Anybody got their Octopoints for the session last Thursday? Our account just says "Give us a few days to run the numbers from your last Session." but it has been nearly a week. They have had our smart meter data about 2 days after the event. What is there to calculate that takes days? Do they have a computer or an octopus with an abacus?
IIRC, last year it took longer than a week................
Nothing yet, still calculating for us too.
We managed to export just over 3kWh during the session, which we replaced at 2am the next morning (still didn't run out before then), should net over £6 overall. Last year we managed £13 (before solar), just by cutting down use which was a struggle to achieve as I'd already cut down our use after getting a smart meter a few months before...
Same here, just the cutsie 'Give us a few days....' message. Not that I will earn more than pennies thanks to our set up. But worth entering to be in the draw!
Last year, once we trawled the algorithm and found its weakness, we were on the 3rd event before the 2nd had been awarded.
They have millions of customers so it will have to be audited before they can let the computer update all accounts.
I do agree that it is annoying though.
Indeed it is a surprise that a company like Octopus Energy that prides itself on innovation and the use of technology don't appear to have a relatively automated system to run through the calculations, produce the total figures to see if they roughly match the big picture, then select a sample of customers to double check, get them audited and then paid.
On the other hand, they are working on so many different and exciting new initiatives to make the world a better place. So there may be higher priorities competing for their attention, bearing in mind that the payouts from this scheme, whilst worthwhile, will not be huge.
Interesting to compare last year (when with OVO) to this (on octopus). Last year always got a monetary figure of the amount per saving session within one working day and it was in £ and added as credit directly on the next bill.
This year with Octopus still waiting after a week for even points that later I can convert to £ (or something else with their ‘new’ reward scheme). As previously said, for all the innovation for Octopus, they do seem to take an age on things from a customer perspective. I do though suspect it’s growing pains.
Mines just come up. £4.63 credit of points for exporting 2kwh during the session
Capt_Rich got my credit, £15.97, for 6kw dumped from AIO plus low grid use. Just held battery % at 56% and then discharged at 6000w for the hour while we went to the pub for a pint. Winner winner…..
Mine is still "being calculated". Hope that means they are calculating a lot of ££
I am glad they have decided to include export this year. Last year it was based on average use minus how much you can save during the session. I made the big mistake, I flipped off the main fuse for the whole session and took the dog for a walk, I used zero electricity and got about £2. Then did the same for the next 5 sessions and got pennies as I did not save anything extra from the previous sessions, by switching off all the electric.
I understand some people made about £200 as there was a loophole, it was found they monitored your electric for the same period before the sessions, so people turned on as much as possible, then got a huge amount when they saved during the session.
I did not get a notification on the first session so missed it, hopefully next time.
Good luck everyone 🙂
Mine's now arrived at 5464 Octopoints or £6.83, which is down to an export of 3.04kWh. I almost never use peak grid power so there was no way to cut down.
I wish I could have bought the AIO for its 6kWh charge/discharge rate (and 13.5kWh capacity) but I placed my order back in March before they were available, and would have had to go through a further 3-month DNO application delay.
Jase1703 And probably spent more than you saved on said pint 😃
Mines come in at £4.72 for just over 2kwh exported... I'll go wiht that.
Niceguy This is far too niche/infrequent to make much difference, in addition a lot of people seem to report aio issues.
GivBack (Axle) are paying the same rate as Octopus but if you look,
Your getting more because with GivBack, Octopus are also paying you your normal export rate as well
Which then makes you think, Can you do both GivBack and Octopus Savings Sessions at the same time ?
lifco octopus also pay the normal export, on top of any saving session reward.
And no, you can’t be on both - you can only join one dfs scheme.
Very strange, mine did say "we are still calculating", just looked now and there is no mention of the previous saving session and no points awarded :-(
Not even saying that I didn't export anything extra - which I'm pretty sure I did
LordHippos I agree that the saving events are small beer in the grand scheme of things, but I'm on the Agile tariff with rates varying widely every half hour so 6kW would be helpful for cleaning up on half-hour windows of cheap energy and the negatively priced "price plunge events". And the 6kW rating would avoid almost all cases where the kettle and something is too much for the battery. And provide blackout coverage.
But, as you say, the total savings would not be huge.
I think batteries are still improving rapidly so I plan to manage with my 9.5kWh one for a few years, then look to add an AC-coupled AIO, by which time I hope the software has improved so the batteries can all play nicely together.
I managed just over 3kWh exported and got £7.02 for this, minus the 60p or so it took to put back in the battery at 2am the next morning. Can't grumble at that if I can do it at each session. We still hit the cheap rate period with power in the battery too. I hope the free sessions start soon as I'll delay charging the battery during cheap rate (or reduce the % I charge it up) and then top it up during the free session.
Spencers I managed just over 3kWh exported and got £7.02 for this, minus the 60p or so it took to put back in the battery at 2am the next morning.
Assuming you're on Flux tariff, don't forget that you also receive your usual payment for export, so that should more than cover the 60p it took to re-import overnight.
geoffreycoan Very strange, mine did say "we are still calculating", just looked now and there is no mention of the previous saving session and no points awarded :-(
Not even saying that I didn't export anything extra - which I'm pretty sure I did
I contacted Octopus today via twitter/X as there was still no sign of any results for the saving session.
Got a reply back within a couple of hours (on a Sunday). They said they'd had a lot of customers taking up the saving session and they were still working through the calculations which is what was happening for me. Could take up to 14 days.
At least they think its still being "processed" even if the portal doesn't say anything.
Kind of off topic but i keep seeing people talking about the kettle, as i high use item (yes it is)
Everyone should have this, philips series 3000 kettle, 1850 w
It's full size and fast boil, but it's low on watt's just less than 2kw (1850w)
It's the second time ive said to people to get this, and i think its around £20 it's a no brainier
You can thank me later 🙂
lifco
I can't see the choice of kettle making a difference. It takes the same amount of energy to raise, for example,330ml of water at 20 degrees C to boiling point. Admittedly you are also heating the container, but the mass of kettles are much of a muchness.
It's the fact some kettles use 3kw some even more, If your battery can only supply 3kw max (Whole House)
Putting the kettle on, will pull from the grid and not the battery
Same goes if your using solar in summer, if your only getting 2.5kw and the home is using 500watts you can still bang the kettle on without pulling from the grid
It makes a difference trust me, having a lower watt kettle
lifco as long as you don’t mind waiting a bit longer…
Well, will report my results - only 586 octo points saved 0.3Kwh!!! my fault - was exporting at 2.6Kw - max the 9.5Kwh batteries can do. but forgot to disable the iBoost on the water ! so it though I had execess solar so was switched on!
Doh!
lifco
I see what you mean about load, I was looking at it from a purely scientific aspect. A lower wattage kettle would be a good solution in those circumstances.
We use a even lower-powered kettle - 1kW but only has capacity for two cups. I hypothesise that because it's filled, rather than close to the min water level if we were using a full-size kettle, heat probably disperses more efficiently. (it's a lot quieter when heating up)
Still waiting on a result!
Water requires 4200j/kg to increase the temperature by 1 degree.
4.2kW will raise it 1 degree a second
3kW will raise is 1 degree every approx 1.5 seconds
2.1kW will raise it 1 degree every 2 seconds
So 1kg of water will always take the same to heat and if it’s a 3kW kettle that takes 2 minutes to boil (10-100)a kg, then a 2kW kettle will take 3 minutes.
We run a 2kW insulated kettle which uses less energy because it’s insulated not because it’s 2kW vs 3kW
It’s all down to how much time you have vs you battery max output and if you want to pay extra for a kettle that’s insulated to lose less energy and have a reduced burn risk from touching the shell.
We put a Quooker in our old house 10 years ago and it was the first thing we put into this house when we moved 4 years ago.
Would not go back to a kettle
geoffreycoan I contacted Octopus today via twitter/X as there was still no sign of any results for the saving session.
Got a reply back within a couple of hours (on a Sunday). They said they'd had a lot of customers taking up the saving session and they were still working through the calculations which is what was happening for me. Could take up to 14 days.
got my octopus saving session results today. I saved 1.52kWh (I think I exported this as additional export rather than saved on import), but anyway, 2736 octopoints - £3.42.
Better than nowt. If I turn the ASHP off whilst exporting in the next saving session I can at least double or triple this
Finally got the result last night. We earned 5p! Slightly more than I expected. Might try exporting next time….
I forgot to say that was a 78% cut back!
100% cutback, 5.5kw exported, £10ish back
I signed up for this and received an alert yesterday. When I pressed the " sign me up " button for the next saving session, the button refreshed but I didn't get an acknowledgment. It took a bit of digging but I eventually discovered that as my smart meter was only fitted last week, they don't have enough history so I am not eligible for today's session.
SteveCook Had to google that one lol
Tenkaykev Bummer
Jellybaby
They keep rubbing it in, I've just hat a reminder about the next session starting imminently. 😁
Is the GE portal slow for anybody else?
Seems responsive to me.
Jellybaby no working like a charm, saving session export started bang on 17:00, watched it start live on the portal, how sad!
Just pennies earned for us. But there is really so little historic consumption from the grid in this window that there is scarcely any opportunity to make further savings. So I treat it like the lottery - I could win in the draw! (I won't because I never do. But someone does so you gotta give it a go!)
Currently sitting in a freezing cold and dark house but I'm exporting a steady 3.3kw from battery that I charged from grid this afternoon. at £4 per kWh for export it makes sense to do it.
Jellybaby
Yes - Tried manual discharge from the app and my batteries started charging.
Lots of inverters off line messages.
Finally managed to get some discharge via the online portal, but only discharging at 2kw instead of 3kw and second inverter isnt doing anything.
My scheduled discharge didn't do anything at all at 1700, waited till 1710 then disabled it. That left my battery in non-eco mode so needed to then reset it.
Manually kicked off the discharge using the "play button" in the app... I don't know why but 3.3kW discharge, only 2.2 kW going to grid, and adding an extra 700W to house load that I wasn't using... is that just... lost during discharge? Seems like a lot of waste.
All in all a disappointing experience.
Exporting, but is the App being honest with me?
I set the timed export to run during the savings session (ongoing) -- but it shows the house consuming the lion's share, with a tiny bit of export, whereas (even with inverter losses) it should be vice versa?
Can anyone here (or GivEnergy) clarify that's it's just another bug, and export is as efficient as it could be?
I have similar figures
Set to 3kw export but only discharging 2.3kW from battery and 1.4kw going to grid.
Normal background is 200w.
Second inverter hasn’t provide any power. No indication of second battery being cross charged.
( 80% + in each battery)
Same set up as last saving session, where we exported 2.4kWh ( in the hour session).
It’s colder this week maybe that is part of the problem.
The octopus mini is showing the same discharge to grid as the GE app.
I also have house background of 200-300W only at this time of day normally.
And the battery is draining fast (by design during this session) -- I just hope it's really exporting the energy to the grid, rather than just "evaporating it" somewhere...
I guess I'll find out in a week when Octopus runs the numbers for this session, but the numbers in the App seem implausible (or at least implausibly bad!).
ARW
Have you tried the octo-aid app (Apple only) it will have the export figures by mid day the following day.
Mike407
Ah, no: I'll look into that, thx!
You don't have any devices configured to consume excess power, or anything? Immersion heater, or EV charger ?
Similar experience to pacemaker. Had to resort to manual discharge. House use showing as 600W and battery discharge 3300W and discharge to grid 2700W.
My guess is that the GE app calculates house use from Battery-Grid and that battery output is actually 3000W not 3300.
After session was finished house use shows 200W as normal.
My timed discharged kicked off fine. I was seeing a similar difference of 600W between battery discharge and grid export - the 'monitor inverter' android app was showing it as 300W house load and 300W inverter, which I could believe - didn't bother turning my desktop off, for example.
DD nope, I do have solar iBoost but its powered off.
Turned most of the house off, sent the wife and boy to football training, I took the dog for a walk. 5 and a bit kWh exported for £20.56, not bad for turning off a few gadgets and lights for 90 minutes.
Extremely happy with the Home Assistant automations, Octopus Energy integration signed me up, Predbat charge up the batteries yesterday and discharged them through the session automatically. I only had to take care turning things off and buying the chippy tea.
You don't have any devices configured to consume excess power, or anything? Immersion heater, or EV charger ?
