Axle Energy tie up

What do people think of the new money earning scheme just announced on the cloud dashboard.
Will it mess up timed export settings for example Octopus Fixed Export tariff or override them?

Toogie
I need more information.
Does this automatically charge / discharge my battery before a DFS session? How does this interact with the "Octopus saving sessions"?

How does Axle make it's money? Does it receive a cut of the DFS payments? Does that mean I have to switch energy providers?

Completely useless to me, 100% charge on my 13.5kwh battery is just over 1kwh atm

Are Axle an electricity supplier? Or what? Do I need to switch away from Octopus (my current supplier)?

I need a lot more information to do this....

NSR2
Just looked up the eligiblility small print and can’t join if your battery is controlled by another energy provider eg Octopus Flux.

Toogie
Right at the moment I have no automations and my battery isn't controlled by anything, just set to charge to 100% during Octopus go cheap rate times.
I guess GivEnergy will send us some more information.
I like the idea of automating the DFS / Saving sessions, but I don't want to leave octopus.

NSR2 I think I'm the same (until I hear that they can get me a SEG export tariff of ...20ppkWh) Just dreaming.

Axle are an energy aggregator who own no physical energy generation, more of a marketplace for flexibility from all different sorts of generation.
So this will be additive to your current energy tariff, not switching you to another tariff.

Nice to see it finally out there, it was still just an idea back in April.

hoggy you won’t be able to do more than one of the various demand flexibility services. Most people use their energy provider (eg octopus saving sessions) but you could use an alternative (eg loop turn down and save) or now the Giv/axel collaboration. If I want with an energy provider offering demand flexibility payments I would sign up but because I already do saving sessions with octopus I won’t (unless they pay more!)

I need more information before signing up. I've some initial questions.

Can I disable automation with Axle?
Can I set a limit to keep x Kwh in the battery after an export event?
Seeing an average of the price paid out each day for a month would be good. I'm sure £2.10 per kwh is the best-case payout.

On a low solar day I won't have any excess capacity from my 9.5, so it would need to be charged before the event, presumably at the regular day rate. Whilst the headline rate sounds attractive, it would be good to know the typical min and median rates for export to judge whether this is going to be worth it.

Avenir Exactly. We need more info of rates, times, means of control atc.

I got an email, with a headline figure of £2.10ppkWh from Axle.

And I'm thinking the times will vary but probably will align well with the normal peak times: 4pm-7pm and probably some other in the morning, say 8am-10am.

Agree with above. I’d need to see a minimum payout per kWh which is significantly above my day rate 31ppKWh to be confident it’s worthwhile having the battery charging up at peak for later discharge - ie a minimum of 50ppkWh guaranteed. Otherwise no one has a clue if we are paying for the privilege to run our batteries down.

It seems its so popular that its crashed the signup process - I cannot get pass the "Alright, lets go!" page.

The Axle website crashed several times when I tried to sign up. Hopeless.

Ditto cant get passed there either, ill wait till later and try again.

naltsta yeah you'll only be able to pick one or the other, so it'll be Octoplus or this or someone else.
Like you say, show me the money!
(I did actually spend a brief amount of time with Axle going through the Giv API so I had hoped they'd got the funding they needed to pursue their idea further - so I am pleased for them)

rio911 The price will vary, up to £2.10/kWh

Haha I am 4 mins late to the party. Just had an email from GE

They could try having a functioning website looking at the responses above. It doesn’t exactly bolster confidence to hand over lots of personal data and access.

I need a bit more info too. If I'm paying to have the battery topped up, and there a only a minimum amount of events, how will I know if I'm going to cover the outlay to charge it.

MitchP This is guesswork currently but I imagine what will happen is that during a "saving session" you will get paid a bonus of up to £2/kWh you export to the grid.

This will likely always pay you more than it costs you to import it, possibly several times over.

If a session is say 2 hours long, then you probably want to import as much as you can for 2 hours, followed by exporting as much as you can (in the session) for the same 2 hours. Though be wary as export will go to house load first.

naltsta I don't think Octopus Saving Sessions are anything to do with demand flexibility and management of your battery. Saving sessions are merely points for using less energy during these periods, not for allowing management of your battery...

The fine print of Axle says "Intelligent" Octopus Flux, not the standard Octopus Flux.

Provided your battery is not managed by anyone currently, there should be nothing that prohibits you signing up to Axle Energy.

NotoriousPyro have a look at the registered providers list on here https://www.nationalgrideso.com/industry-information/balancing-services/demand-flexibility-service-dfs

NotoriousPyro the demand flexibility service pays providers (or aggregators) a set fee - will be interesting to see who is offering a better deal but I imagine they’ll be very comparable.

Last year I think it was import only so it’s good to see exporting coming into play.

Last year the rules made it pretty easy to game the system for big payments by maximising usage a few hours before the event started. Will be interesting to see if they’ve found a way of preventing this this year.

naltsta yeah, they've taken away the in day adjustment. So it will be harder to game it.

They should be offering payments for export this time around. Which could be beneficial to some. But I guess it depends on when the session is and when you're system normally exports (if it does).

I would like to know what times are they thinking 4 till 7 ? thats what i call peak times

So your going to be up quite a lot based on the prices, charge at say £0.40 max and sell back at £2 seems fair to me

TX200 have you seen what they’re using for the actual calculations this year? Is it average over the last few days at that time only?

naltsta last ten days, that have available smart meter data, that aren't saving session days or weekend days. They can go back as far as 60 days to find such days.
For weekends think it's four weekend days of data to compare it with.

So they pay you for exports during a particular time, how does that interact with SEG? Can you effectively have both, can't see SEG stops you joining?

Personally, I found their “big picture” explanation of why this is so important convincing, here: [https://www.axle.energy/blog/analysis/local-flex](https://) - I have signed up, and hope I can contribute in a small way to the “peak-shaving” needed. If I get a few quid out of it too, so much the better ! It looks pretty straightforward to opt-out of individual sessions or withdraw completely.

naltsta I think I'll sign up to Axle Energy, I'm on Octopus Flex (non-intelligent tariff), as they are offering the most at the moment.

I think Octopus will be more inclined to keep theirs nearer the 33.87p / kWh because as far as I understand the way Octopus works, is to try and keep things fair for everyone, even if it's at your expense of additional gain.

Lofthouse Agree here mate

I have also just been reading up on this, and to be honest it's a no-brainer

Winter is when our solar is the worst, So joining this make 100% sense to me and my family, as i need to keep my bills as low as i can.

I also noticed like you said, you can opt out at any time, which to me and i'm sure you as well, is a deal breaker knowing this

I've signed up myself

NotoriousPyro octopus will pay you your export rate for anything you export.

On top of this you will be able to either use octopus saving sessions to earn points or the axel/givenergy version

Yes I have signed up to Saving Sessions and I have the export set up too. I charge it normally during 2 - 5 am as much as possible, although its only a Gen 1 inverter 🙁 so the charge rate is a bit poo and I have only one 9.5 kWh battery.

I'm now signed up to Axle Energy, seemed to be pretty straightforward to sign up to it.

The Axle offer makes a big thing about the potential amount you can earn https://flex.axle.energy/givenergy/dfs/?uid=9c12af04-eb59-4c34-8b3f-e5e2fae54c67&callback=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.givenergy.cloud%2Fgivback%2Fsignup%2Faxle%2F9c12af04-eb59-4c34-8b3f-e5e2fae54c67%2Fsuccess

Whereas the Octopus savings session is much more circumspect about earning points and being able to convert them to cash https://octopus.energy/blog/saving-sessions-faqs/

I’m thinking I’m not going to save very much out of reducing my electricity demand as they’re averaging it over previous 10 days or 4 weekend days and through automation and octopus agile I’m trying to minimise my grid draw anyway.

Maybe make something on the export rate. Octopus talk about there being a special export rate paid, but no £ value.

Since I’m signed up for octopus already I think I’ll stick to that, and maybe write some automations when I know more about whether it’s worthwhile charging beforehand and exporting during the period.

And no GivEnergy email sent to me.

geoffreycoan useful faq for NotoriousPyro and I’m sure many others on that link

• Can I participate in this and other flexibility programmes?
  By participating in this programme, you’ll need to agree to not participate in flexibility programmes offered by other providers. This is to ensure no overlap or conflicting signals.

Octopus were paying something like £2.50 per kWh I think last time? Could be more if the grid is really struggling - if the DFS people accept higher bids.
I'm guessing that their export will be around the same. But guess we'll only know when it happens for real.

What if one is already signed up for deemed export under the FIT systems? Presumably one would have to inform the company that pays this and give up deemed export payments.
If that is the case then the replacement schemes for export (SEG) take over.

I'm currently on Octopus Agile for import and set charge times manually using the Givenergy App - usually overnight - and use the stored power over the following day - some top-up with solar but decreases considerably over winter. At this time of year I'm 90% self-consumption and don't export much at all.
I wonder if I would lose this ability to manually charge under the Axle scheme.
It sounds interesting but I'm not sure.

naltsta @geoffreycoan Saving sessions are not a flexibility program.

Octopus Flex = Cheaper 2-5am tariff, more expensive 4-7pm tariff
Intelligent Octopus Flex = Flexibility program to connect to the inverter, similar to Axle Energy
Octopus Saving Sessions = Saving sessions to everyone, with or without a battery, to earn money back from using less energy.
Axle Energy = Flexibility program to connect to the inverter, similar to Intelligent Octopus Flex, but not an energy provider.

These are distinct things.

You can use:

• Intelligent Octopus Flex and Saving Sessions without Axle Energy; or
• Octopus Flex and Saving Sessions with Axle Energy

You cannot use:

• Intelligent Octopus Flex with Axle Energy

NotoriousPyro

I think you’ve got some of your flexs and fluxs confused.

Also octopus saving sessions is a demand flexibility service so you can’t use it AND any other demand flexibility service like axel. They are linked to your smart meter so no doubling up.

Additionally, as you mention, axel is incompatible with “intelligent octopus flux” because both would be trying to control your battery at the same time.

naltsta Yeah actually double checking it I think you're right!

So are we all on the same page that this is likely to operate the same as the Octopus saving sessions do but for export only?

I don't see the appeal here unless they offer a lot more incentive than Octopus does, and it would need to be a lot more than Octopus pays to trust adding them to your GE system control.

Would be nice to get major points of comparison with this vs expected values from Octopus.

LordHippos I’m pretty sure they have to use the same calculations as they’re set by the National grid. I would be surprised if it not monitoring your import on your smart meter too but if you’re exporting you can’t also be importing…

Am I the only one who thinks simultaneously switching thousands of home batteries from import to export might not actually be beneficial to grid stability?

