwh per day so i am a next exported already.
My dilemma is how well the Givenergy app is for working with agile and is anyone else thinking of joining agile before they inevitably have to raise the import cap.
On paper my import price will shoot up dramaitcally but there is a chance that i can also make £1-3 per day if the crisis continues.

Cheers

I have been looking at this. But have 2 issues, 1 the 35p import cap might not stay at 35p with costs continuing to rise. 2 switching back to a Go tariff could have some problems, 1 do you have an EV? 2 the Go tariffs could be refreshed again to be even more expensive.

Right now I know my average KW cost is 6.07p and dropping. I am on Go Faster 5 hr @ 5.5p and export is 4.1p. This is fixed until October.

In short for me I do not want to risk the tariffs changing to something stupidly high for as long as I can. I will keep reviewing things though. Should have 10kw of solar soon which might change my mind!

I don't have an EV which is why I'm looking at jumping before my tariff runs out in July.
The cap on agile must rise or they be in huge trouble when everybody jumps. Agile is a 12 month tariff with no exit fees but they would honor the price cap of 35p and current export calculations.
I'm not sure about the daily charge but it must be cheaper than what they are planning for all variable tariffs in April.

I've just spoken to Givenergy and they still have the agile working and will be working on getting it on the beta portal soon.

Having the battery would allow me to buy for 30-35p and sell for 40-45p. the worse the C02 produced, the higher the difference would be. This might be the way to ride out next winter prices.

Then it might be a good idea for the next 12 months providing price for export stays high. BUT if it drops..... I dunno.

If the price of export drops its going to be because there is too much energy available on the grid which means there would be price plunges.

hamilton If they turned on all the turbines I see off around the cost I think our costs would be lower anyway!

Well I did it, now feeling sick in the stomach knowing my bill will jump to massive amounts but the export will far outweigh the export.

Its a bit fiddly, you have to apply for agile which is just a couple of clicks and is backdated to today. The export has to be done online but you have to upload all the documentation again, surely they would have it stored and allow just a couple of click but hayho.

Standing charge is now only 21p for 1 year which will make a saving after April increases allround

hamilton I have been looking into exactly the same thing as you. I changed over to Agile import yesterday and the export has been completed earlier today. Moved over from Go, so used to an average 6p/kwh as we only use approx 12 kwh a day and charge an EV, although we don't do big miles in it. I used Agile for most of last year and got it to work well but obviously the pricing structure was very different then... We have 7.1 kwp of panels mated to an Ac coupled inverter with the 8.2kwh battery, so are usually getting to be export positive quite soon. It's a bit unnerving looking at the high import prices (constant 35p) , but the high export looks to be constant and should be worthwhile. Looking great for today with the sun shining 😃 , will let you know how I get on. Are Givenergy actively developing to automate the Agile tariff for maximum export? There was a good development schedular last year between Givenergy and Octopus that worked intermittently. I will see if that is still active

Yesterday Imported 12.6kwh and exported 12.9kwh. Net gain of £1.23.
Agile is working completely different to how Octopus planned.
My concerns are that they decide to change the tariff to include a higher standing charge or lift their import cap.
The tariff I'm on is Agile 2018 so hopefully they would create an agile 2022 but the for new customers rather than move everyone onto a new tariff. That would be a shot to the kneecaps for me.

I do feel that the Givenergy app and beta portal may not be as good as it could be.

Just pondering but do Octopus have the right to move you off Agile if they so choose? Some like current Go tariffs if you are found not to have an EV they can move you to another tariff. There is a lot of information on Agile so was wondering if they could remove the current Agile tariff and move you to something fixed rate? It is a Beta product so just wondering how safe you are for 12 months.

I assumed the agile cap would update in April?

Its beta, so not sure if they have to honour a 12 month agreement or if they can change it at will. I would like to know for sure what they can do though.

Fingers crossed that they just simply leave it alone or increase the standing charge only. Small exporters are still probably cheaper than the true cost of going to the market rate for those who are not on a hedged product like go etc.

If the market was fair we wouldn't have windmills turned off in the North East and burning huge amounts of gas in the midlands and wales.

hamilton windmills being turned off are as I understand due to not having the local capacity to get the electric exported.

anglefire Is that why I heard the companies were being paid to turn them off? Such a shame with the current costs of power.

THALL yes exactly. I’m not sure of the logic of building wind turbines and not the supporting infrastructure. Unless they work on diversity and it’s not common for them all the have wind at the same time.