No, nothing. The house was in reality consuming next to nothing -- basically: fridge, freezer, couple of lightbulbs, a router & wifi extender, etc. That's it. My current usage (19:18, eco-mode re-engaged) shows as 99W house-consumption & 99W grid import right now in the app (i.e. battery is down to reserve, so no contributions from that and obviously no contributions from solar!).
So, numbers are plausible ... except when the battery is set to export.
Good session tonight made about £10, and helped out the grid
Hope everyone did ok also
CFPygall you can’t export to the grid and import from the grid at the same time, you haven’t got a dedicated export cable! Therefore when you schedule a timed export the house base load will still need to be satisfied, it can’t come from the grid because you are exporting down the cable so it comes from the battery. This is normal.
Jase1703 I don’t think that’s the concern
Lots of folks on the Facebook group are saying same as me, discharging at max but house load showing 700w ADDITIONAL to the actual house load. Some saying the inverter power needed to do the discharge… 700w to discharge 3.3kW is… wow.
I had a really good savings session today…. (Don’t laugh, no seriously don’t laugh).
I opted out of Axle energy (as realised that the Octopus Savings sessions were part of the DFS and I’d signed up to both Octopus and Axle Energy in error).
GE engineer came out to replace a faulty battery today (thank you!).
Replacement battery swapped, calibration kick started, discharged all 4x 9.5kW batteries to zero, by about 2:30pm, then started calibration charging all 4 from grid at peak, one pair stopped early at about 3:30pm, so I thought “great” I’ll charge those 2 up and discharge them during the savings session…
At 5pm; One pair in calibration import mode still charging at max 3.3kW, other pair I started to discharge at 3.7kW. House was taking 2.5kW (think the heated floors kicked in). So one pair charged the other pair whilst calibrating and I imported at 2.1kW for most of the savings session, exported zero to the grid. (usually my import is zero!) 😂
Wasn’t really my plan for today but on the plus side, hopefully my system has been fixed and they include today in the averages for next session!
Overall; big £ opportunity lost for the day. 😔
🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
Here’s looking forward to the next session 🥴
Pete UK Wasn’t really my plan for today but on the plus side, hopefully my system has been fixed and they include today in the averages for next session!
Glad you got your system fixed, unfortunately DFS sessions are excluded from the average import/export figures when calculating what savings you made.
I only have a single 5.2 battery so options for export were limited, but I turned the ASHP off, put some logs on the fire, turned the lights off and we sat with the TV on and lit candles!
If nothing else I will have saved from my typical import.
Had to fiddle with turning predbat off and on and off again before and after the saving session which was a bit more work than I would have liked.
And tomorrow from 11-1 we've got a 2 hour Octopus power up event so can do the washing and charge the batteries for free
I wish they had the power up events in more places, don't get them where I am at all 🙁
I used HA to add an automation to discharge at 17:00 for 17:00 - 18:30, and then another automation to go back to Eco mode at 18:30.
All worked good, limited export thanks to G1 but got 2.3 kWh exported in the end.
LordHippos
Must check out HA. I use a MacBook Air M1 which doesn't play well according to " Speak to the Geek " . A Raspberry Pi looks interesting. I also have a 2012 intel Mac Mini at the back of the cupboard, perhaps I could repurpose that 🤔
Tenkaykev It's good, I'm running as a docker on my Synology NAS but you can run it on an RPI as well.
pacemaker Seems odd as that would produce a lot of heat. My Gen3 hybrid seemed to use about 200W when discharging at 2.6kW, which is about 92% efficient, which seems more reasonable and raised its temperature to low 40'sC.
Managed to export about 3 units.
nophead looking back now at the charts, the house load didn't increase, yet watching it live the house load was massive. If I look at a point in time there is a mystery 500w missing from the data, so I guess that is what the inverter is using at the time, and it shows as house load when you're looking at it "live"
If you have "show calculated load" ticked in the app settings then it adds the inverter losses to your house load. 500W of inverter loss does seem quite bad though, only about 85% efficient.
I joined in yesterday:
What I find confusing is the fact that my battery discharges at 4kW?!?!? Pretty consistent as well. It is a 8.2kWh battery through GivE Gen2 Hy5 inverter.
I used the manual discharge battery button from the GivE app.
rio911 it's probably the battery limiting it. The discharge or charge rate is usually 0.5 capacity. So 8.2kWh would discharge at 4.1kW or thereabouts.
Mine wasn't too bad yesterday, not a big gap between grid and discharge like Pace saw
Another one at 4.30pm tomorrow, 1st December.
oh lord another
TX200 You're confusing the meaning of C in this context - 0.5C doesn't mean that when you're talking about batteries 🙂
Gen1 inverters are limited to 2.6kW charge/discharge. Or more accurately 2.4kW charge/2.6kW discharge.
Gen2/3 inverters are limited to 3.6kW charge/discharge. Or more accurately 3.3kW charge/3.6kW discharge.
rio911 Gen 2 has a bug where forced discharge runs above spec to around 4kW. Quite why I never really found out.
Weirdly "normal" discharge doesn't.
It will be hitting the BMS limits at that though which is roughly 80A for the 8.2/9.5s.
hoggy I noticed this yesterday. More than a little concerning. Last thing I want is a burnt out inverter/battery due to buggy software!
Does the recent battery update fix this?
rjp No. My setup is on the latest firmware for inverter/battery. It force discharged at 4kW...
I was concerned about it, but since I don't know how to change it....
Hi all,
I have a query, why such a difference???
In the GE app I was exporting on average 3000w (I am limited to 3600w) this is a screen shot - 3311w to the grid at 17.32 during Wednesdays saving session.
I had a look in the Octopus app and it says I was exporting 1670w x 3 for the three 30min periods
Daveb01 I think it’s just the difference between power rate vs power x time.
So if you’re exporting at a power rating of 3300W, that’s 3300W x 0.5h = 1.65kWh per 30 mins. Three lots of 30mins of 1.65kWh each then gets you to the 5kWh total figure
Vestas the inverters have their discharge limits, but batteries have discharge limits too.
At least that’s what I’ve read in various topics around here over the past couple of years.
If I’m wrong, it means that the various posts I’ve read on here from others are also wrong.
geoffreycoan If I could easily reach the switches I'd turn off the fridge and freezer during the saving session as it wouldn't be a problem for 90 minutes. But my switches are inaccessible.
Niceguy Good idea, our freezer is fully stocked to the brim so it won't go warm anytime soon and ours can draw around 110-150w and daily it uses around 2kwh
Maybe you should pick up a smart plug so you can turn them off, just need to fit them once.
hoggy Interesting that the battery warranty (v3) up to Sept 23 (when it was changed from 10 to 12 years) specifies the following warranty T&Cs for batteries -
Factory settings (including the maximum specified charge/discharge rate of 3kW) are not modified during the warranty period.
Energy Retention 70% within 10 years of the initial installation date - When used with originally installed inverter and charge/discharge rate of 0.5 C (Maximum 2.5kW)
Doesn't seem very consistent...
NB - the warranty referred to does not include the AIO, just the 2.6, 5.2, 8.2 and 9.5kWh standalone batteries
Vestas yeah it's been pointed out before to them that the wording doesn't appear to include provision for Gen2+ . Docs not a strong point - see also e.on debacle.
hoggy was told that was DC to AC conversion losses and influenced also by higher grid voltage when I inquired. I get 3.6kW as an output after conversion losses, this is 4kW on the DC side of the inverter.
I opted into the last saving session and set the Timed Export to 17:00 to 18:30. Everything worked OK until after 18:30 when it did not return to normal operation. It was holding the battery level at 40% while importing from the grid for house usage. I had to do a factory reset and then re-enter the timed charge period and set Eco mode.
Is there some way to get it to revert to the same settings as before the export?
Gen 1
Inverter Firmware Version: D0.449-A0.449
Battery Firmware Version: 3012
garycatt I haven't found one. All I came to say, was that you should have simply enabled ECO mode. It seems that these are exclusive, so enabling ECO should have disabled the EXPORT, and vice versa.
Jellybaby Good idea. Once I get whole-house wifi I'm thinking of getting a few smart plugs. I'd thought about having the backup immersion heater changed over from just a switch to a socket so I could insert a smart plug but I didn't think I'd recover the cost of getting an electrician in. But the next time I need an electrician I'll get it done. I'm on the Octopus Energy Agile tariff so I sometimes get very cheap or negatively priced electricity, and now on Octopoints they're advertising "free electricity" when there's an excess on the grid.
Vestas It might be difficult to claim on the warranty then if your inverter needs replacing after 5 years.
I managed to export just over 3kWh during the first session and about 5kWh during the one 2 days ago. We had 85% in the battery at the start as it had been sunny here, so I let it export for the whole session and were down to 20% or so. That kept us going for the rest of the evening until about midnight when it ran off the grid until Flux cheap rate.
Hopefully do similar today, though I manually triggered the timed charge setting 2 minutes before and then disabled it at the end and re-enabled Eco mode. Easy enough to do though.
I reckon we got about £21 for the last session as we would have also got paid for exporting during peak Flux as well as our 'saving' of 5kWh. That's about 8 days electricity and standing charge for us, since we usually manage with a full charge during cheap rate, ignoring any export we might get on top.
Niceguy switch to a socket so I could insert a smart plug
Careful with this as an immersion is 3kw and is too much for a smart plug, seen plenty of burnt out plugs on HA forum running near max load. You can get replaceable immersion thermostats that are a quick replacement and they can be controlled with app (or HA). Have a search on here (and google) for Tesla T-Smart
Vestas
I've just had an AIO installed a couple of weeks ago. When I checked my registration it swowed a warranty expiry date of 2028. I emailed Givenergy about the information on their website quoteing a 12 year warranty. They came back to me and said they are in the process of updating the owners warranties, but as they all have different install dates they were going to batch process them. They did however update mine which now shows a warrenty until 17/11/2035.
simont Thanks - that's useful advice.
Well, the sun never came like they said down here in SE England, so my battery didn't recharge since 6am. No savings for me 🙁
pacemaker why don’t you charge it from the grid, either peak or off peak and then discharge export to the grid during savings session?
simont you can get a contacter (high power relay) to switch the immersion, and then use a smart plug to power the contacter. That way, the smart plug only has a relatively small load to control.
DD or a Shelly 1PM rated at 16A behind a switched fused spur and controlled in HA or the Shelly app!
Jase1703 I have a Shelley 1pm switching some lights - it may be rated at 16A, but the screw terminals are absolutely tiny ! It would be quite a struggle to get the immersion wires attached.
DD I meant the new plus model, https://shellystore.co.uk/product/shelly-plus-1pm/?gclid=CjwKCAiApaarBhB7EiwAYiMwqmDwffJxh4UN2A_huplTIwddXgToFUVFqyJkhsv8Zgys7eEVigkPBRoCVWsQAvD_BwE
It’s got better connections, needs a deep back box though
Yes, it's definitely possible with all those options, I was just warning about using a smart plug. You can also get a smart FSU compatible with HA now.
Octopus still "calculating" the figures for 29/11... any have had their results yet?
GaryS It took 8 days for the previous one (16/11), so I wouldn't expect to see it before the end of next week. I think I saw somewhere that it might take up to 14 days.
If your desperate to know right now then:
https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/
hoggy looked at that.. currently about £63 in the black (after subtracting charging costs), so happy this far
hoggy Nice, I missed the first one as I didn't get any notification about it anywhere.
I tried pasting my image of results but it says "Uploading files of this type is not allowed" its just an image I got in clipboard, WTH
Edit
Going to try again
Jellybaby you've done pretty well, you'll be able to afford a new battery module in no time! 🤣
I'm hamstrung by twin Gen1 and to be honest I don't change doing anything else in the house - just a bonus towards winter bills.
hoggy Brilliant, thank you!
hoggy Ive lost out on so many cycles having it just idling for a month due to the issues I was having so may as well make up for lost time and some ££ 😃
Hi all,
Did anyone else get this email reply from Octopus?
“I'm afraid we don't know exactly how much power you saved because we couldn't get readings from your electricity meter during the Session – but, we've given you 800 Octopoints – that's £1 – to say thanks for opting in and getting involved.”
I’m hoping they can read them from the 1/12 session. After all I can see them pretty clearly! Do they have to be reading the meter live during the session then?
My meters are all online, healthy and working and “worked” normally during the session. Very odd.
The only thing that didn’t work was managing to save or export anything, as I had a battery calibration running…
🤞🏻
That's cool. Something looks wrong with the maths for the most recent session though? Surely saving should equal (import-export) - baseline?