Daveb01 Funny how they explicitly stated "working smart meter" but not same for battery 😃 lol

Rubikcube they (Axle, Octopus etc) do have to bid their planned energy "movements" to the grid so they know in advance what's coming. It'll be when demand is on the upswing anyway so not a lot different to any other generator ramping combined with domestic load increasing, this will just get lost in the noise.
Octopus's userbase as a whole last year only really managed to move the needle a few 100MW although without batteries. At best GE's got 150MW to throw around (50k installs x 3kW)
For context I've tripped 645MW by accident before - lots a glares and an unenviable badge received - but there's always float in the grid even during these sessions, interconectors going bang and so on (they're even more cautious now after the 2019 RoCoF disaster)

Had a good look at the terms:

Large print
How does it work?

Via your cloud account, you can click to register with GivBack and connect your smart meter
With your permission granted, Axle Energy’s secure software can then connect to your battery – acting as ‘virtual wires’ connecting your battery to electricity markets
Before an event, we’ll make sure your battery is fully topped up
During an event, your house will run from the battery, and any excess energy will be exported back to the grid
You’ll get paid per kWh that you support the grid. The price will vary, up to £2.10/kWh

Then found this in the small print

You’ll get up to £2.10/kWh for the energy you manage to save or contribute to the grid. The exact price will vary depending on how much the grid operator is paying, but should typically be in excess of £1/kWh. We’ll let you know the exact price after an event is completed.

So if the system charges your battery outside the cheap import period e.g during the day if no solar it may cost more in the long run. My battery is charged at night and last the day if no solar. If I have an export as well, in the winter the battery will be flat, and I will be using normal rates until 02:00 again.

Please do the math before jumping into something that’s new and sound good, and advertised at £2.10 per kWh.

I see it working this way. You'll be paid around £1 per kWh. A few hours before the event it charges your battery full using the day rate. During the event it exports. I'm hoping you can set a limit of what % you want the battery to export to. In my case I'd say leave me with 25% to 30%.

I'm going to sign up, it's easy enough to opt out. No harm trying it.

Plus the way they've changed octopus saving sessions sounds like it might not be worth it anymore. You won't be able to game the system so won't be able to make that much money unless you're use a high amount of energy averagely.

When the first event happens it's going to be very interesting to see how reality measures up to the expectations, looking forward to it.

Karl340 Octopus will instead pay you a bonus for exporting though, in a similar way to this, a much more sensible approach. I don't think Octopus will be much different to this Axle offering.

Daveb01 So if the system charges your battery outside the cheap import period e.g during the day if no solar it may cost more in the long run. My battery is charged at night and last the day if no solar. If I have an export as well, in the winter the battery will be flat, and I will be using normal rates until 02:00 again.

If you're paying £0.30/kWh and getting paid a minimum of £1/kWh then I fail to see how you can lose, you'll be getting a profit of at least £0.70/kWh per kWh you store and export later, ignoring efficiency loss of going from grid to battery and back again.

Even if you run the battery flat with exporting this way, the extra you get paid will cover several normal rate imported units per unit exported.

So I am really confused as to whether this tie-up with Axle is any good! We have a 9.5kw battery and are signed up with Octopus Flux (not the intelligent one). I am currently manually switching to full export at around 4pm and back to dynamic at 7pm (when I remember!), to try to maximise income (would love it if GivEnergy could automate this). I did sign up to the Octopus Savings Sessions last winter, and got a little bit back from it (nothing to write home about!).

Now there is this offer with Axle, I am struggling to see how this all fits in with the above (and would I save more by linking up with them)?

Can anyone help me work it out?!

TIA

LordHippos You're paying £0.30/kWh to charge your battery, and also paying £0.30/kWh for the energy you are consuming whilst the battery is charging.

I'm on Octopus Agile with a 9.5 kWh battery so almost never use grid power during peak hours 4-7pm (when I expect the events to occur), so it's going to be impossible for me to decrease my usage. But I hope to contribute by exporting my battery contents each event. And hopefully get paid for these exports in the region of £1/kWh, to compensate me for charging before and after.

From my observation Octopus Energy are always one of the most generous and fair energy companies around, with the greatest variety of tariffs and deals to offer the best terms the the greatest range of folk. So I expect Octopus's offering to be good.

But possibly Axel, who are "specialist energy flexibility tech", may have spotted a niche in the market by persuading battery owners to let them take control of a fleet of GivEnergy batteries, then using this to exploit the Demand Flexibility Scheme. This will enable them to squeeze every last kWh out of the batteries.

And we can hope that they just take a fair fee (e.g. 10%) of the profit.

Pandorian Right, but solar will probably be taking care of at least some of this usage/import. Weather dependent of course. The other factor is that in the winter my battery doesn't usually last the whole day anyway, so I'm probably drawing from the grid at some point regardless for consumption.

I think £1/kWh exported is probably going to be on the low side, I expect it's more likely to be around £1.50/kWh on average, with the odd session paying more.

Claire Now there is this offer with Axle, I am struggling to see how this all fits in with the above (and would I save more by linking up with them)?

Can anyone help me work it out?!

I don't think we have full details yet on either using Axle vs using Octopus, but it seems you can either do saving sessions with Octopus or this option with Axle instead (where it does automate the charge/discharge part for you).

I would like to have more info on how both compare before I would consider jumping into something like this one.

Claire I am currently manually switching to full export at around 4pm and back to dynamic at 7pm (when I remember!)

I had this automated when I was on Flux in the summer using Home Assistant and Givenergy Local, I was able to control the grid export and run the battery down to a certain %, i.e. it would end grid export after battery fell below a certain figure. There are ways to do this kind of thing but not built in.

Niceguy But possibly Axel, who are "specialist energy flexibility tech", may have spotted a niche in the market by persuading battery owners to let them take control of a fleet of GivEnergy batteries, then using this to exploit the Demand Flexibility Scheme. This will enable them to squeeze every last kWh out of the batteries.

Looking at the Axle site it appears that they are targeting 'user groups' , in this case GE to opt-in and encourage their Customers to take part, presumably there is a benefit to GE to do it.

SilverArt I see it as Axle offering to automate it (and probably take a cut for themselves and givenergy) whereas if I manage it myself it’s more hassle and use octopus saving sessions there are probably fewer people taking a piece of the pie from what the National grid pay

Does anyone yet know that if you are in the Axle/GE Giveback scheme.

-

• Will I be notified when an ‘Event’ is going to take place?
• Will I still be able schedule my battery to charge/discharge to make use of cheaper overnight tariffs, when there is no ‘Event’ coming. I think this has been answered, that if Octopus Flux then 'Yes'.
• Will I have access to ‘my account’ to see what credit I have accrued?
• How will payment be made, as I have not provided any banking/card details?

Thanks

kevintallboyaio How will payment be made ... ?

There is no guarantee it will. Your deposits with Axle are not covered by any guarantee scheme. If Axle were to go bust before they pay out, you might receive nothing, but will still have to pay your energy provider for any import purchased.

If Octopus were to go bust, your "credit balance" would be transferred to a new supplier under the Ofgem scheme. It is not clear if "credit balance" includes accumulated Octopoints or not, however there is an established mechanism with Octopus for converting points into account credit.

I suppose Axle might be able to negotiate a better price from NG than Octopus can, since Axle actually control the discharge of the battery, so they can make a much better prediction of how much they can export. Octopus have to fall back on modelling and history.
Octopus have said that there might be some events at very short notice, but they still have to get you to sign up to each event separately. But if we're giving Axle an open-ended sign-up, then they can still export the energy no matter how short the notice.

In answer to some questions from a very prompt reply to some questions I asked.

Here's how the process works:
1) Before an event, we'll send you an email letting you know the details of that event - typically it'll be for an hour in the evening, and we'll give you as much notice as possible (1 day, in most circumstances)
2) We'll set a charge schedule to make sure your battery is fully charged by the end of your off-peak rate, if you have one.
3) Before the event, we'll check if you have enough battery to export throughout the event. If you don't, we'll top up the battery. Because events are during the early evening, this might mean that we're topping up your battery whilst you're paying more. However, the price we'll pay you for exporting (typically £1-2/kWh) is much higher than a typical, peak, import price, so you'll still be making a large profit.
4) We'll export during the event
5) After the event, we'll revert all of the settings on your battery. On non-event days, your battery will continue to behave according to whatever settings you choose.
6) After each event, you’ll receive an email stating how much you’ve earned, with a link to view and cash out your earnings. You can cash out at any time, as long as your balance is at least £10. Payment is via bank transfer.

We expect roughly 1 event a week (this is decided by National Grid ESO, the UK's grid operator).

Sorry about the large letters!! Not sure how I did that

I have to say I am a bit concerned that GivEnergy have decided to push this to consumers.....

I am assuming that GE are likely making some money out of this partnership and would be useful if GE were upfront about this and any "Due Diligence" that they have carried out???

Looking into AXLE ENERGY LIMITED (Company number 14633671) was only set up 01/02/2023 by two guys:

Karl Sebastian BACH and
Archy Otto DE BERKER

for the total cost of £500 each plus Company Registration Fee.

Plus they intend to make payouts via bank transfer not via some automatic payment method.

Feels like it can be very easily abused, they reap the benefit of the export and then do a runner with the fees that should be paid out to scmucks like us.........

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14633671/filing-history

How much it pays

Across all DNOs, flex revenues for 2023-24 average @ aprx £33 per kW of flex per year, where ‘kW of flex’ is measured as the variation from a baseline.

https://www.axle.energy/blog/analysis/local-flex

It doesn't help any more than any other Internet stranger but I've been speaking to Archy from before Axle even existed at the beginning of the year (he's the person who came up with the Wind Curtailment App hence crossed paths with my Terravolt)
They are genuinely trying to help the people help the grid. Obviously, I can't give you a cast iron guarantee something won't go wrong. I'd be very surprised if it was some sort of bait and switch type exercise though and you'd lose your money.

I've now signed up, but I'm on the Octopus Agile tariff. I emailed them to let them know and got a prompt reply from Karl (Ceo) saying they couldn't optimise for Agile but that it would charge up overnight, so it should be fairly cheap.

It did make me wonder how many customers are on each of the Octopus smart tariffs, and whether there weren't many on Agile.

It looks like octopus are using the average of the last 60 days from this years t and c, where as Axel are using the last 10 days so if you normally force export during the summer months, Axel gives you the chance to benefit from export (assuming you stop doing it 10 days before the first session

Haha

3) Before the event, we'll check if you have enough battery to export throughout the event. If you don't, we'll top up the battery. Because events are during the early evening, this might mean that we're topping up your battery whilst you're paying more. However, the price we'll pay you for exporting (typically £1-2/kWh) is much higher than a typical, peak, import price, so you'll still be making a large profit.

Good luck with the AIO % working out if you have enough. The AXLE script will be looking at the battery % e.g mine says 60%, so no charge needed, then it crashed to 0 at 58% and I get no export £ hahahaha.

AIO issues are unrelated to this and you would struggle to do anything with a manual one with that behaviour of SOC.

I will see if I can await details from Octopus because that is far simpler for me to control and cash out the benefits.

Have signed up to this, more out of curiosity than anything else, and keenly await the first cycle to see just what ensues.