Just to let people know, Givenergy have moved their automation for agile to the beta portal. You can have 2 options.
Avoid peak energy usage times (not worth it currently as it charges at the cheapest rate to avoid the peak rate which is the same cost if you don't have enough stored).
The other option is to export during the peak times. Also not the best at the moment unless you have a huge battery.
Im sticking with timed export and mode 1. Its a bit of a faff but weekly bill has gone from costing £2.80 on Go faster to them paying me £2.30. Not bad for march!!

hamilton Just wondering if the automations for Agile have been updated or improved since March. I'm on Go at the moment but my guaranteed 25p standing charge and 5p / 15.59p rates end in September. Still waiting for paperwork from installers to set up an export tariff. Trying to work out if Agile will be too much faff or if I should just stick with Go.

Just this week, the app has got Agile automation under "smart tariff".
You have a few options to charge up but the export is a bit of a blunt tool. You can export to grid 4-8pm only.
I can flatten the battery in a couple of hours and i'm aiming for the peak. Doing it manually made me £10 yesterday.

Only trouble is that the current Agile minimum rates seem to be a bit on the steep side!

RupertTaylor to help you decide, I have just renewed GO to take effect from 17th Aug. But it will change from 5p/16.3p and 25p standing charge to 7.5p/35.8p and 51.4p standing charge. Quite a hefty increase!

If you are with Octopus, then use the app octocomparison, you can look through your historical data and see which octopus tariff would have made the most financial sense on any date, this obviously will tailor to you usage, which frankly is great, as an EV owner 99.9% of the time I am better off sticking to go faster with my past and current tariff. It's worth checking out.

Also worth remembering that if you're on Octopus Go you can't be on Agile Outgoing at the same time so would get the 7.5p/kWh export

Cdent

On Go you only get SEG.....4.1p per kWh

For me at present Outgoing agile is the way to go especially considering the way prices are increasing. We are getting to a point where they are paying more than the 28p rate I’m buying for, all day with a peak of 60p / kWh yesterday.

As I don’t have an EV yet (been delayed) it’s a no brainier as I have nothing better to do with the energy than export. If I had an EV and depleted the battery daily, thus the car is not at home most of the time, a cheep overnight charge would be better. In my case I only need to do an average of maybe 40 miles / day, so plenty of time to charge from solar during the summer. This is why a car with a battery range of 200 miles for a town vehicle makes sense to me.

Interesting that the way I use the battery is changing as it will be worth charging at night and exporting everything produced during the day. Then the dump battery 4-8pm actually makes sense!

Zakalwe Not even the 7.5p for being a customer? I hadn't seen that on their website

I am on Octopus agile outgoing, and so far it has been far far better than any SEG tariff. The rate right now (10.30) is 24p/unit, and from 4 to 8 pm it is consistently higher (by some margin) than my incoming unit rate. If I could I would set up a regular battery discharge during that period, but I won't do that until Ge get their system sorted so it can default back to Eco afterwards, which is what I want during the day.

Meanwhile, the outgoing income even without that has effectively offset any grid supply costs for the last three months.

I don't understand why anyone would accept 4.5p or even 7.5p/unit on a SEG.

I've just sent them an email asking to change from outgoing fixed to outgoing agile.

wilfleek
until Ge get their system sorted so it can default back to Eco afterwards

That's what I am waiting for too. Currently export for one hour of the peak and then run on battery overnight. I can only do this by manually changing the settings at the beginning and end of the export period. It doesn't take too long and I set alarms on my phone to remind me but it would be much better if I could just set it in the settings to be on eco for most of the day and export for 1 hour.

Does anyone know if GivEnergy are working on this? @Mickey (GivEnergy) @Danlambert (GivEnergy)

Martyn I've raised it as a feature request but no update on it as yet

On the question of Agile, did anyone see the price jump from 35p fixed to 55p?

Cdent
"Not even the 7.5p for being a customer? I hadn't seen that on their website"

No. The only Octopus export tariff that is allowed when on Go/Go Faster is their SEG tariff.

Martyn
I use the Octopus energy R&D labs site to manage our discharges, after the initial setup you have the option to send back at anything over a set price or the best however many discharges you choose, it is still in beta so not the most user friendly but it work fine for me, and when not discharging GE go’s back into eco mode.

Since I asked Octopus to move me from Outgoing Fixed to Outgoing Agile, the sun hasn't shined enough for me to export anything. 😢

Ah but it will, it will.

mrand31 import for 35p (or whatever you can get it for fixed below this) then export it for 40p+.
I'm looking to offset 25%-100% of my winter costs with this strategy