The previous two sessions look correct.
rjp I've never really looked into how it does it, the code is here though for the maths behind it, I note there's been a change 23mins ago so perhaps they've broken it!
https://github.com/barnybug/savingsessions
hoggy Cheers. the code explains it.: Each half-hour of the session is treated separately. 'Negative' savings in one half-hour don't affect the other half-hours.
I've still got to work out why there's a big discrepancy between Octopus's measured export and my estimate 🙁
Worth noting that it seems baseline can be negative - in other words, if you regularly export during saver sessions, that regular export is deducted from the session export value. So Intelligent Flux tariff is hurting me here!
rjp yep, me too on IOF.
I've sneaked the export rate up a bit, although every so often they reset it back to what they intended it to be.
So I'll make some money, but not as much as I could. But overall the tariff seems to be working quite well for me even in November. Not so sure about December yet!!
rjp
As my smart meter is a recent install they don't have the historic data to calculate my usage so I can't register. Each time I do click the link to participate they do credit me 800 Octopoints.
Hadn't thought about exporting regularly at the times the saver sessions typically run at (despite being on Flux) but glad I haven't now you've made me realise that would count against it.
So far we've exported around 13.5kWh over the first three sessions which will also give us some peak flux export credit as well. I worked out that is about 20 days worth of electricity for us including standing charge at £4 kWh, plus Flux export at 27.5p kWh. Even allowing for the fact that we ended up running from grid after about midnight on the day of each session, we don't use much at that time of night anyway (about 150 wh if that). That's assuming zero generation too, but we've not done too badly in November anyway, just a bit under our actual use and virtually all grid use at cheap rate anyway.
Seems to be another one today for £2.25 between 17:30 and 18:30. My wife found it on the Octopus website and we opted in. It hasn't appeared on the WhatsApp channel or in the app notifications.
nophead Ive been made to check the octopus site as my routine when waking up with a cup of coffee due to the lack of notifications.
Spencers Ive not had my coffee yet after waking up and thought you were paying £4 for standing charge lol.
Happy to report that BottleCapDave’s Octopus integration for Home Assistant automatically signed me up for today’s Saving Session with no action by me. (And, indeed, before I even saw a notification!)
PianSom and me! Still can’t get my wheel of fortune spins to be automated though…
PianSom It works so well! I just dropped him a quick thank you ☕️ here - https://github.com/sponsors/BottlecapDave
PianSom you say that BCD’s integration signed you up! Do you mean an automation using BCD’s sensors or did the integration sign you up? Just curious as I’m using Oliver’s blueprint (using BCD’s sensors) to dump the battery during DFS but felt I needed to opt in manually!,
Jase1703 I am using Oliver's (Speak To The Geek) blueprint, 1.) for auto opt into session and 2.) for auto export during session window. First one has worked and auto opted me in. Fingers crossed for 17:30.
Jase1703
The integration (or, to be clear, an automation using the integration) signed me up. All very clever.
I haven't seen "Oliver's blueprint". The BCD integration docs show an example integration.
I have developed on a bit from that to give myself a dashboard element which is this -
Just need to add in a bit of logic to make the pre-charge length/target charge sufficient to get through the Saving Session now ...
naltsta
And take away all the excitement??!! No way!
I got a notification at 1138 from the Octo-aid app. App was recommended here and is very useful.
Nothing from Octo themselves yet.
Octopus still have not even awarded the octopoints for the session of 29/11. Also not 1/12. they are now really behind.
GaryS But they are upfront about the timescales:
After a Session, we'll look at your smart meter readings to work out how much you saved. Your earnings will be added to your Octoplus account within a few weeks.
I guess it is because last year it was based on how much you saved on import only and only above your average.
This year it is the same plus export amounts so probable takes a bit longer. Especially if you have been exporting normally and export for the event they have to work out if you have exported more etc.
I’ve noticed this a few times - the house load increases by 4-500W when I’m exporting, and then as soon as the export ends, house load drops back to nominal again..
downfield
I installed the Octo-Aid app following a recommendation here. It really is excellent, showing me data that the official Octopus app doesn't. It's reassuring to see that Octopus do have the granular data even if it's not being presented to me in the official app.
GaryS results coming in now from octopus
Just got mine
PianSom i am using BottleCap for agile but i didn't see any Saving Session integration, can u send some screenshots?
deepanshus
I posted one link above. See here and here
I also posted a screen shot of my own implementation above. Feel free to holler if not clear.
PianSom i guess i got too excited and didn't read further :-) very helpful links to the docs...thankfully the weekend is not far :
deepanshus
No worries. Such a great integration. BTW, it's worth keeping an eye on the Discussions tab on Github.
I've been wondering whether my original idea of including some logic to suggest a % of pre-charge is worth pursuing. Someone on here (I forget who, sorry) made the very good point that it is more efficient to pause discharge early in the day than to top up just before a Saving Session. Hmmm.
I just wish that Octopus would include Power-ups in the API. Sadly, no sign of that.
PianSom I think it might have been me!
Was finally happy with this one. Charged up fully on cheap overnight at minimum power to be full at end of cheap period, eco mode until about lunchtime (when it hit the limit of what I could export in an hour), house load provided by grid until session starts, dump battery during session, house load provided by grid after session.
Don’t think I’ve got any other efficiency savings I can make…
Only but I haven’t automated yet is when to pause the battery as thought I had it sorted and then realised I needed different percentages depending on length of session!
Thanks for the suggestion!
naltsta then realised I needed different percentages depending on length of session!
And time of the start?
I had the BottlecapDave Octopus Saving session auto-joiner working for the December 1st session, worked really well.
I've now turned off my automation as predbat now includes the same functionality.
Octo-aid and the Octopus API were first with the notifications of the short-notice session we had yesterday, 5th Dec, and then shortly after I got an alert from the Octopus app, and it was several hours later before I got the whatsapp alert which isn't a great advert.
Got my Octopus payout from the events on 29th Nov and 1st Dec this evening, so a bit quicker than the first session. Earnt £16.92 across the two, which definitely helps offset some of the ouch Agile prices there's been in the cold periods.
The Octo-aid app's calculation of how much I might earn seemed to be way off the mark, but I see there is a new version of the app that promises better estimates. Good thing really as the https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/ seems to have gone offline. I could install it all locally from git but seems a load of work
geoffreycoan
How are you finding Predbat, Geoffrey? I had it installed but (due to stupid user error) it was misconfigured and interfered with beta testing of some BMS so I temporarily canned it. Was planning on having another go some time soon.
Back on topic - 29/11 + 1/12 paid out £56.01 to me, according to an Octopus email this evening. Not too shabby! Helps contribute to some of those AIO capital costs. Like you, I found the last WhatsApp announcement painfully late.
Hi Guys, I have a math puzzle.
I have just got the Octoplus results however I have exported 5kw in each session but got the same amount and points (ish) 16 different. My understanding was 29th was about £2 kWh & 1st was about £4.
Should I not have got more Octopoints for the session on the 1st?
My total points to date is 33,394.
It says there are 8 octopoins to a penny. So looks like I got £20 for each session. Is this correct?
I think both of those sessions were live ones, so £4 per kWh. The one on the 16th was a test, plus the short notice one (5th???) was a test too.
5 * 3200 = 16000. Thats correct as advertised.
PianSom I've been using predbat now for 2 maybe 3 months now.
Part of my reason for Home Assistant was to automate the charge and discharge of my batteries, which was simple enough to do myself in summer on Flux, but as winter came I knew I needed more control.
Things I like:
Things I don't like/to be aware of:
Overall I like it, its very powerful and comprehensive and I couldn't use Octopus agile without it
Current plan:
BTW this plan is a new feature of predbat, came from another user (and my) suggestions
geoffreycoan
Thank you for the extremely useful and balanced summary. If BMS8 works out well then it sounds like I have a Xmas project to keep me quiet!
I am currently on Go (and battling with Octopus to try to move to Intelligent Go), so am a little unsure whether Predbat will be worthwhile for non-Agile users. But when the sun starts shining again my intention is to move to it, so this will be good prep.
Thanks again for taking the time for the review.
PianSom I am currently on Go (and battling with Octopus to try to move to Intelligent Go), so am a little unsure whether Predbat will be worthwhile for non-Agile users.
I have no personal experience of using predbat with an EV as I don't have one, but plenty of other predbat users including those that are involved in enhancement & bug discussions do have EV's and Trefor has an EV, so its a 'supported configuration'. What predbat can do is plan what overnight charging you need to see you through the next day based on house load minus PV generation. No point in doing lots of overnight charge if your batteries will fill on PV anyway. It takes account of Go integration, both planned and Octopus special cheap slot.
Forgot to say that predbat was originally written for GivTCP but has recently been extended to other inverters https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/other-inverters/
There are discussions about moving it from being a Python script under appdaemon to being a proper HA integration; but very early days on that.
Thanks Geoffrey. Looks like there are still a few wrinkles to be ironed out on BMS8, so my Pedbat adoption may be delayed.
geoffreycoan There are discussions about moving it from being a Python script under appdaemon to being a proper HA integration
I am slightly ashamed to admit that I’ve been an appdaemon user since 2017 or 2018. No such thing as an integration back then, so it holds no fears for me.
PianSom oh dear, my calibration just finished for BMS8, thankfully before 4pm peak period. 15.1kwh was put into battery.
Oh dear, I have just been told off by my mum.
I helped her subscribe. She wanted to participate so turned of everything during the sessions and got this result, 55% saving and loads of points (NOT) so not doing it again and I had to buy dinner 😞
Seems it is good if you export but not if you just save.
Daveb01 Hard to save when your usage is close to zero anyway - I think we got 37p over two sessions 😃
Can’t complain here
Looks like Octopus have improved the app and its now showing a lot more information on savings per session and total session savings amounts. The streamlit app still shows more information with breakdown per half hour, baseline figures and exported amounts, but its better than it was.
I'm on agile so am already avoiding peak rate imports, and with currently only a 5.2 battery on a gen 1 inverter my export amount is limited. Still, 21,120 octopoints or £26.40 is worth having.
We've had a few more powerup events as well. The last one I managed to consume 18kW in 2 hours, so that helped my electricity bill!
So far no free grid-wide events in the saving session scheme
Not so much cash but I like the 100%
geoffreycoan still no power up’s round here annoying!
Jellybaby One bit of good news of you having an AIO with decent discharge rate
geoffreycoan and full/near full capacity restored, I did keep finding though the longer it went without a full discharge the less capacity you would get, was just under 10kwh after 3/4 days
£51 in sessions 3 and 4. Plus the £2.30 for normal export. Nice.
First session: no meter data?
Second session: Calibration in progress 🤦🏻♂️
SimonClarke I think they are only in specific postcodes in South East & East England 🙁
neomancer I live about as far east as you can get! Nothing in NR29 though
SimonClarke
If you look at https://octopus.energy/power-ups/ you can find the map below, plus a link to the currently active postcodes for Power-ups.
10 miles away! I just registered my interest again. It’s not like we’re short of windfarms to the east….
I put out 5.5kw to grid, would have been more but had a slight issue with GE times going over what I specify, I need to start ending 1m early because things dont stop the minute you tell them to it always runs over a little longer.
Jellybaby yes, I see the same - seems to discharge for at least a minute beyond configured end time.
DD I keep forgetting and it keeps biting me in the ass lol
Jellybaby I must admit I find it annoying that my GivEnergy inverter seems slow and unresponsive. I think if a command is sent it should act on it straight away, and then send an update of its metrics, so we can immediately see what's happening.
I wonder if the Tesla powerwall, designed for the US market, works in the same way.
Niceguy Oh if a command is sent its near instant, its when you set a timed period, I set a 30m charge for 22:30-23:00 and it finished at 23:01:30. Ill have to set end times to minute before the 30/00
Hi, Is there another session today, as per this taken from Octopus website:
Apparently there is another one tomorrow as well
Jellybaby How do you know when the next service is?
Niceguy I didn't someone else informed me, it is announced somewhere apparently but im not sure where or how.
You can opt in right now though.
Suggest you download the Octo-Aid app: it sends me notifications around lunch time when there is a short notice Saving session. The Octo app never seems to send anything, and I won't use the other social media services.
I get emails, whatsapps and from the app
I don't get emails or notifications on official app, dont have whatsapp or any social media on my phone, not any point with no data plan and if im at home I am on PC.
