Reading another post on here last week has got me thinking about wether its worth exporting to the grid.
Looking at the invoice I paid £6000 for a 9.5 battery. This provides 3000 cycles which costs £2 per cycle + cost of electricity. So i have to earn £2.50 a day from the export to break even. What would you say is the best thing to do here, keep my energy and save the battery or make the most of the export? Im on Agile & Outgoing Agile.
Marren2016 you could switch to outgoing fixed, and then export the solar directly, rather than charging then discharging the battery.
Where do you get “this provides 3000 cycles” from?
The 9.5 battery has an unlimited cycle warranty for 10/12 years depending on when you bought it. If you say 1 full charge/discharge cycle a day over a 10 year lifecycle then that is roughly 3000 cycles, and recouping the battery cost from savings over that period then yes, you need to achieve £2 saving or income per cycle.
It depends on how big your solar panels are, how much you consume during the day, but assuming you have excess solar in the day the first thing I would suggest you do is ditch Outgoing Agile and move to the 12 month Fixed Agile that pays 15p/kWh. Unless you only export during the evening peak when the outgoing agile rates are better, for most people the 15p fixed rate is better.
Whether you should keep the energy or export it all depends on what the cost of import and your consumption is.
On the 15p fixed rate, after conversion losses you’ll get about 13.5p for every kWh you export. So export what you don’t need and keep the rest in the battery for later on. Every kWh you use out of the battery saves you importing it at whatever the rate is when you use it out of the battery. The same equation and losses applies on import if you’re storing it in the battery. If your import cost is less than about 12p its cheaper to import and store it in the battery for later than let your battery fill up with solar energy.
It is complicated (and requires automation) to get the absolutely best results out of the battery, but you can get fair results by just leaving the battery on Eco mode.
Every time you store energy in your battery and use it later on is savings that you can count towards your £2 saving target a day.
Certainly I wouldn’t advocate “saving the battery”, its an expensive item that you have bought and had installed, you want to maximise your investment return from it.
If I look at my own data for yesterday for example, I imported 17kWh, generated 36kWh, exported 34kWh, consumed 18kWh in the house and charged and discharged my single 5.2kWh battery 3 times (which does surprise me).
My total consumption bill (excluding standing charge) was -£4.84.
If I could have fitted all my consumption into the day-time hours (which clearly you can’t) and didn’t use the battery, had still used the same 18kWh in the home and exported the excess 18kWh and not imported anything, my export income would have been 18*15= -£2.70 - so with active battery management I generated £2 more income.
What would be the main point of doing that? Why shouldn't i charge the battery for free?
Marren2016 opportunity cost. Don't think of the solar as free - value it at the export price, since what you'd earn if you were to export instead of using it yourself. So if you import from the grid at less than the export price, it's better to do so
So on Agile fixed its 15pkw export all day?
Thqts all they give me at peak times of an evening. All last week it was 13p max, during the afternoon it was as low as 2p or sometimes it was zero. If I could get 15p that woukd earn me a lot more income.
Will switching affect the Agile incoming?
My solar panels are 3.0kw (3.3kw peak). I can generate 20kwh on the best days.
Marren2016
No, I'm on Agile and the fixed 15p export.
Marren2016 Yes, Outgoing Fixed is 15p/kWh all day (even during price plunges). Outgoing Agile rarely beats that. I suspect that Fixed may drop, so there's a case for locking into the price now !
No effect on your import tariff - you can mix and match. (Except for the specials like Flux.)
DD Outgoing Agile rarely beats that
1.7% of the time in East Mids so far this year. That equates to 25 minutes a day (on average) that Agile Outgoing is above 15p.....
Ive just called octopus and switched to outgoing fixed. This will earn me loads more money. Thanks lads
Marren2016 As the others have said, 15p fixed export, its fixed for 12 months, same rate day or night and doesn’t affect your agile import. You can always change any time in the future, but unless there is a real energy crisis the agile export doesn’t look a good deal.
I’m on Agile import and Fixed 15p export and every day this month so far apart from one where my electricity consumption cost me 74p, I have made a profit. Partly this is as a result of importing at cheaper agile rates and exporting later on, but its also paying me well during the day. My export income is around £4-5 a day higher than my import costs.
If you contact Octopus they should change it straight away for you.
DD I have just called Octopus to be put on the Outgoing Fixed, I am on Agile for import since Monday but my Export is still on Outgoing Lite. They have transferred the 'issue' to technical as for some reason as they can't select Outgoing for my account. Hopefully they will sort it before any price drop is announced 🤞
Last week I arranged to change the end date of my Fixed from Dec this year to April next year. Those already on Fixed may want to consider doing it too.
MickWheater Presumably transitioning from Go ? I think they ought to make Outgoing Lite compatible with all tariffs already compatible with Outgoing Fixed. Obviously no-one would choose to use Lite when the full thing is available, but the same could be said for the SEG outgoing tariff, which is marked as compatible.
I just think doing this would simplify some of their systems - it might well be upset because your current tariff combination is invalid, whereas if Lite was mostly compatible, it becomes a valid sequence to go from (go + lite) to (agile + lite) to (agile + fixed). [It seems to be too much to hope for that they can change both import and export in one operation !]
DD Correct, I have just swapped from Go to Agile for import. I have had an email to say they are looking into it, so fingers crossed I will swap over to the full fixed export soon.
PianSom Last week I arranged to change the end date of my Fixed from Dec this year to April next year. Those already on Fixed may want to consider doing it too.
Lucky you. I just tried to do the same, and Octopus customer service said no
“Hey Geoffrey,
Thank you for reaching out to us today!
As Outgoing Octopus Fixed is technically a 12M fixed tariff, it'll run for 12 months initially.
The tariff will renew itself so no need to worry or change the date.
You'll continue getting the 15p/kWh until the rates are changed for this tariff.
I hope this helps but if you have any questions, please let me know.
Best wishes,
Rachel
Community Management | 🐙”
geoffreycoan
The first response I got was -
Thank you for reaching out to us. Trust that you are doing well. I understand that your current export tariff is set to end on 12th December. I can certainly assist you with extending the tariff so that you can keep the same rate for a longer period.
Once your tariff comes to an end we will be more than happy to re new your tariff. Enjoy your weekend ahead and stay safe.
Warm regards,
Aseya🙏
I wasn’t prepared to give in so easily!! I asked if it was possible to move to Agile Outgoing then IMMEDIATELY back to Fixed. After a short diversion, where they tried to persuade me that I had to pay £75 to end my fixed outgoing tariff (sigh), I got to this -
Thank you for reaching out to us. I understand that you would like to extend your current Outgoing 12m Fixed tariff from December 2024 to April 2025. I apologise for any confusion, but there is no need to switch tariffs in order to extend the end date.
We can simply extend your current tariff to the new end date of April 2025. There is no need to move to the Agile tariff and then back to the Fixed tariff.
If you have any further questions or need assistance with anything else, please let me know.
Best regards,
Isaac