Am I right in assuming it will work rather like Octopus Intelligent Flux? They will make sure the battery is fully charged at the best rate before the event, and then export at the high demand (high price) time?
I'm on (standard) Flux but can't automate the discharge. This should give me automatic export at the highest prices, and be most beneficial to the grid, without a lot of charging/discharging everyday, for little financial gain and more battery wear.
I'm definitely thinking of joining unless people disagree with my analysis.

BarleyRiser yes, but perhaps not every day. Only when the grid really needs the extra umph?
There are options to control flux automatically if you are a bit techy or know someone who is. Have a look at YouTube channel "speak to the geek" - videos on home assistant and GivTCP. There's other ways too, involving the API access to GivEnergy's portal with powershell or Python or similar.

Are they going to export to the grid at full wack for the whole of the period? Will there be anything left to see me through to my next off peak time slot, or will I have to pay full price for that electricity as well as full price for any pre-session top ups? (I'm on Octopus Flux with 8.2kw battery). At the moment I need approx 40% battery capacity to see me through from when it gets dark to 2.00am when I can charge cheaply. I should just about be able charge it back to about 90% by the end of that period. It does seem like it's thrashing the battery though

As TX200 said, it should only be on the saver days, not everyday like Intelligent Flux. The prices should be OK, if their figures work out. Before and after I'll be paying 27.5p/kWh. On a normal day I'd get 27.5p/kWh for the export. Not worth it! But on these saver sessions, if I'm getting £2/kWh, what's not to love? As somebody else has said any prices over 50p/kWh make it worthwhile. Again stressing that I'm assuming it will only 10-20 times a year, based on last year.

Pandorian I’ve just realised, that at the end of the period, the battery is flat, and so you are paying £0.30/kWh for the remainder of the evening until you can charge your battery at cheap rate.

Pandorian most sessions last year were only an hour - tough going to dump your full battery in an hour!

naltsta Yes, in an hour I can only dump ₅₀% of my battery, but this is the next phase of the project ie phase I worked, let’s make this phase with longer durations…

There will be 6 'test' events lasting an hour each during Nov and Dec, for which National Grid/ESO will pay £3/kwh, of which Axel pass on £2.10/kwh to us. This rate is set high for the early test events to encourage sign ups. A further 6 tests are expected Jan - March, pricing for these is based on competitive tender. Live (ie non-test) events are expected to be longer (up to 4 hours).
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/esos-demand-flexibility-service

Pandorian I’ve just realised, that at the end of the period, the battery is flat, and so you are paying £0.30/kWh for the remainder of the evening until you can charge your battery at cheap rate.

Sure, but they're paying you at least£1/kWh for the energy exported (in addition to whatever you get for export tariff), and you only have to pay around 30p/kWh to import back what you need afterwards.

DD Sure, but they're paying you at least£1/kWh for the energy exported (in addition to whatever you get for export tariff), and you only have to pay around 30p/kWh to import back what you need afterwards.

And if the battery was flat/very low I’d try to load shift a bit anyway and delay high use until later at night.

I’m with LordHippos I will stick to Octopus as it’s easier for me to manage and realise the benefits. But if you don’t have automations in place this looks to be a good option for many people

geoffreycoan I am sticking with Octopus for similar reasons, but with only 6 events in Nov and Dec I am going to do it manually - I can look at solar and decide whether to export my solar or charge my battery on a case by case basis.

geoffreycoan As I understand it. Octoplus does NOT give you a bonus for EXPORT only for reduced IMPORT.
AXEL give you a bonus of £1-£2 per kW EXPORT plus whatever Octopus is paying you for export on whatever smart tariff you are on.

The only danger I can see is that if during the day your battery is flat, they will top up at your daily rate (for me with an AC3.0 that is a max of 3 kW per hour at 0.30 per kWh) and if then AXLE only take 1 hour at even £2.10 per kWh I could be out of pocket. This is a manageable low risk.

Rogerbu

Rogerbu The only danger I can see is that if during the day your battery is flat, they will top up at your daily rate (for me with an AC3.0 that is a max of 3 kW per hour at 0.30 per kWh) and if then AXLE only take 1 hour at even £2.10 per kWh I could be out of pocket. This is a manageable low risk.

Hi,

Surely if your battery is flat you would have to import electricity to run the house at that time and then you will have the battery charge to use later. The point is that you would either have to import or charge your battery at some point any way. You can't be out of pocket by the 30p per kWh you paid for, the worst it could be is the difference between this and a cheaper rate available to you at another time of the day.

Rogerbu Octoplus does NOT give you a bonus for EXPORT only for reduced IMPORT.

You definitely get extra for extra export.

From the faq’s https://octopus.energy/blog/saving-sessions-faqs/ :

Can I take part if I have an export tariff?
× Yes, customers who generate and export electricity (via solar panels, for example) with Octopus can take part in Saving Sessions, and we’ll credit you for any extra exporting you do compared to your usual "net" consumption, i.e. your imported energy minus your exported energy

E.g. If there’s an event between 6-7pm and we calculate that you usually export 2kWh during that time and don't import anything, then if you export 5kWh during the Saving Session, we'd credit you for this extra 3kWh that you're giving back to the grid (5kWh - 2kWh).

Your export tariff won't be affected, only additional energy exported during the Session will be paid at the Saving Sessions incentive rate.

Mike_S It looks like octopus are using the average of the last 60 days from this years t and c, where as Axel are using the last 10 days

The Octopus FAQ says it's 10 days:
"How come I earned a different amount of Octopoints this time even though I saved power in the same way?

We work out your savings based on your normal energy use for the past 10 weekdays."

I assume the rules about how to calculate the savings are set by national grid, not individual aggregators.

DD up to 10 days they have data for from up to the last 60 window - see appendix 5

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/286981/download

I think my AIO is listening to me, I exported yesterday as battery was full and loads of solar.

And yesterdays export was exactly £2.10, which has been mentioned a few times in this post

Can anyone help me with answers to some basic questions:
1/ does this tie up a/ supplement, or b/ replace, my export tariff with an existing utility provider?
2/ who pays me for providing export on demand -a/ Axle or b/ my existing provider?
3/ when and how do get paid a/ a separate payment to my bank account b/ credit applied to my utility bill c/ something else?

Apologies, just saw this from SilverArt

6) After each event, you’ll receive an email stating how much you’ve earned, with a link to view and cash out your earnings. You can cash out at any time, as long as your balance is at least £10. Payment is via bank transfer.

So I'm interpreting that as answers to my questions 2/ a/ i.e. Axle pays out and 3/ a/ to bank account via email link

26Left the answers should be in the axel faq’s

But in brief:
1 it supplements, it’s completely separate to your existing energy contract
2 as above. Axel pays you for this extra. They receive money from national grid for the shifted demand, they take their cut, and pass on the remainder to you
3 as above, separate payments into your bank account

You may find your energy supplier also offers something similar. The advantage of the Axel solution is that it’s all automated for you

geoffreycoan Thanks - I hadn't seen the FAQ or link to it further up, or on Axle's own website.

For others benefit - see bottom of this GE page
https://givenergy.co.uk/introducing-givback-a-new-way-to-earn-cash-from-your-battery-this-winter/

And Axle T&Cs
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p3B-vpG-Se5qsaGpw1iNwVEDZu7qsl-D/view

6) After each event, you’ll receive an email stating how much you’ve earned, with a link to view and cash out your earnings. You can cash out at any time, as long as your balance is at least £10. Payment is via bank transfer.

So if an event lasts 1 hr (which it did most times last year) and they give you £1 kWh you would have to participate in 10 events to be able to draw money out? (Is this correct?)

I participated in the Octopus events last year and don’t think there were many more than 10 events, but I understand this was a test year to see how it would work. I hope loads more are planned this year.

Daveb01 Payout rates could be up to £2.10 per kW, so depends on your battery size and what you can spare, but maybe could get to the £10 payout much quicker.

Lots of unknowns at the moment.

I don't expect to make anything from reducing my grid import, it'll all be about what extra I can export in the period

Yesterday I emailed Axle's suppport with an MPAN question, and got a prompt and very helpful answer today. Bodes well.

geoffreycoan I'm on Octopus Agile so try to never use any grid power during the 4-7pm peak period, so there's no chance of being able to reduce my grid import. But I've a 9.5 kWh battery, so I expect I'll use about 1kWh myself, and it will export the remaining 8kWh at 3.6kW/h. So it will take 2.5 hours to run out of juice. I reckon I'll get £3/hour if they pay £1/kWh. So it's just a question of how often and how long we have demand events, and how much the electricity to charge has cost. At £2 to £5 per event it'll be worth having (and I'm pleased to be able to help the grid be less polluting, but I certainly won't get rich on it.

I think Axle's offer of cash might persuade people to chose them over Octopus's OctoPoints.

But people know and trust (and mostly love I'm sure) Octopus Energy, so many will stick with who they know, and which might be simpler and easier.

It will be interesting to see more details from Octopus on their scheme.

Niceguy I presume the amount of points octopus offer and the amount of cash axle offer will be pretty similar because it’ll depend on what the National grid are paying them for that particular session

naltsta Niceguy agree, the axle offer of cash might be more tempting over octopoints, but likely the actual cash equivalent will be similar depending on what cut the provider takes.

As I said before the axel offer has the advantage of being hands off automation to reap the rewards, the octopus you have to manage yourself. Of course handing over control of the battery isn’t something everyone is comfortable with; witness the conversations about Intelligent Octopus Flux

Looking back at emails from last year, most of offerings from Octopus were (points equivalent to) £2.25/kWh, though one was £3/kWh. It's easy to redeem points as account credit - not sure whether you can actually get it as cash, but you can always just reduce your next DD payment and keep the money that way.

Octopoints will be equivalent to cash I'm value so no concern there from me. The points can be swapped to account balance.

I'm still confused !
I am on Intelligent Octopus & Agile export, which means that it is worth my while exporting a lot during the 16:00 to 19:00 period.

With the GE/Axle service during an 'event' do I get paid for.

1. All kWh exported dring the event. ie say 3kWh times say£1.50/kWh = £4.50
2. Do I get paid for Export kWh GREATER than my AVERAGE over the last 10 days. ie say 0.5 kwh times say £1.50 = £0.75.

Niceguy while the agile export peak rates are approx 22p/KWh, isnt the rates for £2.10 /KwH a bit lucrative?

Rogerbu With the GE/Axle service during an 'event' do I get paid for.
All kWh exported dring the event. ie say 3kWh times say£1.50/kWh = £4.50
Do I get paid for Export kWh GREATER than my AVERAGE over the last 10 days. ie say 0.5 kwh times say £1.50 = £0.75.

It's fundamentally a National Grid event. They are inviting bids from aggregators, such as Octopus or Axle, and are paying for a net reduction in imports / increase in exports.
From https://flex.axle.energy/givenergy/dfs/ about half-way down, they show an example. If you normally import 2kWh, but instead export 3kWh, they'll pay you for 5kWh net reduction.

But if you usually export 2kWh, they'd only pay for 1kWh.