I just check the site every hour usually and chatting on the overclockers forum they have a saving session thread over there and they are on the ball.
this is my first year with octopus, do we usually have these many sessions every year?
DeepS
deepanshus My first year as well but I did see some info on last year somewhere, ill see if I can find it.
Edit
Found it
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/saving-sessions-demand-reduction-thread.18966807/post-36825086
WTB more £4 sessions 😃
Jellybaby I just check the site every hour
!!
You might want to head over to https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_service_requirements . You can sign up to their subscription service, so you get an email whenever they announce a new one.
Also, if you are a Home Assistant user then there’s an automation which will auto-join you to every Saving Session as it is announced. See the docs for the Octopus integration.
hi, i was able to get most of the items in the dashboard but i still can't access the "Next Session Start" values from the event. Do you have the code for these entities that you can share. i tried creating a template sensor but the value is not correct i think.
deepanshus
What to use slightly depends on what you are trying to do. I create two template sensors for the start and end times. The start time is easy - just look at the start time of the NEXT event. But the problem is that once a Saving Session starts then the next event disappears and you have to look at the CURRENT event.
So I use the following two template sensors in my coding:
- name: "Octopus SavingSession end"
device_class: "timestamp"
unique_id: octopus_savingsession_end
state: "{{ states.binary_sensor.octopus_energy_a_REDACTED_octoplus_saving_sessions.attributes.current_joined_event_end }}"
- name: "Octopus SavingSession start"
device_class: "timestamp"
unique_id: octopus_savingsession_start
state: "{{ states.binary_sensor.octopus_energy_a_REDACTED_octoplus_saving_sessions.attributes.next_joined_event_start }}"But what is actually displayed on my dashboard is this (for Start):
type: attribute
entity: binary_sensor.octopus_energy_a_REDACTED_octoplus_saving_sessions
attribute: next_joined_event_start
name: Next Session StartPianSom awesome, i was not using the binary_sensor , i was doing something totally different ! let me experiment with this value... i am trying to do the same, get all the values and then write an automation that triggers at the specific time to precharge if needed and then discharge at those times.
first step was to get the values :-)
deepanshus
FWIW I have settled on 5 (!) automations for Saving Sessions
1 - autojoin, enable discharge flag, notify me, set up default pre-charge times
2 - participation starts (end any hanging pre-charge, start discharge unless no flag)
3 - participation ends (end discharge, reset everything)
4 - if precharge is enabled then run it and then end it
5 - precharge ends (either because of 4 or user event)
(Obviously, 4 and 5 are run after 1 and before 2, and only if I manually choose to have a pre-charge.)
Yesterday I had a Power-up followed immediately by a Saving Session. All worked just fine, though I think my maximum charge settings may not be working yet.
Be interested to see where you get to.
I got the Pre Charge details right and they worked fine ! I have created the export automation based on the time of the event.
now waiting for 5PM to test if that actually works :-)
A question for you smart guys doing all this scripting 😀
I have noticed in the app (attached to Home) so can see nearly real time, the battery does not start to discharge for about 2 mins after the session has started, then stops 2 mins after it has finished. I have done a time sync but it’s still the same. I have now adjusted the discharge to start today at 16:58 - 18:00. (Don’t mind it going past the hour)
Does your scripting use the internet time and does the inverter and battery start at the exact time?
If it starts 2 min late every session and there are 10 sessions that’s 20 mins I have been missing out on?
Daveb01
I am using Home Assistant with GivTCP to control my automations. Specifically, when I want to start a charge I call the function Force Charge function with a 3 hour time period. The charging starts immediately the function is called (well, within 0.1secs! See log excerpt below from 30 mins ago. It is using HA time, which is internet time.) Equally, for a discharge I call Force Discharge. (I end them both with a call to the same function with a Cancel option.)
This may or may not be the best function to use - GivTCP documentation is right up there with GE docs. But this works.
Daveb01 That's how it works here if you use the charge/discharge timeslots via the portal/app/HA.
Its not how it works if you control the charge/discharge via an automation which just toggles the relevant enable charge/discharge bit on the inverter. Apart from battery charge ramp-up/down its more or less instant.
Edit - pretty much like PianSom is doing. There's similar calls you can make for discharge.
I use the app and it only takes a few seconds for the inverter to start or stop discharging. I don't know how it could take 2 minutes.
deepanshus everything worked fine, well almost everything. the export didnt stop as the automation did not get triggered. I have redone the automation with a different trigger. but importantly, auto enrol, pre charge start, precharge stop and export start worked perfectly !
deepanshus
Excellent! It’s very satisfying, isn’t it? Especially the auto-join. I was pleased to see that it even coped with this week when two sessions were announced.
PianSom problem is that once a Saving Session starts then the next event disappears and you have to look at the CURRENT event
Was this the issue for your failed export stop? Caught me out the first time.
PianSom 😂🤣 yes exactly that was the issue… you did give the right code but I tried to be over smart .. lol I am now using the event binary sensor from on to off as trigger
I'm still waiting for the calculations to complete for all three of this week's savings sessions. One thing that's strange is that if I look at the data in the Octo-Aid app it shows my peak export to be between 02:00 and 05:00 when I am in fact importing 🤔
Not sure how that's possible unless the meter reading is back to front?
It seems to take a week for each calculation to be ready, the last three are less than that.
Tenkaykev I'd be double-checking on the actual Octopus site.
I had subscribed to the twitter/X notifications and on the Thursday event complained to them about the tardiness of their notifications. The first reply was just BS about "we often don't get notice early" - I replied back with how the Octopus app was open to enroll at about 11am, the twitter notice went out at 1pm and at 3pm the whatsapp notice went out.
Then I got a sensible answer explaining that they actually stagger the notifications across social media channels to not overload their websites. The whatsapp is deliberately the last channel they notify as a "catchup" for people not otherwise notified.
Agree, the Octoaid notifications are the quickest. I was using them but predbat now auto joins the sessions for me.
For those looking for automations to discharge in the saving session, I created a very simple one. OIt relies on other scripts that I use for discharge and stop discharge, but the detection of the session is reusable:
alias: Octopus Saving Session Force Discharge
description: Force a battery discharge for the period of the saving session
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id:
- binary_sensor.octopus_energy_a_b09db615_octoplus_saving_sessions
from: "off"
to: "on"
id: saving-session-start
- platform: state
entity_id:
- binary_sensor.octopus_energy_a_b09db615_octoplus_saving_sessions
from: "on"
to: "off"
id: saving-session-end
condition: []
action:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: trigger
id:
- saving-session-start
sequence:
- service: switch.turn_on
data: {}
target:
entity_id: switch.predbat_set_read_only
- service: script.g395_inv2_force_discharge
data: {}
- service: script.notify_all_devices
data:
title: "INFO: Saving session started"
critical: "N"
message: Forcing battery discharge
- conditions:
- condition: trigger
id:
- saving-session-end
sequence:
- service: script.g395_inv2_eco_mode
data: {}
- service: switch.turn_off
data: {}
target:
entity_id: switch.predbat_set_read_only
- service: script.notify_all_devices
data:
title: "INFO: Saving session finished"
critical: "N"
message: Cancelling discharge, returning battery to Eco mode
mode: singleI guess doing WhatsApp last may be sensible.
When they did that first it crashed their website with so many people trying to sign up in one go!
Next session in for today 5-6pm
yaaay !!
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this but my Octopoints for the 11th of December have been calculated at 8 points. I topped up my battery in the off peak flux tarrif and imported about 6.9kWh. During the saving session I exported about 5.6kWh to the grid. I'd sent an Email to support at Octopus and got this response:
When it comes to exported energy during a Saving Session, 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.
Something certainly seems amiss as it seems I'm exporting energy for no reward?
Tenkaykev it gives you credit for anything "extra" that you have exported... do you export daily at peak hours as well?
deepanshus
No, it's been 0.1 kWh daily with a couple of sunny days seeing 7.3 back on November 25th, 6.1kWh on 8th Dec ( sunny ) 4.5kwh on the 12th. I have " Eco " enabled as I thought this was the preferred default, Timed discharge disabled, and Timed Export enabled between 17:00 and 18:00. I set a discharge rate of 5.6kWh for the one hour " Saver "slot when I have signed up to the sessions.
Not sure exactly what is amiss, I've signed up for tonights session and see what the eventual result is.
I'm on the unintelligent Octopus Go tariff so never usually export during peak hours but as today is the third consecutive Tuesday that I have exported during a saving session and at around the same time, I do wonder if this will start to be seen as 'normal' and so won't get credit for my export. Will depend I suppose if the comparison is over the full week and not the same day of the week....early days so will keep monitoring the Octopoints credits but if anyone has already had a statement from Octopus on this I would appreciate your input :-)
Tenkaykev replying to myself to clarify the timed export is only enabled on the days that a saving session is announced, the rest of the time it is set to off.
daveyge I do wonder if this will start to be seen as 'normal' and so won't get credit for my export.
The baseline uses the last 10 non-savings-session days.
DD Thanks for confirming
Just checked mine and it says this at 18:00
Morrisinc was exporting at 2.6Kw - max the 9.5Kwh batteries can do.
Actually it's you gen 1 inverter that is slowing your export and charging down. A gen 3 inverter will allow the battery to charge/discharge a 3.5kW. This is something I have just recently learned myself!
Not bad, this year as getting much more points, I also won 800 on a spin, plus earn extra 400 as a reward. So think it is much better than Axle (if we are having a competition 😀
I wasn't eligible for the first few sessions as I have a new smart meter install, but managed to enrol for the last three. Octopus page kept telling me " Calculating " so I was a bit disappointed. Finally got my results through and I earned about £43. Really encouraging and now I'm aware I will be sure to export at maximum rate when they have the next sessions.
I've earnt about £50 so far. I turn the heat pump off and that massively cuts down what I'm drawing from the battery in the peak period leaving plenty to export.
Happy with that result, and its now all automated with predbat as well
The PW in the US and UK are somewhat different in terms of gateways etc.
Commands are pretty instant, but there can be occasional delays when using the app to manually stop a charge by fiddling the reserve.
It’s automated charging overnight makes sure it’s off by the peak slot.
To be honest if you go 1 minute over at 6kW the it’s 1/10th of a kWh or 100W which at 30p/kWh is 3 pence. I’m sure the charged power you use will save you your 3p back and more.
Some more stuff from Octopus
When we launched Octopus Energy 8 years ago, we never expected the sheer love that our Octopus shaped mascot (named Constantine) would inspire in our customers.
Over the years, Constantine has been adopted by thousands of you, young, old and even of the furry variety. When the energy crisis hit in 2022 we made the call to pause Octopus toys and instead invest our marketing spend in support for our vulnerable customers with schemes such as electric blankets, thermal cameras and our Octoassist fund.
Roll forward to 2023 and we realise we can do both! Bring joy to those of you who love our pink fluffy Octopus and also give even more support to our vitally important schemes.
I would like a thermal camera please 😡
Part 2, just seen this Bonus points. Anyone else got these?
Part 3
So this months savings sessions have paid for my Electric plus standing charge 👍😀
£90.41 so far
Daveb01 You may have had an email 'FYI: Your Saving Sessions results are in' last week that summarised your contribution to saving sessions and the overall results.
In amongst the bullet points I had a promise of bonus points:
• Extra props to you, Super Saver: you were one of the Top 20% of Savers in Session 8. That's earned you an extra 400 Octopoints! These will be added separately to your Octopoints balance in the next week.
Very much this, I was getting a bit twitchy about my charge slot " overshooting " and spending a couple of minutes on the 10p+ rate. Then I thought " hang on, what is the actual cost " and realised I wasn't thinking things through.
Daveb01 My £4 T shirt is in the post!
I received the bonus points as well for being in the top 20% of session 8 savers.
I thought the Octopus socks looked good. My wife liked the cuddly toy but I'd rather have the electricity saving than yet more merch in the house.
+1 for adding a thermal camera to the Octopus range. I'd get one if they were a half reasonable price
Been a while since the last one
I reckon next week. 💷💷💷
Hope so otherwise I might have to pay them something!
SimonClarke I've set my direct debit down to £5 a month and am relying on £50 referrals to last me through to spring when my solar panels should come into their own. But I'm running low on friends not already on Octopus!
looks like a SavingSession will be announced later today for same day
Tim Adams ESO just confirmed - 1730-1830 today for all providers.
