New Octopus Tariff for Giv Energy Battery users

Hello, has anyone else received an email for a new tariff for GivEnergy users? sounds similar to the Axel tie up and in my simple terms looks to do the same thing, any views? Cheers, Simon

Ultra3r need more information, never heard of it.

pacemaker

i'm guessing the Intelligent Octopus Flux

neomancer

This was the email that came through, followed the link and had to connect to GivEnergy on the app to sign up

Yep, Intelligent Flux.
I got excited and clicked through to look at the tariff but was disappointed with the figures. There appears to be just 8p/unit difference between incoming and exportable rates, unless I am reading it wrong (which isn't unheard of).
I can't see how they can claim a £500 annual saving.

KevinH
Not sure that's the case - to me it looks like you pay / are paid the same for import or export during standard hours and peak hours. A possible downside is you can't have this tariff and be part of the Axle scheme but that's an occaisional payment when the scheme is invoked whereas this looks like it pays a higher rate for export every day. But I may not have understood it properly.

I don't understand the point of it vs Flux honestly...

The off peak for intelligent flux where I am is 25.29p/kWh

Regular flux has a super off peak period, so if you take that into consideration the average "off peak rate" on regular flux is £22.47p/kWh. Much cheaper. If you only charge during the super off peak it's even less!

So why bother exactly? The description talks about "charging when the grid is cheapest" but it's one single "cheap rate", which errr isn't cheap (compared to regular Flux). The only benefit I can see is an average higher export rate off-peak

I am sure all these tariffs are great, but after 45 months Octopus still can't get my meters to be smart.
I have had every excuse under the sun and it is only because I was on the point of going to Ombudsman (offered £100 to not contact Ombudsman, but I declined) that finally things seem to have escalated rather than "wait another 3 months, send another "engineer" to fit new gas and electric meters" and hope they will work. I think I am on 12th set of meters! Aargh.
I am on fixed Eco7 import/export meter and have to take and submit readings each month.

Let's see what 2024 brings. Maybe that will fix the signal.

pacemaker worked out my "flux" average off peak incorrectly, so please ignore my rant above 🙂

pacemaker I don't understand the point of it vs Flux honestly...

I was just pondering this last night... the USP is obviously matched import/export prices, which means the grid is effectively an infinite-capacity, lossless virtual battery. As long as you avoid importing during the peak period. Octopus say they will endeavour to not do so, but quite a few people have complained that, in practise, they rarely bother charging the physical battery, which means you do end up importing at peak time. (And at this time of year, there's no solar to export, for balance.)

If Octopus were genuinely to try hard to not import during the peak period, then perhaps the price should have been flat - then it's them that bear any loss from using peak-time power, rather than you. That said, it's still reasonable to expect you to avoid using peak-rate power, if you can. Perhaps a reasonable position would be that you end up importing units up to a value of, say, 50% of the capacity of your physical battery, at the standard rate, and only if you go over that do you have to pay peak rate. ie if you have a 10kWh battery, but because they didn't manage it properly, you ended up importing rather than using stored power, you pay the standard rate for up to 5kWh. Something along those lines, anyway.

Or you can import at the standard rate at least at much as you have exported that day, as if it had gone through your physical battery, even if they chose to export it instead.

The big problem I see with IF is that the import/export price is the same! That might seem good in theory, but what about conversion losses ac to dc and dc to ac. On my system they amount to around 20%.
So to me, apart from losing control of your very expensive investment, import prices would need to be 20% less than export prices. That's without the obvious cheap period rate advantage of Flux.
I guess for some it might work if you want to set and forget, or have heavy usage and you know you'll be spending money out to Octopus anyway.
My exprting bills to Octopus using Flux have paid all gas usage for hot water, all standing charges for gas and electric, and all imports in the four dark months of the year. In fact I should be over £100 IN profit. I honestly don't see IOF giving me that

watched a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAvKdmnOxd8

Based on his findings (based on his actual usage), intelligent looked good for much higher export:import ratio, but when you get closer with the amount of import it flattens out a lot, might even cost more...

In his last example an import of _1000kWh vs export of _1500kWh net out basically at zero difference than regular flux. So anything higher on the import side would cost you more than Flux.

My battery has been charged up (to at least 60% but often 90+%) and has exported during peak every day for at least a month.

When it was first setup, there were a few days where it didn't do much if anything, but now it's always happening.

I estimated a 3p profit from charging from the grid off peak and exporting during peak (after accounting for a 20% loss AC to DC to AC).

But if it's a sunny day, like today, it can charge from the solar and export for a better profit.

It doesn't sit in eco mode, so it tends to program in a timed charge at a slow rate, so some battery charge will come from the grid (if the sun goes in) and some solar will be exported during off peak if not in use in the house.

As my solar is oversized for my consumption I hope to be building a nice profit during the good parts of 2024. Even November just gone was a profit (if you ignore the standing charge).

As I've mentioned before, it is annoying when the house is using grid during the evening peak - it would be nice if the solution allowed me to use some of the battery when it doesn't want to export. Maybe set it to eco with a lower discharge rate. Then when it exports, it doesn't matter, as the house will get what it needs and the grid gets the rest.

Another benefit is most of my heavy usage (electric shower, washing machine etc) is now off peak rather than peak. I sometimes scheduled the dishwasher for the overnight off peak period, but didn't want to do the same with the washing machine - the noise being one aspect!). Previously I'd always have some peak import due to the size of my inverter and battery. So I can cope with a bit of peak for three hours if it decides not to export for part of those hours / all of those hours).

TimHutchings The big problem I see with IF is that the import/export price is the same! That might seem good in theory, but what about conversion losses ac to dc and dc to ac. On my system they amount to around 20%.

That's a problem if it's your intention to charge from the grid, then sell it back at a later time at a profit. I assume that's not what IF is about. Obviously Octopus are exposed to true real-time prices, so it may still be profitable for them to charge and discharge your battery at different times. This is for their benefit, not yours. But in return, you get a good export price, and import that is, most of the time, less than standard tariff.

I guess for some it might work if you want to set and forget, or have heavy usage and you know you'll be spending money out to Octopus anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's who it's aimed at. Possibly beneficial if your battery is relatively small compared to your daily usage, so that charging during cheap rate is not close to covering daily use.

Would be quite interesting to know how many customers actually subscribe to this tariff. People don't generally seem very impressed by it.

Dravinger
Import at off peak, export at peak = 8p/kwh profit max.
With a 5.2kwh battery, that would necessitate a peak or post-peak top up for me. I guess those with larger batteries with spare capacity could benefit? Unless Octopus suck the battery dry?

The idea is to run from grid after 7pm

No point putting it in the battery to take it out again if it is off peak, just use the grid.

TX200 I think where I got confused, it looks like it's not that intelligent and has just 2 fixed price points, and the fixed point for export isn't that long? or have I missed the point? I have the Giv Energy 9.5kw battery, Giv Energy Car point on its way and Octopus heat pump being installed in the new year to go with the solar so no idea which tariff to be on anymore!!. By the way if you have had a fixed price quote from octopus for heat pump and all the upgrades required and storage tank, I was quoted £4300 on a new (3 year old 4 bed house) house, they did the survey, realised 6 radiators need replacing as well it was no different. Then they changed the grant by £2000 and I canceled the first grant and applied for the second so doing the complete install for £2300. To be fair they have been excellent about it.

Ultra3r it's called intelligent as they decide when to charge and discharge the battery.