Octopus will be doing the same, since it's the NG's rules and money. (They pay £3/kWh, and the aggregator takes a cut and passes the rest onto you.)

Octopus (your export tariff provider) will also pay you for the export as usual - this bonus is on top, from whoever you sign up with.

Rogerbu option 2

You are unlikely to be able to benefit from this. It’s designed to encourage more people to do what you’re already doing!

naltsta agree it’s option 2, you get paid for additional export so if you already export every day then you won’t get any extra credit for your regular export amount

BUT

since the payments will be much more lucrative than the normal export rates, it may be worth exporting less through the winter to reduce your average amount
Eg if you export 4kW for 7.5p/kW benefit (difference between overnight import and day export rates eg on Go), making 28p/day (ignoring conversion losses)

Assuming 1 of these events a week, if you give up the 4kW daily export, you lose out on 28x7=£1.96 a week
But then export the 4kW only on the special event at say £2.10/kW, you’ll get £8.40 plus 28p

Or as earlier noted, keep the normal exporting going and discharge more in the special event even if you have to import immediately after the event, you’ll still be in profit

geoffreycoan this by far is the most clear explanation and now it makes sense. i had totally misunderstood the offer.

geoffreycoan just a clarification needed, i was under the assumption that the control will only be during the "event" and rest all days we are free to charge/import whenever it suits our tariff. ofcourse, i am assuming normally people would not be exporting in winters.

The other thing to note is suppliers put in bids to dfs - saying how much they can reduce and what they want paying for it.

Last year some octopus bids were rejected e,g. £6 ones, others accepted.

So payments to each supplier and customer could be different depending on what the bid was and what cut, if any, the supplier takes.

There might be maximum limits on the bids, not sure -think it might have changed for this year.

TX200 from your experience is is a worthwhile investment?

I've joined up and will see how it progresses over the following months. I've only got the single 8.2kWh battery with 2.4kW of maximum draw on it. On triad days or whatever they are now calling them, I'll make sure that no one is using the workshop (currently uses 1kW or more, when machine tools are running) and ensure that any meals due to use the electric oven are re-scheduled. After that' we'll see.

I do note that Axle's terms and conditions are so restrictive on liability for action against them, that they are almost certainly unenforceable if they screwed up and caused damage to someone's system!

deepanshus not entirely sure what you mean...

If you mean is it worth doing, there's not really anything to loose. Cut down a bit or export a bit and get some money

Although those that want to game the system - that's more risky, as you'd have to increase your usage or decrease your exports at the time of day that's likely to be a saving session in 1-10 days time. Very much guess work.

TX200 "If you mean is it worth doing, there's not really anything to loose".. yes that's what i meant, thanks, i don't do any export at all nowadays so i guess this will be a nice additional bit

I don't think it necessarily only pays you for extra export you do, that would be interesting, mind you there is little spare solar to export currently so even if it does, I usually don't export anything 16:00 - 19:00.

I imagine it will work as follows, but am happy to be corrected:

1) You get paid for export as usual through your tariff.

2) There is a payment made per kWh you export during the sessions, not just for those above and beyond the usual you do.

If 2) is false and it's only on excess then yes you may as well dial back exports or stop exporting.

LordHippos 2 is false and you only get paid the savings session rate for export for any excess. I mentioned this earlier above, but, from the faq’s https://octopus.energy/blog/saving-sessions-faqs/ :

Can I take part if I have an export tariff?
× Yes, customers who generate and export electricity (via solar panels, for example) with Octopus can take part in Saving Sessions, and we’ll credit you for any extra exporting you do compared to your usual "net" consumption, i.e. your imported energy minus your exported energy

E.g. If there’s an event between 6-7pm and we calculate that you usually export 2kWh during that time and don't import anything, then if you export 5kWh during the Saving Session, we'd credit you for this extra 3kWh that you're giving back to the grid (5kWh - 2kWh).

Your export tariff won't be affected, only additional energy exported during the Session will be paid at the Saving Sessions incentive rate.

As to whether you are exporting much anyway at the moment, depends on your personal circumstances. If you have low enough home demand during the day it may be worthwhile to store overnight charged electricity and export it in the peak to gain your export rate.

I’m on agile and I’m still exporting a bit when the import rates are low enough or it’s I get enough solar. Over the last week I’ve exported 4kW in the evening peak periods and 9kW in the day for a total of £2.67 of export income. I’d be quite happy to give this regular export up for £2.10 a kW once a week

SilverArt Here's how the process works:
1) Before an event, we'll send you an email letting you know the details of that event - typically it'll be for an hour in the evening, and we'll give you as much notice as possible (1 day, in most circumstances)
2) We'll set a charge schedule to make sure your battery is fully charged by the end of your off-peak rate, if you have one.
3) Before the event, we'll check if you have enough battery to export throughout the event. If you don't, we'll top up the battery. Because events are during the early evening, this might mean that we're topping up your battery whilst you're paying more. However, the price we'll pay you for exporting (typically £1-2/kWh) is much higher than a typical, peak, import price, so you'll still be making a large profit.
4) We'll export during the event
5) After the event, we'll revert all of the settings on your battery. On non-event days, your battery will continue to behave according to whatever settings you choose.
6) After each event, you’ll receive an email stating how much you’ve earned, with a link to view and cash out your earnings. You can cash out at any time, as long as your balance is at least £10. Payment is via bank transfer.

I thought that Axle covered their proposal regarding export period quite well. They'll make sure maximum export is achieved for you. Bullets 2, 3 & 4

SilverArt the only bit they don’t cover is whether they’ll leave any battery capacity to run your home for the rest of the peak demand period. Unless they start deducing your load data from GivEnergy, I assume not. So depending on battery capacity and home load it’s quite possible that they’ll empty your battery in the peak period, leaving you to import at whatever your tariff rate is.

Even worst case agile at £1 a kW I suppose you’ll still make money from the extra export supplement but something to be aware of

geoffreycoan Thanks that is useful!

So, rummaging around (I took the liberty of snapshotting the onboarding process to see what exactly Axle is asking for over Oauth) it asks for the following:
"scopes": [
"api:inverter",
"api:account:list"
],
Which grants access as follows:

So they could look at your historic data but in all honesty probably not. Think this will be a very binary "if SOC <100% then charge" before then triggering a "discharge the lot"

Here's a question !
What happens if you have 2 of these sessions in a week. Surely that then means that your 2nd session would pay less, as your 10 days worth of averaging will be higher than at the 1st session .

naltsta up to 10 days they have data for from up to the last 60 window - see appendix 5

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/286981/download

TimHutchings the ten days they use to compare ignore (skip over) saving session/DFS days. So ten weekdays that aren't DFS events.

Thanks for clarification. I now understand that as regards export, I only get a bonus for exports greater than average.

From last year, does anyone remember when typically did an event occur. ie, winter sun but cold - exporting already likely. Or, wet and dismal days - unlikely to be normally exporting.

Thanks

TX200 The Octopus sessions are even narrower than that:

"Yes, customers who generate and export electricity (via solar panels, for example) with Octopus can take part in Saving Sessions, and we’ll credit you for any extra exporting you do compared to your usual "net" consumption, i.e. your imported energy minus your exported energy

E.g. If there’s an event between 6-7pm and we calculate that you usually export 2kWh during that time and don't import anything, then if you export 5kWh during the Saving Session, we'd credit you for this extra 3kWh that you're giving back to the grid (5kWh - 2kWh)."

My bolding in hte quote.

I must of missed it in the small print but seems can't have this and octopoints active at same time, so just been told I can't participate today.

I didn't think it would be an issue for me as I don't have any reason to export back for Octopus as don't have that on my setup so I only signed up for potential free electric.

Going to find a coin to flip.....

Could you be registered for Octopoints to get the free electric sessions, but not opt in to any of the saving sessions? And have Octopus run any yet? I haven't been notified of any?

Me neither

Karen Seems not as thats exactly what I planned (I have not export agreement with Octopus)

Apparently the ESO announced today the first session will be tomorrow. Saw mention of it in my Octopus app and queried Axle as I hadn’t heard anything

Apparently we will get an email in the next hour about it. Meanwhile octopus website and app appears to be down - probably due to everyone logging in to check!

From their WhatsApp channel

I’m confused - do I interpret this as Axle Energy not being ready for the first ESO event ?

I emailed them earlier and Karl the CEO said they’d send an email out imminently

Ignore that - just got the email from Axle announcing the event tomorrow 👍

Lofthouse same. Interested to see how efficient this entire process is.

Nope, still confused - Octopus event 17:30 to 18:30, Axle event 17:00 to 18:00 ?? If ESO are organising these, why are they at different times ? Or is it just a typo in the Axle email ?

The above answers one of the questions that has been asked about £ rates.

Axel £2.10/kW
Octopus £2.25/kW

Ok the Octopus is in octopoiints you have to exchange for a credit off your bill rather than hard cash you can spend on what you want, but to me they’re both money

Lofthouse it’s being staggered - some are scheduled at 1700-1800, others 1730-1830

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/first-demand-flexibility-service-test-event-take-place-tomorrow-night

Given the increased participation in this years’ Demand Flexibility Service this test event will be staggered across the providers, with some asked to participate between 5-6pm and others asked to participate between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Consumers should look out for information from their registered provider on when they will be asked to participate.

for octopoints, we will have to manually export but with axle, they have control at the period.

26Left
Many thanks for the clarification, and the very useful link 👍

Yes, very interesting and useful. Thank you @26Left

Have to say I am quite tempted by the £3/kWh on offer from Utrack / Uswitch via Hildebrand

So I've had the following from axle:

"We're unable to access your export data, which is how we measure how much energy you're exporting to the grid.
This is a requirement to participate, so you won't be able to participate in GivBack events until this is resolved.
This could be because you don't have an Export MPAN, or because your supplier hasn't properly registered your Export MPAN. (Note that this is different from your Import MPAN)"

I've had solar for 10 years, on FIT with deemed export (presumably because at that time I had an old spinning wheel electricity meter) which my supplier changed the following summer to an electronic one, then a couple of years ago then fitted a smart meter which records export as well as import.

I don't have an export MPAN (that I know of). To get one will I have to come off the deemed export with FIT ? This could cost me more than the GivBack may pay me, especially as I don't export as much now I have the battery? Clearly I don't want to lose FIT all together.

Am I best just staying as I am on FIT with deemed export and forgetting GivBack - thoughts?

PianSom is that their actual offer for this event? Or just an “about” or “up to” figure?

naltsta
It's an "around".

See https://www.uswitch.com/utrack-money-back/ - "We’re passing on the full amount offered by the National Grid ESO so you could earn more with Utrack Money Back than with other equivalent schemes. "

I guess some providers are offering higher rates initially in the hope of luring customers to sign up, and then hope they can't be bothered to move.

I initially signed up with Axle but have just emailed them to quit, and joined Octopus, partly for the slightly higher rate, and partly because I've already got an account with them.