Octopus just offered me double savings to switch from Axle...!
Another one tonight 5:30pm - 6:30pm £2.25 per kW 👍🏻
Yay - oh wait still cant get onto outgoing with them due to only battery 🙁
Just opted in as in Octoplus already.
I am glad I stuck with Octopus and did not go to Axle. I get points for export, saving sessions, wheel spin, and bonus points every now and then. E.g December I got nearly £100, I have cashed that in ready for this months bill. Let’s hope Jan24 will be as good.
Good luck everyone and Happy New year 👍🍾😀
Normally Predbat will switch the inverter to Eco around 16:00 or 16:30 to cover as much of the peak rate as possible with my 5.2 battery.
But today Predbat has automatically opted me in to the saving session and adjusted the plan to hold my battery to 17:30 and then start discharging it.
Genuine question! Does anyone know why it takes Octopus so long to calculate the figures from a Savings Session?
GrahamShaul No, no idea, but if you want to find your results sooner you can use this app https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/
What's particularly good (other than the results are available the next day) is that it shows you how it works out the earnings amount
GrahamShaul sheer volume as a guess. The last one had the most participants ever (585k) and they basically have to do the same as the streamlit app does 585k times!
If they used just logic, then it would not take long to calculate. E.g export total + how much import during the session you did not use. (You could switch off everything and use no electric for the hour, I did this and got 8p, as did not save anything extra from the last session)
However they are also doing math from how much you have saved from a calculation at some point in the last 10 days etc, then they need to add it all up, if you are with Octopus they then have to convert that to Octopoints.
Last year in 2022 someone found out when the calculation period was, used a lot of electricity, then turned of there electricity for the savings session, some made over £200. So this time it’s different and may contribute to the extra time taken. Plus export was added this year.
Daveb01 Except it's probably a small minority of users that are exporting during savings session. Most are just reducing their import.
Arguably it's a simpler calculation this time, rather than harder, since they've stopped doing the in-day adjustment which is what people were using to game the system. But anyone on a flat tariff can still game the system: they just need to shift their usage into the peak period on non-savings days, to inflate their typical usage, then there's more to save on a savings day. (But at least actively wasting electricity is no longer rewarded.)
hoggy The last one had the most participants ever (585k) and they basically have to do the same as the streamlit app does 585k times!
Cloud computing, just spin some more servers up....
Yes its a lot of processing to do in a short period of time, but so is bill production that they do every month for all their customers. Yes that can be spread over a month so you do 1/30th of the customer base every night, but its all very do-able when you consider how much Octopus are making from the saving sessions.
geoffreycoan Took them 13 days to produce our last (Agile) bills.....
Vestas I've no idea what cycle my bill is on. Joined Octopus in June, got my first bill in November, got it corrected then re-corrected also in November, but since then, nowt.
Maybe I am on 3 monthly bills but everything I can see on the Octopus website says its monthly bills.
Well I'm not going to be a millionaire off my savings sessions! 🤦
I assume it's because my baseline usage wasn't much different to the session usage. Anyhoo - I'm actually not that bothered about the financial side, I'm glad I am able to be part of the 'bigger picture' of smoothing demand.
But the dosh would be good!
Results in finally.
I managed 2.99 kWh = 5384 Octopoints
I have also managed to export 110 kWh this month so far = £24
If we have a couple more saving sessions it will pay the electric and standing charge for Jan 24.
Daveb01 Nice result
I cut down 3.84kWh earning 6912 octopoints. About half of my earnings was from genuinely cutting consumption (not export) as we are usually importing a kW or two in the peak with cooking and the heat pump.
Earnt £58 worth so far, nowhere near the same league as the AIO owners but quite respectable.
In the top 1% of savers in the last session again but don't think I saw any bonus points this time.
74kWh exported so far this month. The solar generation is definitely picking up, I've been "in credit" until mid afternoon a few days already this month.
geoffreycoan
Thanks to your advice, I have now been using predbat with my AIO for about a month now. It's been a game changer, and my export so far in Jan has been 313 kWh (£49), compared to 125kWh (£17) in the whole of December. Got to be happy with that.
Octopoints-wise, I did 8000 (£10) on the last Saving Session (400 bonus for top 20%), bringing my total this season up about 105k (£131).
From Power-ups, since inception I have income of about £70 so far this season. As with exports, I have got MUCH better at maximising my income as time has gone by. So only about half as much as Saving Sessions, which is interesting.
PianSom Great to hear, glad you are getting good results with Predbat, it is an amazing piece of software, really makes such a difference to using the battery, especially in winter.
The Octopus Power up events are really good I agree, we've got all the washing, battery charging and everything going on at the moment, 12kW being imported and all for free!
Out of interest, how are you calculating your savings/income from the power up events?
I've got a 'free' import tariff setup on my grid import entity in Home Assistant and swap onto that at the start and end of the power up events. I've just looked and its 120kW so far this month, running at about 10% of my monthly consumption through the winter which I'm very happy with.
I feel bad I'm only importing 8kW!
geoffreycoan Out of interest, how are you calculating your savings/income from the power up events?
🙂 When I was writing the above I got curious. I went to the Bill web page on the Octopus site, copied the text back to July, and pasted it into Excel, where I did a quick one-off sum of all Power-up rebate so far. Not very clever, but easy.
I am using predbat to my Power-ups now - I've abandoned the HA automations I wrote.
PianSom Doh, how obvious. Never thought of that! Mine is £103.35 of credit from the power up events, heading on for double the saving session credit (£61). I too am getting much better at maximising income and benefits as the sessions go on. My saving session credit is limited by the size of my battery and inverter, but its all good.
I've also ditched my own automations controlling the inverter in the saving session and power up events in favour of predbat doing the management. I turned on Predbat's auto-update last week and am trying to wean myself off getting the 'state change' notifications on my mobile - not quite there yet!
geoffreycoan In the top 1% of savers in the last session again but don't think I saw any bonus points this time.
Update, just got my Octopus email telling me my Octopoints for the last session on 17th Jan (6920=£8.64), and I am getting 400 bonus octopoints for being in the top 20% of savers in session 8.
Bonus points arrive next week.
Total Octopus customer saving was 214 megawatt hours
geoffreycoan am trying to wean myself off getting the 'state change' notifications on my mobile - not quite there yet!
What I’ve done - to ease myself off - is turned off phone notifications and turned on an alternative notification method. I use Discord (because I’m down with the kids, me) which at least gives me a record of what predbat is up to that I can check occasionally.
9816 points for the last session. Missed the first couple due to not having a Smart Meter export tariff. I'll let the points accumulate until all the ssessions are finished ( not sure how may more are scheduled )
Last month saw a negative electric bill of £6. I've seen my gas usage decrease as we are using a couple of electric heaters for background heat which means the gas fired CH comes on less frequently. A bit of a dilemma as we are paying the equivalent of 7p per kWh for gas, but exported electricity is earning us 15p per kWh.
Are power up events only in certain regions? We are near Manchester and don't see to get any, probably because there aren't any wind turbines nearby.
nophead
https://octopus.energy/power-ups/
A bit like unicorns, I’m afraid
ESO just confirmed - another test event 1700-1800 today for all providers. Only 200MW however.
Just opted in.
Also New Octopoints offers
Greggs - One free hot drink
National Trust - Days out
Odeon - 2 Ticket offer
You also get 2 spins of the wheel for each supply if you have a smart meter.
E.g 1 x Electric, 1 x Gas, 1 x each for Smart meter = 4 spins per month.
Did not expect this one.
Previous sessions you could, kind of, explain as the weather was particularly cold and demand was higher or supply was lower. Agile rates for today suggest there is ample supply, and it's not overly cold. It's 11c here.
Daveb01 Greggs - One free hot drink
Just noticed this is every week - not bad !
Apparently Axle energy rejected as bid too high
Arg0t
Didn't the National Grid commit to 12 sessions over this winter? We had 6? before the New Year so there should be another 6 including this evening.
So glad I stuck with Octopus. Definitely think we are winning this time.
Octopus 😀👍
Axle 🙁🤷🏼♂️. Sorry guys
Tenkaykev This is the tenth session of 23/24.
Vestas But only the eighth Test session.
SJB
Ah, I lost track as I only had my export meter enabled in early December iirc.
"From January 2024 to the end of March 2024 the ESO will look to run a further six tests. If the forecast volume of participation in the service exceeds 1.25GW at this stage, these tests will be competitively tendered, without the use of a GAP. "
This is only the second test in 2024 I think, and no live events. Presumably it was competitively tendered and thats why some bids were rejected
Hi, I’m a new member to this forum & The battery storage system. I’ve just signed up with Octopus Energy can someone tell me what tariff I should sign up to ?
Thanks
Arg0t could be unexpected power station shutdown due to urgent maintenance, given the low price could be just an opportunity to get in another session whilst demand is low ish. home assistant ant opted me in but the notification was a surprise.
It's just a test really, there's plenty of reserve on the grid, we've hardly got any gas on for once. 
Davie welcome to the forum. But please start a new thread for your new topic, rather than adding it in the middle of an unrelated topic. Otherwise replies to you will get mixed up with the ongoing discussion.
Get your batteries charged peeps, looks like another test today...
Vestas Any idea what timeframe?
Hook Looks like 18:00 - 19:00 but not confirmed yet.
ProximusAl Its showing on Hoggy's page (fed from the DFS API) as 18:00-19:00
https://terravolt.co.uk/uk-grid/dfs/
Not as if the grid is particularly under stress, agile prices today are lower than they have been earlier this week
geoffreycoan Its a test.
If its as low as some people are guessing its a hard pass from me for this session
Jellybaby Why? It's not as if you'll lose money is it?
Octopus had their bid accepted at £1500 per MWh. 1800-1900 tonight. (Axle also successful at £1695.)
£1725 appeared to be the boundary of accepted / rejected this time round. Plenty rejected from other providers as only 175MW required.
So expecting a payout c £1/kWh.
Vestas Agreed, its worth joining the session regardless of whether you think its worth discharging your battery or not. Nothing to lose, if you don't reduce normal consumption then it won't cost you, if you do, its a few extra £.
My battery doesn't last through the peak period but the agile rates are very similar so its going to be worth preserving the battery for the saving session and grid importing earlier in the peak. I'll still turn off the heat pump for an hour, and doing a small discharge
Vestas Because given what I can export in that time if the guesses on price were right it would mean 1, maybe 2 days covered of electricity.
Consumption export for every one of these sessions has been 0 +/- .1
Going by amount and bidding price some wouldn't have been surprised if it was closer to £1
EDIT
Yesterday cost me £2.74 for 16kwh
geoffreycoan The potential profit/loss on these test sessions is utterly trivial to Octopus anyway, wouldn't surprise me if their overall intent over the financial year was for saving sessions to be cost-neutral to them.
We get our heat pump installed by Octopus in two weeks and they are also fitting a smart meter at the same time.
Once we have a smart meter, what do I need to do to join in the saving sessions? Is it a matter of setting our AIO to export during the session, plus avoiding using electricity during the time? Anything else?
SunnyWithAChanceOfPV you'll need to have 2 weeks or so of history from the smart meter before you can join the saving sessions as the 'saving' is calculated against average import/export during the saving session period
To get benefit of the export side of saving sessions you will need to have an export meter number allocated by your DNO and be on an export tariff with Octopus. The export MPAN can take 4-8 weeks depending on DNO workload. Sorry
And then, yes, you set your AIO to export and cut down consumption to save during the period.
Jellybaby its £1.75 from Octopus...
Hi
Just see my email for the GivBack - payment will be £1.50/kWh for yesterdays session.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that the Octopus saving sessions are a better bet than Axel. Octopus £1.75 per kwh, Giveback £1.50 per kwh.
The previous saving session, Octopus got a contract, Giveback lost out with too higher bid!
In fact, I don't remember one saving session where Octopus were beaten on price by Giveback. Octopus sometimes also give extra bonus Octopoints just for taking part.
Just an observation!
TimHutchings Axel are just an energy broker so I'd expect a worse deal from them.
TimHutchings The Axel and Octopus rates for the saving sessions have been shared on this other forum post https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/3390-axle-energy-tie-up/337
For the two live savings events, Axel were better than Octopus, since then, Octopus has beaten Axel on price every time.
Where Axel and the Givback scheme win out is ease of use, you don't have to think about it, someone else is managing the battery activity for you. And for many people that'll be a great reason to go with Axel.
