Agile going negative for import tonight and tomorrow

Interesting Agile rate tonight - I know they've done it before!

Tonight is great but I think tomorrow is less likely. Looks like it has just copied tomorrow’s over…

Correct naltsta, the agile rates only go up to 11pm tomorrow night.

Can get an idea of what the rates will be for the night after from mid-morning tomorrow from the norddata market rates, but not officially until 4pm.

Washing, dishwasher, tumble dryer and I've got a home assistant automation that turns on heaters in the sheds to maximise my import !

Its been cheap on agile for the last couple of days. Yesterday was sunny and we were in profit up to mid afternoon, exported more than we imported. Ended the day on £2.70 I think. Not as good today, cloudy and wet but still low agile rates

geoffreycoan https://wiki.smarthound.uk/octopus-watch/predictions/#:~:text=Octopus%20Watch%20can%20provide%20electricity,recent%20and%20most%20accurate%20predictions. has been very useful to have to keep an eye on what’s coming

geoffreycoan
Hi buddy,
I am octopus flux customer and I have only solar panels and batteries.
Can I able to join agile tariff. And what’s about to export rates. As I am new to solar energy world. Please help me to understand.
Kind regards
Jay

Jayesh Hi Jay

Flux is a great tariff to be on for the summer, it pays a decent rate for any electricity you generate and export back to the grid. Your battery can be filled from the grid or solar generation, but when you generate more electricity than your house can consume and your battery can store, the extra electricity goes back to the grid.
With Flux you can get paid for it, at quite a decent rate, 18.2p during the day and 29.9p in the 4-7pm peak period.

In your Octopus account you should see that you have both an import rate and an export rate. If you don't have the export rate then you need to contact Octopus (call or email them) and ask about getting your export setup. They have to get a new "export meter number" (export MPAN) which can take a couple of months to get setup so get onto it before the summer before you need it.

Yes you can go onto Octopus Agile at any time. It is a truly smart tariff in that it charges you the electricity rate based upon electricity supply and demand in the UK. So you will pay a lower price overnight and on weekends, it'll be lower when there is lots of sun and wind, and you'll pay a higher price in the 4-7pm peak period, and sometimes if demand is very high you'll pay a very high price so it is not something to "just try".
You really need a way to manage the charging and discharging of your battery to optimise getting the best price. There's several approaches to doing that, see other posts on this forum.

When there is a lot of excess capacity in the grid, e.g. very windy, the electricity prices will actually go negative and if you are on agile you'll get paid for every kW you consume rather than the other way round. Its only a few pence usually but its great to have it that way round. Last night was the first negative prices of 2024, the last ones we had were around Christmas time, so its not an "every night" thing.

To give some example of how prices change, my average consumption price is 18-19p per kWh which is considerably down on the standard Flux day and peak rates but not as cheap as the Flux overnight rate. Typically the peak 4-7pm period rate is about 30-40p but did go as high as 65p/kWh in early December when it was very cold.

Jayesh You can get a comparison of different tariffs via the Octopus Compare app for android and ios you can compare 1 day, week and month free of charge and compare your current tariff to various other ones.

Jellybaby thank you I will try to figure out how to do it. Thanks

geoffreycoan thanks for your great knowledge and support.
Kind regards

Jayesh If you want to swap Octopus tariff, its an option in the Octopus home page once you are logged in but that (on mine) only gives you the option to swap to a fixed or the standard variable tariff.

If you go menu/all our smart tariffs you can see the full range of tariffs and then follow that through to swap to another tariff.

Switching might be complicated by export tariff: because flux comes as an import/export pair, both import and export will have to change, and I'm not sure that works very reliably. [I had trouble switching Go to Intelligent Go since export tariff also had to change from Go-only Outgoing Lite to Outgoing Fixed.]

DD every time I want to change tariff (which is embarrassingly often!) I send them a DM on Twitter clearly stating the combination of import and export I want to switch to. I’ve always been switched that day with it backdated to midnight.

naltsta I can DM them on Twitter to change? Ive submitted my move from Flexible Octopus (just joined them) to Go and it says upto a couple weeks, and no email confirmation either

naltsta I should have specified automated switching via website/app. Yes, getting support to do it should be successful, and I have heard that twitter can be the fastest way to get a response.

shawry if you are new, they take a little time to ensure that they are reliably receiving 30-min readings from the smartmeter. There used to be a progress update on the web when you switch.

shawry
This is literally all it takes… including to switch to Go which I why I say their requirement to have an EV is not strictly enforced!

DD I was able to switch online, and i got a screen saying it will get picked up, but navigate away from that and I have no real proof, would have expected an email. Just conscious I need to switch soon, as cant afford to keep filling car and battery at full price 🙂

I've sent them a DM 🙂 thanks guys

Octopus's support by DMing in twitter is excellent. Always respond quickly even on weekends which surprised me.

Response to emailed queries was (for me) much less successful, they never replied so I ended up DMing

naltsta
Hi,
Can you please let me know how it works import and export without EV.
I have solar panels and 9.5 k batteries.
It’s worth it agile and how to fixed export rates. Not sure please advise.
Kind regards
Jay

Jayesh hello jayesh - I’m not sure I know exactly what you are asking but I’ll have a go.

Octopus agile gives me the best savings at this time of year but requires a more complicated set up of software to control your charging. Octopus Go is a much simpler tarrif to manage (as the cheap times don’t change) and still offers some significant savings if you charge your batteries in the cheap rate. Octopus Go is officially a tariff for those with an EV but they seem to let you sign up no questions asked.

naltsta though the rate on go isn't as good. So depends a bit on generation (and battery size) Vs consumption.
I suspect you can still do well with agile if you just assume overnight is generally cheap, and take great care to avoid peak-rate import.