Now I'm wishing I'd gone for a 13.5kWh GivEnergy battery that can discharge at 6kW (rather than my more modest 3.6kW-rated battery) to make better use of these DFS schemes, price plunge events (where we get paid to use electricity) and cheap half-hourly rates on Octopus Agile.

26Left so the absolute last thing the National grids want me to do is charge up my battery in the window just before the event (because that’s still a high demand time for them)

What their rules incentivise me to do is charge up my battery in the window just before the event…

treborUK I've had the same message that I cannot take part. I'm on SEG not FIT.

Axle gave me a dictated email to send to my export provider (British Gas):

You can send this request to your supplier:

I'd like to participate in a flexibility programme, but have been told my export data isn't available in the DCC. Can you please help me with the following?

Can you please share my 13-digit Export MPAN? If I don't have an Export MPAN, can you please apply for one on my behalf? Can you please confirm that my Export MPAN is properly associated with my meter and Import MPAN? Can you please confirm that my Export MPAN is fully enrolled with the DCC?

I have sent this to British Gas, but I'm not hopeful this will get sorted anytime soon.

I heard somewhere that if you're on a deemed export scheme, but do have the ability to monitor actual export, then the supplier may try to force you onto metered exported, rather than deemed export.

DD that’s true, but has complications.

The government want to pay you actual export for your solar

But if you also have a battery, how are they to know how much export was from solar vs battery?

It could cost them more money. So if they’re sensible, they wouldn’t force a fit deemed export person over to measured export if they have a battery system as well. They’d need to account for that export some how, but I’m not sure how!

I flipped the coin and Ive asked to come off Octopus scheme and will reapply for Axle as for me with no solar, its more a toss up between potential free energy or being paid to export.

naltsta what's more interesting from my side to watch would be, how much they charge the battery before the event. As its a 1 hr event and my capacity is 3.6KwH, i don't need to charge my battery to 100 % of 9.6KwH capacity before the event.

deepanshus I paused my battery earlier today so I wouldn’t have to charge it now. Gotta be more efficient to do that and rub off the mains for a bit than charge up to then discharge.

battery started at 88%, hit the flux peak period and now axle have topped my 9.5kw battery up to 100%, i'll never be able to discharge more than 3.6kw in that hour.. so this already is off to a silly start.

Had a nice response from the guys at axle, they agree it shouldn't have happened and will compensate for the unnecessary charge at flux peak time.. which is good.

It also turned off ECO, so it would have been additional cost for the hours before their discharge time

I guess they need to have some sort of identifier to know to charge prior to 4 if they think they need to for Flux users

My settings in my inverter have changed to discharge between 5pm and 6pm but nothing is happening....

Octopus also turn off Eco during peak rate on Intelligent Flux.

I guess it's to save the battery for when they want to export it

But that can leave you paying for peak rate electric

I'd prefer it if they left it in eco but set a low discharge rate. Cover the house base load but don't empty the battery completely so there's something to export.

If you turn eco back on, Octopus turns it off again (they put it in eco paused) fairly quickly, not sure if they check the settings every 15 mins or perhaps more often.

TX200 Think I’m going to drop off GivBack for now while I investigate/enquire further what the implications may be and what I need to do if I want to support it in the future.

I signed up with Axle Energy on the 4 November through the GivEnergy portal, which then responded it was all setup and ready to go. Today they have not charged my battery and they haven’t started to discharge during the saving event, which I thought started at 18:30 this evening.

Stephen its only 17:39 !

Well that went well ! No discharge at all even though inverter was set to timed export. My battery has been at idle the whole time and not doing anything while I merrily use electric at peak rate. Great

Stephen Pretty dumb of me, I am in Italy at the moment so the reminder went into my diary with the wrong time zone.

simont What time was the event supposed to start? Octopus on the WhatsApp feed says 17:30-18:30, so my original comment at 18:30 European time was the correct time; or so I thought.

Stephen

Email i got was 5pm till 6pm

neomancer I’ll be amazed if they can set up automations for every different combination of battery size, inverter power, import tariff, export tariff, usage, solar forecast.

It’s hard enough doing it for my own set up let alone anyone else’s for a small cut.

Looks like they’ve gone for a one size fits all model that isn’t that cost/energy effective and doesn’t really make sense for certain set ups.

I’m glad they’re working on it but think it’ll be a while before it’s better than just doing it myself.

Mine didn't go too well. It was exporting at 3.6kw. Then stopped working at 5.50pm. I thought it had done a battery dump but I'm not convinced. The battery got to 75c and the breaker feels very hot. I've rebooted it all but its the battery won't charge up from the mains and shows as 0.when I go into more info it says 24%

treborUK

BenS

If you are receiving FIT payments then you should NOT participate in the SEG.
SEG replaced FIT and FIT is significantly more financially profitable.

If I recall FIT payments are made up of 2 elements:
1) "Deemed export" based on your system at installation
this pays you an amount every month irrespective of what you actually export (for example - they estimate that your 4kw system will export X kw/month so you get paid X * p/kwh)
&
2) "Measured Export" - based on your actual export numbers you get paid a further amount @ a p/kwh
(All of the above FIT payments will depend to some degree on exactly when you entered the scheme as there were some variations - again this is from memory - it was nearly 20 years ago we signed up and have moved since then)

As the AXLE tie in depends on measured exports (via the export MPAN - which you DONT have with FIT) you will not be able to benefit.

You can, probably, benefit from the Octopus saving sessions as these, appear to, look at reduction in energy use versus your "normal" energy use profile over a period. The best you will likely be able to achieve is a reduction to 0kwh. Again your "export" under FIT is ineligible.

danerf circuit breaker tripped.

lifco Thanks, I never received an email for the savings session, the only email I have received was confirming that I had signed up to the Axle Energy tie up.

danerf that sounds quite warm.

My app says the battery got to 59.0c

Weirdly GivTCP battery temperature says it got to 39.4c.

Inverter got to 52.9c according to GivTCP.

Kicking out at 2.6kWh that is.

simont Might sound silly but is your Timezone set right?

Go into portal and then Account Settings, check the TZ value is on GMT, otherwise the discharge time could think it's already passed.

neomancer Unless you don't have enough charge to export for the duration, I don't really see the point of charging ahead of time at all.

My battery started the session at around 45% which was natural drain from when it started the day at 100%.

I ran export mode from 17:30 - 18:30, and it was on about 15% afterwards. This is g1 and 8.2 kWh battery so limited to 2.6kW.

Adding charge ahead of time wouldn't have helped me export more, and if I run out of power after the session it will just drop to the grid anyway, and I should have theoretically been paid fairly well for whatever I managed to export (not loads tbh due to max throughput and house load).

Adding extra charge here would only have served to then drain it later for house load post-session, which is less efficient than just directly using the grid when the battery runs low.

The Axle system worked perfectly for me - charged the battery before the event, and discharged during it, reverted to Eco after. Much easier than the manual intervention I had to supply last year.

After initially going with Axle thinking Octopoints didn't sound as good as cold cash (I'm unlikely to want merchandise or free movie tickets) I changed my mind, cancelled Axle and went back to Octopus. Octopus offered a slightly better rate, and it's one less account to worry about. Also I'm on the Agile import tariff, so I tend to set things manually, so the automatic control of my battery by a third-party was not something I was very keen on.

And it seems to have gone smoothly with Octopus, with a message coming up on my account that they're calculating the results and will let me know.

LordHippos

Yeah,

In my HA there is a "saving sessions" switch shown by the Octopus API, so I'm tempted to configure my own automation and switch to octopus, at least that way i can control the actions in the session rather than all the silly Eco mode turned off for a hour beforehand etc.

Seemed to go to plan for me on Axle - discharging at AIO max 6kw between 5&6pm.

I had more of a mixed experience, and I think that is because the Axle automation would suit someone on the Flux tariff, but caused some problems for me, on the Agile tariff. My normal pattern is to use HA automation, specifically the PALM integration in GivTCP and BottlecapDave’s Octopus HACS integration to figure out how much to charge the battery, and pick out the cheapest Agile half hour slots to charge it. On a Winter month, it will always try to charge to 100% using timeslots between 00:30 and 07:00.

Bits I liked:
The Axle automation was successful in controlling the inverter, and did dump the battery at full output between 17:00 and 18:00, reverting to normal settings afterwards - and it did that without me having to remember it was a Saving Session day.

Bits I disliked:
The previous night, Axle instructed my inverter to charge, but stomped over my Charge time-slots, setting them to a Flux pattern of 02:00 to 05:00. Worse, it set the AC Charge Limit to 46% - really, on a Winter’s day ??
At around 15:30 yesterday, my inverter was instructed to charge to 73% and Eco mode was switched off, then the battery was discharged between 17:00 and 18:00. I was expecting the inverter to be reverted to normal settings straight afterwards, but in fact this did not happen until nearly 19:00, so I copped an hour of import at about 50p/KWh.

I reckon I cleared a net gain of around £4 (export less the extra import). I can add a “Don’t be Stupid” HA automation to fix the overnight time-slot stomping and low AC Charge Limit % and am prepared to give Axle another go.

Lofthouse

I was expecting the inverter to be reverted to normal settings straight afterwards, but in fact this did not happen until nearly 19:00,

This happened to me too; it also looks like it's happening in the chart from @26Left.

I would have been better off scheduling things myself, but I guess I'm locked in until I've made £10 🙁

LordHippos Yes its set to GMT, thanks

GE came back to me, "I've made some modifications on this end - please retest, I'm not sure whats caused this one its odd, but feedback has been passed over internally."

All seems to be working as normal now. I've withdrawn from Axle until its a bit more tested and stable

Has anyone received any communication from Axle yet with a summary of your export and payment details?
I have not heard a word since yesterday's session.

No, nothing here, though it is still quite early 😀

I have sent a copy of my post above to support@axle.energy as feedback.

Got this nice response back from Karl of Axle Energy within 40 minutes:

Thanks for this feedback - very much appreciate it.

As you flagged, we're not set up to fully support Agile (we try to signpost this at signup). We hope to be able to support this at some point, but in the meantime, we're using a 'Flux' proxy, as you noted.

Re the overnight charge: we try to charge your battery enough to be able to deliver on the event, but not so much that you won't need that energy. This won't ever be perfect, but we're working to more consistently strike the right balance. Sorry we didn't for you.

It can take some time to revert the settings - we sent through the request at 6pm, but doesn't always update right way. We're working to speed this up going forward.

You're welcome to use HA to overwrite our schedule, if it doesn't suit your needs. Just note that it'll wipe out all the settings we've sent through.

Thanks again for this feedback, and please do continue to share - hopefully we can get to something that works well for everyone.

Cheers,

Karl

Karl Bach
Co-founder & CEO
Axle Energy

And just got the event follow-up email through from Axle 👍

Lofthouse hopefully we can get to something that works well for everyone.

Honestly I think this is the biggest flaw…

GaryS
Just received an email and questioned their logic / maths! It's more than we would get from Octopoints, but not as much as they suggested we might get.