For me, I have battery automation already, I'm already an Octopus customer so money off my bill is fine with me, plus the bonus points, etc
DD So I normally export from 4pm to 7pm anyway. I have a 9.5 kWh battery and my inverter exports at up to 2.6kW, and I normally have low house consumption during this period; so my battery lasts for the duration. I took part in a few Octoplus sessions and earned essentially nothing as I was doing no different from normal.
I've now switched to Axle and at least I'm getting paid per kWh that I export (hopefully - not had the first payment in yet).
Some responders seem to say they were getting paid by Octoplus for the energy they exported as well, but perhaps they weren't exporting during this time before they signed up?
Crooks462 I can't see how you will get paid anything different with Axel than Octopus, they both use the same ESO-mandated rules for calculating your saving session contribuition.
If you use the streamlit app you can see the logic for yourself, but in essence
saving kWh = sum of every half hour slot (
average kWh consumption over last 10 days for the slot - consumption this half hour slot
+ average kWh export over last 10 days for the slot - export for this half hour slot )
I may have got my plusses and minuses wrong, but you get the idea
So if you ordinarily export in the saving session period and export the same, you won't get any payment regardless of the provider - its payments for making electricity savings/extra export contributions, and you aren't making any
Only way you can get paid is to shift your export to say earlier in the peak period, 4-5pm, don't think there has been any/many saving sessions then.
And you always get paid what your export payment rate is from your energy provider regardless. The saving session is on top
Crooks462 Some responders seem to say they were getting paid by Octoplus for the energy they exported as well, but perhaps they weren't exporting during this time before they signed up?
I've certainly been paid by Octopus for export during the savings sessions. I don't normally export anything during those hours, so all the export during the savings session is seen as additional export. (I normally have no import either - like you, my battery lasts all day.)
[I do have a vague recollection that in the Axle bumph, they talked as if they were paying for all export, not just the net increase in export. At the time we assumed they were just over-simplifying.]
geoffreycoan I’ve just had the results back from Axel, and I can see you’re right. I misunderstood and thought they were just paying a flat rate for export over the period. As you say, they have only paid for my reduction in consumption- s massive 0.27kW!
Really not worth the effort, unless I know a week in advance of the saving session. Either way it’ll be back to Octoplus for me as they seem to run more sessions.
Thanks for the feedback.
Anyone got their saving session results for 2/2/24 from Octopus yet?
12 days wait (and counting) is taking the proverbial frankly.
Vestas not got my results yet in the Octopus app either
But TBH not bothered. They’ve got lots of customers to process, I won’t be cashing in the points until the end of the winter, and I can check my results in the stream lit app https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/ - £6.30 for the last session.
My Octopus billing is weird anyway. Joined June 2023, first bill November 17th. Am waiting to see if the next one comes on 17th Feb? The account is massively in credit with the DD payments and power up credits.
I just tried the streamlit app but it gave all zeros. We never use any energy at those times normally we just export but it doesn't seem to see our exports.
geoffreycoan My Octopus billing is weird anyway. Joined June 2023, first bill November 17th. Am waiting to see if the next one comes on 17th Feb? The account is massively in credit with the DD payments and power up credits.
Yeah, my billing is a bit sporadic. Any missed meter reading (such as from a power cut) seems to completely throw their automated billing. I assume you know you can reduce DD amount via the web. (Seems slightly harder to actually get a refund.)
geoffreycoan I'd have got in contact with them a LONG time ago about that. Legally they're not permitted to charge you for usage without producing a bill. Longer you leave it, the worse its going to be in terms of sorting it out.
geoffreycoan They’ve got lots of customers to process,
Then they need to put the resources in place to deal with them.
Vestas they're not charging me without billing me, the DD (which I did reduce from their initial estimate) is just accumulating each month. I know what my monthly consumption costs will be from the estimate in the app and home assistant, and once they get around to billing me, I think I'll be close to a zero balance, its just slightly annoying that the bills come sporadically.
geoffreycoan Opt for "variable DD". That way you get charge monthly for exactly what you have used - so no build up of credit. Any PV export payments over the summer can be held your account towards paying bills in the winter. Perhaps not so predictable as a standard direct debit, but I think its better if you have solar
Karen
Thank's for that. I wasn't aware of the variable DD option, I'm off to investigate...
geoffreycoan I didn't realise you weren't actually being charged. Better get that sorted ASAP before the data on your meter is overwritten (July 24 if you joined them in June 23) or they'll be charging you standard variable rates for everything. NB - they won't accept third-party data so your app/home assistant readings won't be of any use.
Edit - also the back-billing rules won't apply as you haven't told them of the problem.
Vestas or they'll be charging you standard variable rates for everything
I think I read somewhere that energy companies aren't allowed to bill you for energy used more than 12 months ago.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/you-havent-received-a-gas-or-electricity-bill-in-a-while/
Edit: (I did wonder if there was some onus on customer to alert them about missing bills.)
DD You have to tell them otherwise they can back-bill you as much as they like. Edit - there's a fairly recent (last couple of years) ombudsman decision which backs that up but I no longer have the link.
Vestas I see that obstructive behaviour such as not allowing them to read meters can invalidate the rule. But perhaps you could argue that you have a smartmeter, you can see all the usage data on the web site, so it's entirely their problem that they failed to bill you ..?
Vestas it’s not a priority, plus it’s not going anywhere and the amount is not that huge that it will break bank .. so I guess a small wait is fine, we will get it when we get it
DD I'm afraid not. The decision basically said that if your bill is incorrect/missing and you don't tell the energy company then you have no protection from back-billing.
Vestas I didn't realise you weren't actually being charged. Better get that sorted ASAP before the data on your meter is overwritten (July 24 if you joined them in June 23) or they'll be charging you standard variable rates for everything
Thanks for the advice. I don't think its that bad, I joined in June 2023 (actually I first joined Octopus in 2018, transferred in as a provider of last resort from someone else, and then transferred out soon after. I did find a couple of pounds credit still on my account from then!). I digress. Joined June 2023 and was billed for import and export in November 2023. They mucked up some of the billing, charged me wrongly for SVT not Flux but sorted that out within days when I raised it, just haven't billed me since mid November 2023.
I'm guessing that I am on 3 month billing so will wait and see what happens later this month. They have correctly received all the meter readings on my account, just haven't billed me. If it gets too extreme I will tell them about the issue.
geoffreycoan They don't do 3 month billing on Agile.
Vestas They do if they don't bother billing me for every 3 months!
I've no idea, just been looking at my account again and the last bill is definitely 11th June 2023 - 17th November 2023. Looking at the account balance I can see I am getting the account credits every month for the export generation, just not the debits for the import nor producing a bill every month.
As I said, we'll see what happens later this month as to whether a bill magically appears or not. If it gets too extreme I will get Octopus to sort it out. Good to know that this isn't how its supposed to be working, I was wondering
geoffreycoan
https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/when-does-octopus-send-my-statements/
"If you have a smart meter, you’ll receive a statement every month."
https://octopus.energy/blog/why-we-dont-send-monthly-statements/
"It's why Octopus Energy has never offered quarterly billing as a payment option"
(is there some specific legal difference between "bill" and "statement" ? They seem to mix the terms freely on
https://octopus.energy/blog/statement-questions/
for example.)
geoffreycoan Last time we had a billing issue they had all the 30 minute data (I checked) so when they said they were missing data from DCC I was able to call bullshit on them.
They (eventually) admitted that the loss of data was on their systems and is a known and ongoing issue which requires manual intervention to produce a bill/correct charges already made.
Frankly Octopus aren't any better than other suppliers when things go wrong - as their complaint figures show (more than doubled between 2022-23, gods only know how bad they are now!). We had to escalate it to a complaint to get anything other than nonsense back from them. Hopefully somone else starts offering similar to Agile because if Octopus continues its customer service decline we'll be needing options.
Oh and Octopus have already submitted their DFS volumes to ESO for both 2/2 and 8/2 so there's really no reason for the delay passing that money onto their customers.....not that its actually money they pass on, so even less excuse.
Vestas I had similar 'loss of data' when they replaced my working Smart Meter. 3 weeks later and I'm still waiting for export data to be read from the new meter (that's 2 savings sessions lost) even though they've been reading import data since the 2nd day.
There's ways of determining whether its Octopus or DCC.
If they don't show the data then DCC doesn't have it, so problem between meter and DCC. If they do its an Octopus issue.
geoffreycoan (increasingly off topic from saving sessions), but Octopus have just billed me up to yesterday.
They’d emailed me this morning to say they’d spotted that I was on Flux Export but Agile Import and that they were going to move me to the 15p export rate and re-bill me for the export back to when I moved off Flux. I knew that what I had shouldn’t have happened but wasn’t drawing attention to their error.
Anyway, since they were correcting it I replied to their email to say that I wasn’t receiving the monthly bills, and they must have pushed some button and now there’s a load more transactions on my account and the balance is £90 in credit rather than £800+. The viewable bills haven’t appeared yet but this happened last time, the transactions appeared and then the bill slightly afterwards. Probably a batch process.
I have asked them to sort out me getting the monthly bills now. I guess I will have to now look properly at Agile vs Flux for the summer, I was quite enjoying the benefits of my “hybrid” tariff 😉
geoffreycoan
Bit harsh of them! Their mistake.
My 2 Feb has just arrived - 6920 points (=£8.65)
There mistake and what you had would I think be the best tariff for most without an EV.
The Octoprice app says that Flux is best for export and Agile is best for import. Why can we not have this combination?
I understand Octo have stated you have to have both Import and export for Flux, but they have not really explained why. If there is no good reason then why not. 👍🍾😀
Come on Octopus release/list the different import and export tariffs your prepared to support and let us choose which ones we would like.
Daveb01 Come on Octopus release/list the different import and export tariffs your prepared to support and let us choose which ones we would like.
Here it is: https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/which-export-tariff-can-i-combine-with-my-import-tariff/
Daveb01 Come on Octopus release/list the different import and export tariffs your prepared to support and let us choose which ones we would like.
8 Feb now in for me.
geoffreycoan Looking at your export rates on your Predbat Plan, I was puzzled at how you had got an 'enhanced' tariff compared with my 15p.
I would have also kept quiet. 🤫
Rob
I have looked at this so shy not Agile and Flux? To me it’s just a tariff, is it to difficult (not good enough) or impossible?
Daveb01 Flux is a specialised tariff that comes as an import/export pair. They don't exist as separate tariffs. Similarly Intelligent Flux. (They are unusual in having 3 rates, rather than 2, during the day, and the export price tracks the import price.)
The one I find a bit odd is why Outgoing is allowed with IOG, but not standard Go. At one time, Greg wossname said that he didn't want people charging battery overnight then exporting the same energy back at a profit. But then suddenly they had a change of heart, but whereas IOG does not get to re-export at a profit, Go doesn't. It's not as if they are taking control of when the battery charges, as they do with the car charging.
geoffreycoan same thing happens with me , I had to call them to get the bill generated. They seemed to have stopped my automatic billing when I switched tariff. Call them up to get it fixed
geoffreycoan
When I moved to Agile I was also on Flux export. Following advice on this forum I emailed them for clarification and they moved me onto the fixed 15p export and sent a link to the tariff combination pages which explained which and which not could be combined.
Tenkaykev I know.
I was waiting to see what happened and wasn't particularly drawing Octopus's attention to the Agile+Flux export combo. But they worked it out (after 4 months).
Hey ho
Try using the free Octo-aid app. It will give the kW saved and estimated OctoPoints awarded from the savings sessions as soon as that days data (import/export) becomes available in your octopus app. So, a day or two after the savings session. It also estimates your base load for the calculation and a whole lot of other useful data.
It’s been really accurate for us.
Alternatively, I just look at what I exported that day after the session and multiply it by the saving sessions price plus 15p 👍🏻
Pete UK
Yes, I tried Octo Aid and thought it very good. I keep discovering features that I didn't realise were there, it's proving really useful so I've subscribed to the app. ( I could have stayed on the free version but I thought at less than the cost of half a pint of beer a month I'd show my appreciation )
geoffreycoan FYI there is a thread on Facebook GivTCP User group re. the backdating of the Flux export tariff cessation. It appears Octopus will waive the backdated charge for accounts which "complain." This is one of the comments -
"I got this letter and successfully complained that it was their mistake made during the switch and they should be the ones to absorb the retrospective cost involved. For me it was about £50. I said I was happy to switch moving forwards but that I had managed my energy usage according to the tariff I was on which I would not had done had I have been correctly switched.