Got an email this afternoon, clicked the link and entered my name, bank account and sort code - could take 3 business days to pay out.

Checked against Octopus app for my smart meter readings which suggested 2.63 + 2.36 = 4.99 kWh for the 17:00 and 17:30 segments so matches up well.

Overall a big tick from me.

Got my notification too. 4.98kwh from the AIO (it behaved for a change!). £10.45 thanks.
and should still get my usual 15p/kwh from Octopus for export too.

Wow how did you guys send 4.98kwh
I only sent 2.42kwh

lifco The AIO can charge and discharge at 6kw. So it was exporting at 6kw minus the house load use.

GaryS
Mine must be old, as mine says Discharge Power 3000W which is max setting, is that what you mean mate ?

I did check to see what Axle has set up for charging the battery prior to the event and noticed that it was set to charge up during the Octopus Flux peak period. So I edited the settings...

Got my notification from Axle at 15.30

i think for the next event, i need to keep a closer eye on the home load during the event...i should have been higher, Giv 5 Gen 3 is 3.6KWH capable

Good to see that people getting paid from Axel so quickly. I've not heard anything from Octopus about my export, there's a "we're still running the numbers" message in the app/website

But in Home Assistant I can see that I discharged 4.4kW but 2.4kW was soaked up by house load so I only exported 2kW. Have to see how much of this is "extra" above base export.

Interesting that if you are on FIT and don't have an export MPAN then you can't participate in the export part of the scheme. Kind of makes sense because your export readings are not being fed through to the DCC's. Do be aware that if you are on FIT and have a smart meter fitted you are supposed to move from deemed export to metered export payments, its in the ofgem conditions that I wasn't aware of - e.g. last FAQ on the eonnext FIT page https://www.eonnext.com/help/feed-in-tariffs

dragon2905

Thanks. I'm actually on SEG but got the same message about Axle being unable to read my meter.

I managed to get my Export MPAN from British Gas, and sent it to Axle and am waiting to see if they can use it.

I'm not sure it is set up properly though as BG do ask me to read my export manually and I dont know how else to check. Either way it was too late for yesterday so I missed out. I hope I can get it fixed for the next event.

naltsta

My sense if that you can just override their charge and discharge settings to suit you if they can't work precisely to your tariff / expectations

26Left Indeed. All that counts in the end is your export data for the hour. You can override the Axel settings Just be aware that they update battery charging in the hour or so before the session if you battery SOC is not high enough, so keep an eye and stop the charging if you want to.

geoffreycoan Good to see that people getting paid from Axel so quickly. I've not heard anything from Octopus about my export, there's a "we're still running the numbers" message in the app/website

Was fairly standard to need to wait a few days on the sessions last year.

BenS cool, my bad thought you were on FIT.

BG were terrible to set up SEG - took them 3 months and yes they cannot read the meter you have to submit it yourself.

They pay about 6p (last i checked) and you should be able to get a better rate from Octopus, plus if you have a smart meter already up and running then they will read your export automatically and either deduct your export from your monthly bill (assuming Octopus is your supplier).

Takes a week or two to switch from BG to Octopus

Just seen the Which report on these sessions. So looks like only 12 sessions this year are planned, 2022 was 22 sessions.

Six hour-long events are planned across November and December 2023, with six more to come in January and February 2024. There might be other, longer, events if they're needed.

How much money could I earn? This year is different so we may get more for exporting

You're unlikely to earn much. Last year, more than half of those who took part received between £1 and £5, according to a report from the Centre of Sustainable Energy.

It's not a money making scheme – it's better to think of it as a community effort to reduce electricity use and therefore carbon emissions at peak times, and trial out a more flexible approach to using electricity from the National Grid.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/heres-how-to-get-rewards-for-using-less-electricity-during-peak-hour-sessions-this-winter-am6tu2m6tRaM

dragon2905

Thanks again! You've given me more food for thought.

I'm actually with EonNext as they have the lowest consistent off peak rate I could find for the east midlands and thats all I really use. I chose BG because they seemed to have the highest standalone export rate.
I need to do some maths on bundled options.
Regards the Axle events, I am still waiting to hear if whatever BG did setting up my Export MPAN is sufficient for Axle to read my exports. If BG don't use the Export MPAN, maybe it doesn't work at all.

26Left

The money was paid into my bank account yesterday over FasterPayments.

I joined Octopus... and then chatted with Axle when the email dropped into my inbox...

They basically said it was the same deal but they'd automate it so I didn't have to do anything, and they'd sort out the switch on my behalf... suits my lazy arse, so i joined up...!!!

The event went well, they did everything and I think I made about 6 or 7 quid that I can withdraw once I reach above £10. Fair enough, I think I'll let it stack up and see what it makes in total.

However, my export session times and other settings did not revert back until about an hour/hour and a half after the event. This was a problem and I emailed Axle to discuss it. I was using grid energy for that time when I had battery capacity so I lost a bit of cash at peak rates.

They said they were aware and working on a solution to resolve the timings as they understood the problem.

Very responsive and I felt assured that they'd work on it for the next event.

Great initiative to help the grid cope and the money is a bonus too.

Just got the email to alert of another ESO event happening tomorrow 5-630pm

So has anyone got signed up for this who are also on Octopus Go Intelligent?

I canned the octopus octopoints side of things last week and re-applied to Axle.

Im still being rejected as signed up to a scheme already which appears to be Go which can be seen by ESO as a scheme and so still can't sign up

Can't give up Go thats for sure so seems Im stumped

DreadorUK I am on Intelligent Octopus Go and also on the Axle Flex scheme.

If it won't let you sign up to Axle its probably because it thinks you are still on Octoplus - being on IO shouldn't make any difference

All seemed to work ok on the last test

DreadorUK Weird - I'm on OG for import and OG fixed lite for export, I signed up for octopoints but not their "saving sessions" ESO offering, and instead joined GivBack with Axle. Maybe it takes time for the databases to catch up to the fact you have de-registered?

well it should be a good one here in the Southeast at least. Some good sunshine during the day so the battery will be nice and full come 5pm, without the need for the last minute Axle topup.

Octopus have now sent out an alert on their what’s app group - offering equivalent of £4 (!) of octopoints per kWh.

Octopus have more seasoned bidders hence the big price differential.
Edit: just been pointed out to me that Axle seem to have set themselves a limit of £3/kWh throughout this winter. Which seems a little self limiting?

You’ll get paid per kWh that you support the grid. The price will vary, up to £2.10/kWh

Has anyone got the Axle alert for this yet? Only signed up yesterday so no idea how they come through.

26Left wouldn’t surprise me if we get one on the 30th too by the look of the agile prices

thewhalw21

Yes got a email from Axle at 5pm

hoggy interesting - thanks. What’s the source for this?

Do octopus pay for export during these savings sessions as well as just using less import?

I was under the impression that OctoPLUS Savings sessions were just about importing less.

And if so then it’d be better than Axle?

Yes they pay for exports if you export more than you normally do at that time. In our case we don't normally consume or export then as the sun is down, so we just dumped our battery and got paid last time.

26Left National Grid data, although I'm building my own dashboard here which splits it out to regions.
It's not great for mobile, not optimised the terrible stalling on graph rendering yet.

Had my first event this evening after signing up with Axle. The automation kicked off the discharge at 5pm and stopped it briefly at 6:30pm but now it's continuing to discharge and attempts to stop it in the app only take effect temporarily before it starts discharging again.

Any idea how I manually reset it please?

You do have the option ECO enabled mate ?

Thanks lifco Just logged in to the GE web dashboard and Eco was off and Time Charge to 100% was off. I've put these back and this has stopped the discharge.

I emailed Axle and already heard back from Archy and we've worked out what happened - they read the settings to restore from my inverter at 17:11 yesterday, when it so happens I was manually discharging during peak (I do this if I have plenty of charge in the battery AND the grid is forecast to be green overnight).

hoggy First of all - chapeau on that website, those dashboards are fascinating!

Re DFS data - really interesting to see the required / procured disparity (ESO didn't procure enough? or is DFS supply that limited?), and the scale / pricing strategy of the different providers. I'm going to geek out on this today - but on first inspection it looks like that from Axle's perspective given they're small at 6MW of supply, they need to bid low to make sure they're included (hence £3/kW). While Octopus can almost dictate a price as the scheme wouldn't deliver much without them - hence £5.33/kW @ c 200MW (c 43% of the total DFS).

26Left Thanks for that, it's a hobby of mine (along with dismembering inverters) that consumes far too much of my spare time!

26Left I think it's a mix of both reasons - the pool is small (in the grand scheme of things for the grid) and the pot of money is not infinite (hence why some bids were rejected on cost grounds - whereas if they were truly after the target then they could have procured a bit more)
Likewise there may also be an element of encouragement on the figure required (it is after all a market, so aim high but expect less after negotiations)

Axles first outing was for 2MW so they are starting to get a feel for it (although I can't say for sure if it's all Givenergy, they are an aggregator after all so could have other assets in the pot) Although i do think they've perhaps shot themselves in the foot with the £3 cap - although i guess that is theirs to change & customers are unlikely to complain being paid more...

Another DFS Announcement today for 1st December
.

Octopus Energy Ohme are listed as "via Axle Energy Ltd" apparently?

Vestas think that's just poorly laid out data. Companies opted in is done per line, so

• Octopus Energy
• Ohme (via Axle Energy)
• OVO Energy...

as opposed to Octopus Energy Ohme (Via Axle Energy)

hoggy Sounds more likely than Octopus using an aggregator 🙂

Vestas Didn't notice Ohme making anything public so they are shifting their chargers load out of the DFS on their users behalf and pocketing the money as far as I can tell.

hoggy Thanks for the heads up re another event tomorrow.

Here's the result from me geeking out on this today...
https://medium.com/@26left/getting-paid-to-use-less-electricity-in-the-uk-the-triple-win-fd886fdea3d1

hoggy I'm only surprised more companies aren't doing the same - a few years from now I have no doubt at all there will be more financial scandals/companies going bust in the electricity market and it'll be based around them (mis)managing customer batteries/generation solely for their own benefit.

Ditto misselling scandals which are going to happen as companies realise the market is essentially a cash cow for the next few years given the price of batteries and the lack of new transmission capacity for renewables.

It's the UK. It'll happen. We all know it'll happen 🙂

26Left very nice. I like that analysis.
(FYI - Anything is fair game from TerraVolt if it's useful for portraying things in the future)

hoggy Thanks - and ditto. I'm a docs-sheets-slides type person - don't have your API/dashboard skill!

What I wanted to show was the classic market chart that shows how the different bids stack up in terms of volume vs price by provider, but cut a corner with the simple bar chart + scatter plot. I'll have a think about how best to show that for next time.

What I thought was particularly interesting was how different participants big and small placed their bids (and the game theory deployed) under what I assume are sealed bids.

e.g. for the bigger ones:

• Octopus bid in three different blocks per time slot, albeit priced the same at £5.33 - 93, 93 & 12MW
• BG bid in one block but priced differently by slot at £3, £3 then £6

and for the smaller providers:

• Oaktree split their bids into three blocks of 5,2,1 MW
• OVO priced super low at £1

Will be really interesting to see how this develops!