Took them a week or 2 but they gave a refund and admitted it was their fault made during the switch."
I suggest it is worth creating a 'dummy account' on Facebook just to join some groups of interest - two for GivEnergy owners and also the GivTCP user group.,
Ivan thanks Ivan. It's worth a go, I'll raise a complaint about the retrospective export billing.
I'm not massively keen on getting Facebook, feel I have enough to do in my life reading emails, this forum and twitter as well as stuff I want to do!
But do agree, there's a lot of stuff on Facebook now and I do feel I'm slightly missing out
geoffreycoan
I'm not on social media but I can see that access to the Givenergy Facebook user group could be useful. I've found a couple of articles about setting up a " ghost " account with ficticious information so I may well go down that route.
Crooks462 This was my concern with the way the Octopus Energy incentive works. I carefully avoided exporting anything during peak hours so that when I took part in saving sessions I could export as much as I could, and get well paid for it.
So in practice the system encourages us not to export during peak hours, instead concentrating on the more lucrative saving sessions. This is a bit counter-productive, I would have thought, in terms of balancing out the daily peak / off-peak imbalances.
I don't think that Octopus should count any peak exports as "normal usage". But perhaps they think that battery owners are too small a segment of their customer base to worry about.
1st come 1st served
This is on me as won’t be using it this time 👍
Daveb01 what is it though? Hot drink or sausage roll? 🤣
Have you tried the Axle option linked to GivEnergy. They tweak your charging and discharge to enhance the output, typically £8 / event. They provide feedback the following day.
Hot Drink sorry
Has anybody received the streak bonus points for the last two sessions? We should get them as we have we have taken part in all the sessions but three weeks on from the first one we still haven't got the bonus points.
nophead No, no streak bonus and no ‘top 10%’ saver bonus. Last bonus points I received were on 1/2 and 28/12 before that
nophead
Not yet. Though the last email on 14 Feb said the bonuses would be with us in a week.
Free sausage roll as well but expires today 😀👍
Looks like a test session today....
Vestas
And some of us have a Power-up today 12-3.30. Nice.
Looks like a bit of a box-ticking exercise rather than anything else tonight. 30 minute session from 1800-1830, 125MW required.
Vestas wow, not going to set the world alight.
It’s a grey day, not much wind, agile rates 14p this afternoon, 30p in the peak, and yet we’ve got a power-up event of free electricity and now the saving session.
Weird stuff.
This’ll be my first saving session with both inverters able to discharge the batteries so I should get double the low amount!
geoffreycoan I think ESO has run out of cash for the sessions, hence the long delays on "payment" last couple of times.
Looks like we won again over Axle Energy as they did not take part, plus we can now get free coffee and sausage rolls, days out etc. oh and even £ if you took part and exported.
So glad I stuck with Octopus Energy savings sessions.
Ivan geoffreycoan FYI there is a thread on Facebook GivTCP User group re. the backdating of the Flux export tariff cessation. It appears Octopus will waive the backdated charge for accounts which "complain." This is one of the comments -
"I got this letter and successfully complained that it was their mistake made during the switch and they should be the ones to absorb the retrospective cost involved. For me it was about £50. I said I was happy to switch moving forwards but that I had managed my energy usage according to the tariff I was on which I would not had done had I have been correctly switched.
Took them a week or 2 but they gave a refund and admitted it was their fault made during the switch."
Thanks Ivan for the suggestion (off FB) about raising a complaint with Octopus about their error when I moved from Flux import to Agile, but got left on Flux export and have been back-billed to the Outgoing Fixed (15p) tariff.
Got a reply tonight:
“ Hi Geoffrey,
I'm sorry for the delay in recognising the issue but as the Flux tariff is a combined import and export tariff it isn't compatible with the Agile tariff and whilst I can recognise the inconvenience of being credited on Flux and it being reversed we aren't able to place you back on Flux for that period. Whilst we might not have explicitly stated when you switched your import to Agile, it is stated on our website when you signed up to Flux that it is a combined tariff. It is also stated in our terms and conditions which you have to accept in order to move onto the Flux tariff, "2.8.1 The Octopus Flux tariff is a combined import and export tariff, and you therefore cannot be on any other tariffs whilst on the Octopus Flux tariff, with the exception of Octopus Power Pack export". I have added a link below to our smart tariff terms and conditions:
https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/#octopusflux
I have registered your complaint but we will be marking it as closed as we have acted in line with our terms and conditions which you accepted when you moved to Flux.
Kind Regards,
XXXX
Octopus Energy
Team Manager”
Oh well. Looking at my bill the reversed account charge was -£57 and then they credited me £32 for export, so it’s about £15 difference being on Fixed Export vs Flux Export. Can’t get too excited about that
If that went to the ombudsman, I’m not sure they would win that. They changed your tariff and they failed to change you export. It’s still their error that put you in that position.
Another box-ticking exercise coming tonight by the looks of things.....
Vestas Better than nothing and at least Octopus seem to be reading my exports in a more timely fashion so I might get the reward for extra exports this time.
Its definitely a box ticking exercise tonight. 1800-1830, 50MW.
Clearly ESO have no cash left to run saving sessions this winter....
And don't forget, all this stuff from Octopus only works if your smart meter reports. If like mine, it is hit and miss, they bill you as normal, you just get regular export money and any "free" sessions are charged at flexible octopus rates. very, very annoying. I'm meant to be on Intelligent Go, but only if my smart meter reports correctly
No saving session today on Octopus, they got rejected.
Edit - not really worth the hassle given the highest bid accepted was £500/MW, which is 50p a unit, more likely 40p by the time it gets to the end-user. Oh wait, EDF bid £750/MW so I guess their users will get 50p a unit or so.
Vestas No saving session today on Octopus, they got rejected.
Just got a notification of one tonight 18:00 to 18:30 1400 points/unit
Bit weird - but octopus just announced a saving session for tonight even though their bid was not accepted!
simont https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_utilisation_report
Rejected for 30MWh at £900/MWh so I dunno what's going on 🙂
ajcrewe In the past on the DFS site I’ve seen multiple Octopus submissions - I’m guessing a regional customer split? Maybe some got accepted but not others?
I’ve got an Octopus saving session today that Predbat has opted me into
geoffreycoan Yeah but there's only one bid today. Maybe 30MW out of 50MW total was too large a slice of the pie?
Anyway, opted in although it'll do bugger all good for me as Octopus have broken the smart meter by buggering up the security cert update.....
Looks like they are just putting these little sessions out to finish the 12 sessions that they promised.
Vestas I was just looking at the DFS site, Octopus bid 900p/MWh, Axle 895p, one EDF customer set at 900, all rejected, but another EDF customer set at 750 accepted.
Looks like it’s just small providers in this event.
I’m wondering if Octopus are funding this themselves out of the profit they made off the other events?
Anyway, a few £. According to the streamlit app I earnt £3.41 from yesterday’s session which all helps. I had seen a gap of several days in my export readings not reaching my Octopus account, but seems to be fixed now which is good
geoffreycoan Looks like it’s just small providers in this event.
It's a very very small pie - 50MW is barely worth consideration in terms of the grid, hell the local incinerator plant produces 42MW on its own!
Box ticking from ESO and in the case of Octopus maybe its cheaper to pay out a little profit rather than take the publicity hit of "not being green enough to run a savings session" 😉
Double check there is still a saving session tonight please.
I have just been into the Octopus app and Octopoints tab has disappeared and you can not opt in.
is there - but site and app slow
Daveb01 just had a whatsapp notification of the event and still seem to be opted-in on the web account page and on the app. Can't tell if the opt in button is still working though as I'm in already.
That’s very funny, just checked the app again and it’s back, so have opted in.
Daveb01 The Kraken creaks a lot around 1600 when next-day pricing is published - well the website does anyway.
Octopus tweet about the saving session confirms that they’re paying for it
Looks like the last of the box-ticking exercises will be today. Figures as ESO (like everyone else) will have bugger all funding after the budget on Wednesday.
1800-1830, 100MW.
I was looking at the amount awarded for Octopus in the previous saving sessions where the payout has been £1.75 a kWh, and for the last few the DFS award amount has been lower so Octopus must have been making up the difference from the profit they made on the first few
Vestas maybe not. Apparently the contract was for 12 x 1 hour test sessions.
We are on 14 sessions as of today, minus 2 live.
But the last two and today's are half hour sessions, so think we are 90 minutes short of what was contracted?
TX200 They said they'd run 6 sessions between Jan and March. This is the sixth.
Vestas Says they'd look to run a further 6 ...
Signed up. Happy to be part of it. 😀
Both Octopus and Axel weren’t successful with their bids, but again Octopus self-funded the session today.
Guess that might be it for the winter now
geoffreycoan octopus was successful today, they put two bids in, only one of which was rejected.
Where is the 'go to' location to sign up for the earliest possible notification of DFS Demand Flexibility Service sessions? I'm with Octopus for Saving sessions and the WhatsApp notifications for the last two were only a few hours before it started and I nearly missed them.
I joined the saving sessions on the 1st and 2nd of March and am still waiting on the Octopoints dashboard to change from a 'Calculating...' status.
They aren’t quick! Think you have probably missed most of this winter’s but maybe there will be some more.
SunnyWithAChanceOfPV If you are a Home Assistant user then you can auto enroll with the Octopus Energy integration.
SJB Ooh, that sounds good. This one I'm assuming?
https://github.com/BottlecapDave/HomeAssistant-OctopusEnergy
I like the sound of auto-enroll, so I'll check it out.
I subscribe to the ESO Dataset notification email, but I don't know what I'm looking for to indicate that it's an early sign of an impending DFS event. There was a notification today of a ESO update for example, but don't know how to quickly spot if it's likely to occur or not.
This one will change first if there's potentially going to be a saving session.
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_industry_notification
This one will change second - usually 1-6 hours later - when the saving session is definite.
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_service_requirements
What changed today was the utilisation summary - basically how much power was obtained on the last three saving sessions and how much was paid out.
It also means Octopus have been "paid" so we should see our results in the next couple of days.
SunnyWithAChanceOfPV Yes that's the one. Speak to the Geek has some automations to handle enrolling up and exporting. https://www.speaktothegeek.co.uk/2023/12/demand-flexibility-service-automation-for-givenergy-winter-2023-2024/
If you are a Predbat user then you can configure that to do the same thing. I've used both without any problems.
Although as Simon said above there probably won't be anymore sessions until the Autumn.
Vestas It also means Octopus have been "paid" so we should see our results in the next couple of days.
Got my results today
Just now
SJB Oliver’s blueprint automations in HA work flawlessly, very early detection a full discharge rates regardless of what is set in the GE app, recommend.
Hi all, I got a rubbish result for the last session. The math did not add up, so have contacted Octopus. This is what I got, then decided to spreadsheet all the results and got more discrepancies that do not add up. All the info was from the Octopus app not GE.
Any ideas?
Daveb01
Use this: https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/
Remember it's not about how much you export. It's about how much MORE you export compared to that time over the previous ten days.
I thought it was about how much I save, not my export, my saving is always zero.
How come the math for the 29th and 1st March are accurate? And not the 2nd?
Post the results from the savingsessions website above. That's getting the same data that octopus use.
Daveb01 How come the math for the 29th and 1st March are accurate? And not the 2nd?
The 2nd was a Saturday, so the calculation would have been against the last 4 weekend days:-
I understand what you have said, however, it says I have saved 0% on all my savings sessions because I am not drawing from the grid, I am only exporting. So if I export 1.65 kWh as per above 2 and got paid why is the 2nd different?
If this is the case then I import zero and export roughly the same every day (except when excess solar) so any export will soon be zero so not worth doing it 😡
Octopus need to look at this and possibly split it into 2, people saving and people exporting, as if I don’t get much for exporting during a saving session then I will stop. It has been working ok until the sun came out in March and I was exporting more.
Sorry for the rant 🍺
Daveb01 I too get the "well done, you saved 0kWh", but then get paid for export.
I find it simplest to think in terms of "net import", where export counts as -ve import. So importing 2kW is +2, exporting 3kW is -3. Then the reward is based on the difference beween the typical and savngs-session periods. So exporting 3kW instead of usual import of 2kW is a saving of 5kW, for example. If you typically export 1kW, and instead export 2kW, you only get paid for 1kW.
No need to separate into two groups (since how would you cater for those who usually import, but export instead ?)
It does mean that savings sessions incentivise against exporting between 4pm and 7pm, when the grid benefits most from it (even if there's no financial benefit except on agile or flux). I have been exporting most of my surplus after 8pm, though with some between 4pm and 5pm (when there hasn't yet been a savings session).
Daveb01 Again, rather than rant, please post the output from the savingsessions page. https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/
Another one coming up tonight probably.
1800-1830, 50MW test session announced, presumably Octopus will be running a session.
Edit - both Octopus bids rejected, we'll see what happens.
Looks like the cut-off was about 75p. Axle were successful at 49.5p but Eon, SSE, Octopus and one of the EDF were rejected
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_utilisation_report
I was able to manually opt in via the Octopus app so assume they are self funding again
Octopus twitter: "Customers in Saving Sessions are powering the energy transition. They deserve fair payment.
National Grid ESO has set the price for the last few Sessions too low. This time, once again, we're choosing to paying for our customers so you can still take part for a fair reward."
I got no notification from the Octopus app (it has full permissions) and the WhatsApp notification just landed.....90 mins after the session ended. 😡
I have all permissions set correctly according to Octopus.
What do I need to to actually be notified? 😕
SunnyWithAChanceOfPV I’m using Oliver’s excellent blueprint automation in Home Assistant, signs me up well before any WhatsApp or apps notifications and automatically starts and stops my export. Probably not what you want to hear, another HA solution.
SunnyWithAChanceOfPV use the Octo Aid app. That seems to get the notifications quicker than anywhere else.
Octopus have confirmed that they stagger sending the notifications out on different channels to avoid overloading their servers. The whatsapp notification went out at 16:54 for example and I never saw it
DD It concerns me that those of us exporting between 4pm and 7pm are disadvantaged. I understand it is complicated for Octopus Energy to cater for all customers, but a system is required that encourages exporting during peak periods. I'm on flux, but chose not to export during peak times initially and initially earned more from exporting during saving sessions that I would have earned exporting every day. So the system needs tweaking to encourage the most helpful behaviour.
Niceguy Yeah, I was just pondering that myself earlier. Perhaps they should disregard exports when calculating typical usage during that hour. So even if I typically export 1kWh, they should still reward me if I export 1kWh, rather than requiring an increase.
DD The rules for how the payback is given are set by the ESO/Ofgem, not Octopus
If you are on a rate such as Flux that gives a better export rate during the peak period then I’d suggest its best to focus your export between 4-5pm and 6:30-7:00pm.
Only 1 session has been 4:30-5pm (live session on 1st Dec) and most of the sessions have been 5-6pm or 5:30-6:30pm which are probably the peak peak times
Seems like they are testing how low they can go before people stop bothering. What else can be the point of these last four?
nophead I thought the last few were basically ESO box ticking to say that they’d done the 12 test events they originally promised (plus the 2 live events). They were only 30 minutes long and at least one of the sessions was even on a windy day so there’d be plenty of wind energy,
But then a 15th session today. Makes no sense to me. Maybe they still have money in the budget, maybe its still trying to see how people behave with less giveback, who knows. Certainly if it was 50p as Axle were paying rather than the £1.75 Octopus paid, well I wouldn’t bother. I’d do a force export but not much point in particularly restricting house load etc
geoffreycoan We don't have any house load we can reduce in the winter, so we can only dump our battery. So far it has made more money than our normal exports when the sun is shining but that should increase after the equinox.
I think that's exactly it - they're trying to work out the participation Vs reward for when it's needed for real.
Also, should we be cheaper than coal? Or could they pay us more as it's less dirty? Who would subsidise the decision to pay us more when coal is cheaper?
Guess it all comes from us anyway, are we just getting some of our standing charge back in effect? Or is it from the government, so money we've paid in via income tax etc? 😁
geoffreycoan The rules for how the payback is given are set by the ESO/Ofgem, not Octopus
most of the sessions have been 5-6pm or 5:30-6:30pm which are probably the peak peak times
Yes, of course. But that was rather my point: the power is most usefu to the grid between 5 and 7, which is why most savings sessions are at that time. But means we are disincentivised from exporting at those times on non-session days. That's surely a bad thing.
It's like last year when the scheme took into account power use in the hours before the session. That had the perverse effect of incentivising people to literally waste energy beforehand. Or at best, timeshift usage from overnight into the afternoon. (So they didn't do that this year.)
(I have exported 4-5pm a few times when battery was fuller than usual, reasoning as you say that it's less likely to affect any forthcoming sessions.)
Worse than that. Those on a flat rate are incientivised to use a lot - e.g. load shift - during peak.
So over the course of a winter if everyone catches on, the peak gets worse.
Not really financially viable to do that though is it?
If you imported/ load shifted/ used 6kW a day extra (for example) for a guessed future SS slot at peak for 2 weeks. That costs you £26 (at 31p). then if you “saved” that during the same time as a savings session occurred you’d only get £13.50 at £2.25. Even if it was at £4 you’d still only get £24.
Thats excluding losses and assuming you’d guessed the potential time of the upcoming savings session.
I can’t see how it would make sense to do that. Or am I missing something?
Oh - missed that you said fixed (presumably import) rate.
Do you still qualify for the savings sessions on those tariffs?
Pete UK yeah flat rate!
No it wouldn't make sense for those on multi rate e.g. go, IOG, flux etc.
Yes, the general public who have no batteries and/or solar can take part in saving sessions too. By shifting their normal usage out of the way on DFS days.
It's those people that could always put their washing machine and dishwasher on at say 5.30pm. bumps up their baseline. Not good for the environment, but feasible.
Another one coming up tonight...
Vestas
Where are we up to now on the number promised vs number delivered?
PianSom ESO promised that there would be 12 test DFS events. There have been 13 test events and 2 live events so far if I’ve counted right.
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_industry_notification
And its a power-up day today so charging the battery for free from 11am to 2pm.
Would have thought yesterday was a better day for the event, the Agile rates were comparatively high
They promised 12 one hour sessions, 6 end of last year, 6 this year.
Some of the sessions this year have been 30 mins, so we are owed this test (guessing it'll be a 30 Min one) and I think one more test (if this one is 30 mins).
Thanks for the responses. Either way we are at or near the end for this Winter it seems.
geoffreycoan And its a power-up day today so charging the battery for free from 11am to 2pm.
The irony of being given electricity for free in the morning then being paid to give it back in the evening had not escaped me. Funny old world.
PianSom I wish. Nothing available here
Odd one tonight....
1730-1800 75MW
1830-1900 75MW
Note the gap between 1800-1830...
Octopus rejected as has become the norm. They bid 1750 so its deliberate on their part as they know that'll be a reject.
We'll see if they do what they normally do - pay something and whinge about how little the DFS pays out 🙂
SimonClarke
With a 2,483% increased personal usage, I'm doing my best to ensure that opportunities aren't wasted on the undeserving! 🙂
(Power-ups usually come at times when I am running off my overnight battery charge, hence the bizarre statistic.)
PianSom £7.13 ???
You haven't been trying 😉
Vestas
Don't forget the income from Predbat dumping the battery just before the Power-up slots (which were largely used to top up again).
There are only so many times I can run the catalytic cleaner on the oven, get the laundry and dishwasher timed right, and turn on electric heating in the middle of the day.
So yes - the struggle is real. 🙂
Nothing from Octopus yet today!☹
If its happening it's later than normal
PianSom I’ve been beginning to suspect the percentage figure in my Power-up emails, 282% from the last 4 sessions, seems very low. Home Assistant says I imported 17, 8, 24 and 20kWh on the 4 events.
First world problems.
geoffreycoan
Oh, that's interesting - I didn't get Power-ups for either 8th or 12th.
I know we live reasonably close to one another, and had assumed everyone around here had the same sessions. Apparently not.
Looks like I grabbed 13 and 11kWh on my two, so you are doing better than me. Vestas will be proud of you.
Vestas We'll see if they do what they normally do - pay something and whinge about how little the DFS pays out 🙂
Still nothing from Octopus.
I wonder if they have been given a hard stare by NatGrid for stuffing up their modelling of the effectiveness of the test DFS sessions?
PianSom Won't happen now, less than 60 minutes until the first session.
PianSom or they're the ones giving the hard stare to ESO. 🤣
You need us. You pay us well. 😁
No Greggs free Sausage rolles, just free Coffee 😀
It is coming to the end of the savings sessions as March on way out.
Daveb01 I collected my free coffee today, but no sausage rolls as you say. Maybe Octopus know I shouldn’t be eating them, delicious though they may be ?
Daveb01 Do you think they’ve finished the test series now?
I count 8 separate dates of tests this calendar year, plus 6 tests and 2 live before Xmas, versus the expected 6 before Xmas and 6 before the end of March.
Wondering whether it’s time to collect my cash off Axle or hold out for any more trail payouts…
6 days left so I think it’s 50/50 if there’s going to be any more.
I don’t think Octopus what any more as they bid way over last time and did not get accepted. So if there is one more then I don’t think Octo will participate. I will cash in my points before Good Friday.
I have had 8 free coffees, 8 free sausage rolls and one free months of electricity, so think sticking with Octopus was good for me.
Daveb01 I felt guilty and a little sick after 4 sausage rolls, glad they stopped that mini health crisis, I’m ratcheting up a few flat whites though.
That's the 2023/24 DFS done. Dataset has been deleted by ESO.
Agreed. I got that email notification too so looks like the end.
But the links are still good if you want to grab the data
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_industry_notification
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_service_requirements
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_utilisation_report
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/demand-flexibility-service/dfs_utilisation_report_summary
The report summary is yet to be completed for 14th and 21st of this month with regards to settled volume and cost
I has just poking around the ESO site looking to see if I could find formal closure or anything more on DFS and I found https://www.nationalgrideso.com/industry-information/balancing-services/demand-flexibility-service-dfs - a webinar summarising what happened in DFS winter 23/24 and ‘what’s next’
There’s a copy of the slides, a recording of the webinar and 11 pages of Q&A.
Had a quick skim though, generally was seen to be a success with different types of test and procurements being run. Question about whether there should be DFS for excess capacity type events similar to Octopus Power up in the East of England. Felt that the changes made this year have reduced gaming of the system.
ESO will go out to consultation in the summer for Winter 24/25 DFS.
And then there was a lot of technical discussion of the shape of future events that TBH I didn’t understand!
I have cashed in my Octopoints £27 and got my last free coffee 👍
Export for March (so far) £69
This months energy bill will be £7 (so far)
Let the sun shine 😎
Daveb01 What sun? It's been pissing it down here for the last 3 days 🙁
So the last day.
I managed to get another free coffee plus a bonus free National Trust day out for 2.
Export now -£81.33
Import now £81.62
Gas now £25.57
Octopoints trade in -£26.78
Bill for March -£0.92
9 coffees and 4 sausage rolls for me I think.
And about £30 in saving sessions rewards.
Boo also, hope this does not affect the Agile rates if it goes commercial as there be in it just for the money. 😡🤬
PianSom It was nice while it lasted but I predict nobody who has a battery and export MPAN is going to find the new "DFS" service an attractive offer.
Highlighted a long time ago in this thread, the https://savingsessions.streamlit.app/ saving session calculator.
I gave it a go, and yes, its working perfectly for this year:
I earnt slightly more than I was expecting as I hadn’t considered that we had a bit of peak-rate importing, I’d only thought about the additional export done.
As well as the saving session calculator there is a free electricity one as well:
Most of the summer free electricity sessions it was so sunny I was never going to be able to import anything so didn’t gain any benefit from them.
Strange, it didn't work for me. Said I hadn't opted into any session. The free electricity was ok, just not any saving sessions, not this one or last years. Will give it a go again in a week or so as nothing on Octopus web site about this session either yet.
Woo woo I won a free Octopus Large Plushie in their Pink Friday freebies today
Free postage as well
geoffreycoan I’m waiting for a car…..
SimonClarke
….happy to have the other one, your choice!
Watcher I’ll take the bigger one for my daughter!
SimonClarke
…..it’s a minute passed and my phone hasn’t rung???
Watcher I know. They haven't phoned me either. Tsk
No nothing here either. Guess I’ll have to stick with the one I ordered anyway. I heard Elon needed a top up
My phone rang exactly on 3.00pm. Local garage confirming my brake refit...
ChrisLav did you shout Pink Friday at them?