Axle have outbid Octopus this time (£5.99 vs £5.33 kWh - in fact nobody appeared to be rejected)

hoggy interesting - I wonder how much they pass on!

26Left

Watcher Yer just seen the email also mate 🙂

26Left

I have had a look and 1.6m households and businesses signed up to the scheme last year.

So if you just use these numbers for just these two companies for just this event for 1 x kWh.

(I hope this is correct)

Axle - £5.99 x 1.6m = £9,584,000 (bid)
Axle - £4.20 x 1.6m = £6,720,000 (payout)
Axle difference - £1.79
Axle - £1.79 x 1.6m = £2,864,000 (profit)

Octopus - £5.33 x 1.6m = 8,528,000 (bid)
Octopus - £4.00 x 1.6m = £6,400,000 (payout)
Octopus difference - £1.33
Octopus - £1.33 x 1.6m = £2,128,000 (profit)

Daveb01 there’s a limit on the volume procured under DFS. Tomorrow’s event is for 550MW. So 550,000kw x £6/kw x 1.5 hours = £4.95M for the whole market. Split seems to be approx 30:70 between participants and their end customers. Participants also pay the cost of administering eg IT costs to service the scheme and arrange payment etc.

Market is competitive and participants can only supply so much in volume.

26Left

Thank you for the correction, I understand now.

Daveb01 If the 1.6m households is correct, then that means on average they’re reducing net power consumption by 550MW/1.6m = 340W each, or approx 0.5kWh across the 90mins.

At the end of the day, what ever the numbers are, i'am happy to take part

Cash helps with the poor solar + helps the grid out

In-fact, i wish it was 3 or 4 times a week in winter 🙂

Does axle need export mpan like octopus? I'm on deemed export so octopus is out for me

s_r_thomas I think they need the ability to read a smart meter that measures export - so I think that requires having an Export MPAN.

From their FAQ

• Am I eligible?
  To be eligible, you’ll need to live in GB, have a working smart meter at an address where you have a GivEnergy battery at home. You’re not eligible if you battery is currently managed by another service (e.g., Intelligent Octopus Flux).

hoggy what website are you getting this data from?

danerf from here I assume

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_service_requirements

Click up the breadcrumb trail to get to the other pages.

@danerf it comes from the ESO feed but I've made it pretty/easy here: https://terravolt.co.uk/uk-grid/dfs/

hoggy I had a strong feeling you'd have it on your website. 😁

Anyone got their email with payment link from Axle yet for yesterday's session? They usually send the next day.

GaryS not yet - guessing they don’t work weekends

26Left Nothing yet!

26Left some of the settled data has started to come in. Way lower than I expected but if the Octopus Participation numbers can be extrapolated may just have been down to people not taking part. Later ones appear to have the highest number of opt ins ever:

Got my results. A nice £18 earned!

Same just over £15 🙂

£28 here. AIO doing its job for a change!

I signed up for the Axle deal. In the first session, they gave me £2.21 pkWh. The second session scheduled was a special event where they offered double this (£4.20 per kWh). Unfortunately, my dongle which has been hitched to my WiFi dropped offline so they were unable to control it. Probably lost me about £20. Does anyone else have this problem with the dongle losing connectivity? I resent having to reset and reboot via the Gateway page 10.10.100.254 every time.

I was on standby to manually switch back to ECO at 6.30 and I didn't need to. Axle seem to have it sorted for that to happen straight away.

£29 earned on Friday, paid into my bank today.

Did anyone else get some weird settings on their charge times?

Something stopped my usual 2-5am charge and seemed to set a 30 and later 50% charge overnight.

Woke up to a 50% battery with ECO turned off 😭

There's potentially a session today.
Announcement has been made to all participants.

hoggy Interesting - thanks for sharing. Is there a penalty paid by participants for over / under delivering what was procured?

hoggy Interesting that it's another test after last week's Live events - and at a guaranteed £3/kW - I suspect the consumers earning rates will be back to the £2.xx range as a result.

17:30-18:30 today for all - i.e. no staggering across participants like the first test this season on 16-Nov.
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_service_requirements

Just got the email about the event tonight 5:30 till 6:30 pm

lifco Thanks, I've just seen the email from Axle too. Back to the £2.10 earning rate so I assume they've reverted to bidding at the guaranteed £3/kWh again.

26Left I'm unsure if there is a penalty, there must surely be for repeat offenders? The DFS docs are quite long winded and I'm currently a but too busy to really look!
Ironically I'm trying to get a power station back online!

All bids were for £3/kW - and all were accepted. Total procured is slightly higher than the 500MW required.

26Left I think the test events have to be dont they? It’s only the live events where companies actually get to bid?

naltsta Possibly - but it’s stated as a “guaranteed acceptance price” which I interpret as a floor not a ceiling. Octopus bid a small amount of their reduced demand (12MW) at £4 and £5 for the test event on the 16-Nov - however the ESO rejected these bids.

One thought - on the basis that the usable capacity of the AIO is questionable, and the future ESO DFS windows are likely to be in the peak hours of 4-7pm (and an average of your prior 10 days usage serves as the benchmark for your net reduction calculation ie how much you get paid)…

I’ve chosen to overwrite the Axle settings for my AIO via the GE app to charge to 100% SoC at the max power rate of 6kW immediately prior to the event today ie 430-530pm. The default Axle settings had the pre-event charging starting earlier, at my chosen slower overnight power rating - and not to 100% SoC.

26Left 1. Days when there was an event are not included in your average.

2. I’m avoiding all pre charging. My battery is currently paused with sufficient capacity to discharge at full rate for the event while my home demand is provided by the grid. If I was using battery now and then recharging before the event I would be less efficient and would therefore cost me more.

naltsta

1. Thanks, I didn’t realise that.
2. I’d say it depends on your battery capacity and performance, tariff, event length and house load.

For me it’s worth charging enough to maximise the full export. As this event is only an hour - that’s max 6kWh from the AIO. For 90mins that should be 9kWh or c 70% SoC - but last time I went from 100-5% in 80mins. I’d rather have the extra than run out half way through (£2.10 earning vs £0.31/kWh cost), as I’ll likely use up any remainder before off peak charging at 00:30 anyway - so cost neutral on Octopus Go tariff.

Not amused. No idea whats going on with Axle/GivEnergy attempting to revert settings after and event but they've made a right mess of it and had my battery charging now instead of my previosuly scheduled 0200-0500 to align wiht Octopus Flux off-peak times.

I've decided that I need to get in touch with Axle and tell them not to change my settings. Their automated changes are sub-optimal.

Either that, or I need to get off my backside and re-visit GivTCP/HA etc and put my own automations in place.

Daveb01 I got £4.20/kWh the other day but every other time has been £2.10.

So far it is much better than Octopus energy saving sessions.

Not had any incorrect changes made to mine.

My personal view, others will differ of course. For a company to take control of a system that I own and paid thousands of pounds for, use it for an hour and then leave me to revert some settings to avoid using high cost electricity after their session; so my equipment and my time for which they give me approx £5 in return (in my case, considering session costs and payment), is not a good deal for me. So I opted out.

Plus Octopus have been paying £2.25 for the other sessions, which I think puts them slightly ahead in average/kWh ? Not really enough of a difference to declare a winner yet. It does, of course, depend very much upon the value you place on the automation. I'm fortunate that timed-discharge mode seems to be behaving itself, so I'm happy to do the scheduling myself.

DD

Can i also say, Octopus are a lot slower giving you the results of the event and also your cash

Axle on the other hand, give you fastest results and they pay you in to your bank within 3 working days

lifco probably because they've got fewer customers. 😁

TX200

Yer maybe mate 🙂

Yeah there's less than 2k Axle participants I believe. The last Octopus ones had 350K, the two before that had 500k+

i found the double hassle of 1) automatic update of my settings for eg putting my battery on pause 15 mins prior to the event 2) wait for £10 to withdraw , made me switch from Axle to Octopoints where i can redeem them for account balance instantaneous and also Octopoints are better paying than axle.

DreadorUK
Same here. Octopus R&D controls my GE inverter/battery for IO Go and Outgoing Octopus which rules me out. Also, I do not draw from the grid during the day tariff hours so Saving Sessions do not work for me either; I signed up for the first one the other week and earned a massive 8 points- not bothering again. I’m happy though

hoggy Yeah there's less than 2k Axle participants I believe. The last Octopus ones had 350K, the two before that had 500k+

I was watching Tim & Kat's Green Walk update on DFS the other day, Tim showed his email from Axel saying how their customers saved 6MWh of energy. The Octopus email said they saved 233MWh in the same event!

Different order of magnitude.

Octopus are slow with the points, agreed, but for me it keeps it simple as I have to spend money with them anyway.

Looks like another test event today https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_industry_notification

5-6pm today - but only 400MW required and £3/kW guaranteed so will be interesting to see how the bidding goes.

Stange - no corresponding Octopus session.

Thanks just got the Axle email 5 - 6pm tonight

Octopus just in 😀🤞

Another test session today 5-6pm. 500MW this time. £3/kW.

26Left You are quick on the button! Neither Axle or Octopus have even sent out their invites as yet.

GaryS He's looking at this site I believe - https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_service_requirements

Edit - or possibly Hoggy's site - https://terravolt.co.uk/uk-grid/dfs/

Vestas Correct - you can sign up for a free account on that website, and subscribe specifically to just the DFS section. They then email you whenever there's an update to that section.

Just got the Axle email. They are paying £2.10 / kWh.

So today is an Octopus Power-up 3pm-5pm. Then a Saving Session presumably 5pm-6pm.

Free electricity which I can sell at a high price.

Funny old world.

I appear to be on both Axle and Octopus saving sessions.

After reading this I am sensing this is not allowed. Is anyone else on both?

sm9ai

No mate, you would be best to get this sorted asap

NotoriousPyro assuming Octopus and Axel both correlate your meter readings?

Another DFS tomorrow (Friday 15th) - staggered this time:

• Octopus 5-6pm
• Everyone else include Axle 5.30 - 6.30pm

mbrennen Something must or it'd have been scammed to death by now 🙂 MPAN numbers most likely.

sm9ai hi, I am too, I can't see above where it says you can't do this, am I missing a post mate? Cheers.

lifco hi, I am using both axel and octopus saving sessions too, I can't see above where it says you can't do this, am I missing a post mate? Cheers.

Scottishcammy
https://octopus.energy/Octoplus-terms-and-conditions/#:~:text=Saving%20Sessions%20Terms%20and%20Conditions
savings sessions #6.1 "you must: not be taking part in the Electricity System Operator’s (ESO) Demand Flexibility Service with another provider"

https://flex.axle.energy/givenergy/dfs/
FAQ "about the program"
"By participating in this programme, you’ll need to agree to not participate in flexibility programmes offered by other providers. This is to ensure no overlap or conflicting signals."

DD thanks mate 👍

DFS notification just published so there may be a saving session coming tonight.

ajcrewe 5-6pm today confirmed. Test so standard £2.xx pricing anticipated.

That was a somewhat aggressive test yesterday, anyone else look at their Grid voltage for the test period? Looks like we saw a grid voltage of 208.9V at one point.

Mine was about 240

SilverArt Yesterday (19 Dec) I saw 208.8V at 17:01. North Wales.

Our lowest was 232V when we were charging the battery before 4PM. During the saving session when were dumping the battery it was 243V. So it looks like about 5kW of load swing produces about 10V voltage swing, so I think that means our supply has about 0.5 Ohm impedance. I don't know if that is good or bad. The substation is not far away but it is over a canal bridge.

237 lowest here (E Mids).

@26Left They've taken a break over the holidays but Settlement data is starting to come through from past sessions now:

hoggy Cool, thanks. I'll go and see if I can find the T&Cs as to whether Providers get penalised for under or over delivering/settled vs what was bid/procured.

Email today guys, Just a heads up

Thanks for being part of GivBack. We wanted to drop you a quick update, as there haven’t been any GivBack events in the past few weeks.

The grid operator (ESO) hasn’t called any events because the grid hasn’t been very strained recently. We expect that there will be more events soon - the grid operator has guaranteed at least 6 more this winter.

In the meantime, there’s no action required - just hang tight! Thanks for helping the grid decarbonise.

So 6 more planned, nice more £ is always welcome + doing our bit to help the grid

lifco I was thinking we're likely to get a few more events soon as the weather has turned colder again

Expect a test event today - the ESO has sent out an industry notification this morning

UPDATED - today between 1730-1830, 400MW, all providers, guaranteed min of £3/kWh

ESO just confirmed - another test event 1700-1800 today for all providers. Only 200MW however.

No go for Axle tonight, bids rejected.

Does that mean if we are registered with Axle we can still opt in to Octopus for this session?

hoggy good spot - I was curious how they’d approach it given the lower requirement

GribinIsaf you should only be opted in to one DFS provider I think

GribinIsaf No.

British Gas had their bids rejected too

This is going to drive me into Octopus's arms.
I had already pointed out to Axle that their pay rates were below Octopus.

I wonder whether we will get an apology from Axle?

Rogerbu I wonder whether we will get an apology from Axle?

Don't see why - if they'd put in a low bid to get accepted, would you expect an apology for not getting you the best possible deal?

So last time their bid was too low and people weren't happy. This time it was too high and they got rejected and people aren't happy.

Can't win. 🤣

I for one will stick with Octopus. 🐙

GribinIsaf

As others have said your locked in - to get out you have to put in a request to your current tie in provider, asking them to delink your account - after which your record in the central DB will be cleared to allow you to join another provider.

Im locked in with Octopus and they haven't a clue why Im locked in with them so stuck with them so at least if your with Axle they know what there doing

This is quite funny if you guys have seen the post on X

Axle are paying a minimum of £2.10 to it's members, where Octopus are willing to offer there service at just £0.99

I thought the whole idear was to help the grid at times of need, and i also thought bid prices was about the same, price, seems not

lifco Axle are paying a minimum of £2.10 to it's members, where Octopus are willing to offer there service at just £0.99

I thought the whole idear was to help the grid at times of need, and i also thought bid prices was about the same, price, seems not

The Octopus rate for today's saving session was £1.75 per kWh

It is about helping the grid in times of need, but its also for the ESO and the Energy Suppliers to learn how this type of market could operate in the future. I think that's why today's event was run when there wasn't really high demand (tonight I have two zero rate agile slots and it wasn't expensive in the peak). The ESO link I copied above said that test events in 2024 would be competitively tendered

lifco
Perhaps I misunderstand, but if Axle didn't bid successfully on the last slot then their members aren't getting anything at all, whereas Octopus members who opted in will be getting £1.75 per kWh

geoffreycoan It is about helping the grid in times of need, but its also for the ESO and the Energy Suppliers to learn how this type of market could operate in the future.

I wonder to what extent these events are dominated by people either exporting from battery, or gaming the system (by inflating usage on non-savings days).
Last year (pre battery), we made a bit of effort and might have saved 400Wh at best. Now, we can just dump over 3kW with barely any effort.

As number of batteries increases, I wonder how low they can push the reward and still have people participating. After all, many here are happy to cycle batteries for less than 10p/kWh margin.

Well it didn't seem to dampen Octopus customers too much, still 430k took part.

DD you won't know when it'll happen, will it be once a week, twice a fortnight - so unless on a standard tariff with no off peak, it's risky financially to move demand for a potential reward.

Also won't know what time the session will be - guessing 5.30-6.00 might not be bad, as some sessions have been 5-6 others, 5.30-6.30 I think - so concentrate on that half hour?

Plus the price will be unknown too, so can you guarantee all the moving of high usage will actually pay off?

DD The figures I saw somewhere show that there’s money to be made all round. Paying a power station to be on standby for a peak or to spin up, its more expensive by a long way than the rewards we get for taking part in the DFS session (plus the profit the energy suppliers make).

Same on the power up days, paying solar and wind farms to go offline when there’s excess power costs money.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we see more of these kind of activities becoming mainstream through the year, and companies such as Axel that can automate the process will do well as its less effort for consumers. MyEO and Wonderwatt will be well placed to deliver the service as well.

Rogerbu

Rogerbu "arms"? lol.... tentacles?

TX200 so unless on a standard tariff with no off peak, it's risky financially to move demand for a potential reward

Yes, only works on a flat tariff. But last year I was on Go, waiting for Zappi to be IOG-compatible. I think that I'd have been very slightly better off on Tracker than on Go (relatively high daytime usage, since I work from home), And then I would suffer no financial penalty (though a hefty moral one) by choosing to charge my EV during peak period on non-savings days.

geoffreycoan The figures I saw somewhere show that there’s money to be made all round.

Yes, of course. But all that money, ultimately, is coming from us, either through energy bills or taxation. So as usage of demand smoothing becomes more common, reducing the rewards hopefully means lower bills. (But those of us participating might prefer to keep the rewards high, as a distribution of wealth from those who can't afford batteries to those who can...)

DD Yes, only works on a flat tariff

Speaking of which... it actaually manifests in another way. Like most, my export tariff is flat. I don't currently discharge battery to grid, but I could, for a tiny profit (on IOG). And since it's a flat tariff, it makes no difference when I was to do so. Morally, it makes sense to choose to do so during the evening peak, when it's most useful. But these savings sessions actually disincentivse me from doing so - it's better for me to time-shift any export away from the evening peak, which is kind of the same, but in reverse.

Axle had their bid accepted this time at £1695 per MWh. 1800-1900 tonight. (Octopus also successful at £1500.)

£1725 appeared to be the boundary of accepted / rejected this time round. Plenty rejected from other providers as only 175MW required.

can we see what they offer per KWH saved vs octopus anywhere?

Email from Axle says they’re paying out £1.50/kWh which is better than I expected

@Dave_Sw1
The list of bids and their outcome is on the ESO website
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_utilisation_report

Dave_Sw1 Octopus have paid out as follows:

29/11 & 1/12/23 (both live events) £4/kWh
2/2/24 & 8/2/24 £1.75/kWh
all other events £2.25/kWh

Be interesting to see the Axel compare

geoffreycoan From memory Axle were £4.20/kWh, £2.10/kWh and now £1.50/kWh respectively - but they missed out on the one last week because they overbid. Octopus have big pricing power given they make up 40+% of the market.

26Left yeah, axle (and everyone else) were told the bid limits but still went over that. Not sure what they were doing!

I've been signed up to Axle (GivBack) for the last couple of events, but I can't seem to find any information about what the results were or how I get paid. Any ideas?

email Axle. They are quich to respond.
I have my results email. Did you receive the Event annouce email?

TX200 Could be they are also learning how the system works, and how far they can vary bids "out of limits".

Seems Axle missed out on today's event again.

They did better with their bidding strategy today - but only 50p /kWh, and it’s just a 30min window between 1800 - 1830. So even with an AIO at max discharge, it’s only worth £3 (assuming a flat baseline).

I asked them to unlink me last month and pay me the balance on my account. So far 2 emails stating they will only pay it end of March.

26Left They did better with their bidding strategy today - but only 50p /kWh

Interestingly, they're making a slight loss on it at that rate (they bid 49.5p/kWh)

My first experience of Axle with one of these events. I received a message saying they would charge my battery to 37% ahead of the event. My battery was already on 89% so they have stopped it powering my house and I am importing from the grid. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!!!

Coys68 sarcasm?

TX200 yeah, mixed with some degree annoyance 😉

Coys68 as long as the rewards are better than the peak import rate, running from grid is ok.

Although I guess it's close this time with only a small payment.

TX200 not really the point. They've taken over my battery and prevented it cooking my tea! The battery is for my use first and foremost especially when it has that much power in it.

Coys68 if you sign up for battery automation, don't be surprised when they automate it. 🤣

TX200 indeed. I expected they would know what they were doing though!!

Axle were happy for me to remain with Axle and NOT to automate the sessions.
So it was the same as Octopus - ie up to me to start and stop export.

PS. I have dropped Axle as Octopus was usually at better returns.

Rogerbu Do you have to be an Octopus customer or could I remain with Eon?

Rogerbu I emailed Axle and asked them to stop the automations, since they were making a mess of them compared with manual configuration, but they replied that the automations were a requirement. Usually takes me a day or two to get the inverter working properly again afterwards...

I'll switch over to Octopus for next winter.

Coys68 As far as I know - Yes. It is part of their Octoplus rewards program

mrand31 Perhaps Axle have changed their policy. Still troublesome automation and lower returns doun't cover quicker provision of results. So I will stay with Octopus now - not that I am expecting anymore events this winter.

26Left

Another test event today.

Axle successfully bid 10MW at £0.698 per kWh for 1730-1800.

Their bid for 1830-1900 (the ESO requested a second slot after a 30 min gap) was rejected (£0.898).

Both Octopus bids were rejected (£1.75) - all successful bids were £0.75 or lower.

I count 14 test and 2 live sessions so far this season vs the expected 12 tests by end of March - so perhaps this is the end of the test run now?

I think there were 4 days of tests where Axle didn’t participate (on 2 & 29 Feb, 1 & 2 Mar).

So from the 10 tests and 2 live events I could participate in, I’m due £130.27 for exporting 60.22kWh over 690 mins, so an average power rate of 5.24kW (AIO 💪) and payment of £2.16 / kWh.

So overall, it’s worked quite well for me - although a few times I had to override Axle’s inverter settings to maximise battery SoC before and discharge rate during the event. And then reset to afterwards.

Would be interested to learn of others experience over the season with Axle and also Octopus which is the obvious alternative.

On the page https://flex.axle.energy/givenergy/dfs/, It says, "This programme is now closed".
Does anybody know if that is forever or just for the summer?

Does anybody know where you can see the balance of earnings