Year round DFS via Octopus!

Looks like Octopus are doing the same thing as the givback DNO service!

https://envirotecmagazine.com/2024/06/13/national-grid-expands-grid-flexibility-so-households-can-earn-more/

Just like the other DFS, the sale lasts all year. 🤣

I’m guessing its a follow-on from the ESO announcements about DFS strategy, which was that there wouldn’t be a winter DFS scheme in 2024 https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/3508-octopus-savings-sesions/440

Guess we need to see what actually gets offered to us. I would imagine the opportunities for real “peak strain on the grid” will be limited in summer. In winter 23 there was only 1 actual live event if I remember correctly

geoffreycoan I'll be surprised if anything at all is offered in terms of export.

Seems to me Octopus (and others to a lesser extent) are aiming to incorporate "DFS" into some of their tariffs - if they control your battery then there's no need for them to pay you anything at all.

I still think that we're looking at the next great "misselling scandal" where an increasing chunk of the PV installer's revenue will come from electricity suppliers as commission. Looks guaranteed to happen given nobody is ever held responsible for these frauds...

Cynical? Moi? 😉

Vestas geoffreycoan I'll be surprised if anything at all is offered in terms of export.

For those of us with batteries all of our income was from forced export in the DFS sessions. Couldn’t save anything meaningful from import as we were already running off battery as much as possible anyway.

We must be due for another misselling scandal, not had one for a while……

geoffreycoan You missed the car finance one which is about to trigger billions of cold-calls from solicitors for compo then?

I would have thought the next miselling scandal would be heat pumps. It's the wild west out there with the quality of installs varying wildly.

Vestas You missed the car finance one which is about to trigger billions of cold-calls from solicitors for compo then?

Off topic:-
Bought a car in 2015, intended/wanted to pay cash. The dealer convinced me to use a credit firm by promising to give me a payment each month for 6 months to cover what the interest would be (I guess their commission was much higher, based on a 10%flat-20% APR rate). Reluctantly agreed, then cancelled the credit agreement with the lender and paid the principal 7 days later, as allowed by law. Still got the interest payments from the dealer every month.

Miss-selling or caveat venditor on the dealer's side??? 🙂

Unless they’re going to offer payments to import at negative cost times, or pay for export it’s of very limited interest.

If it’s not I won’t sign up or partake, and I would suggest that’s the only way to send the message to those coming up with the rules. Me they won’t care about, but if many do this they might notice.

mrand31 Illegal certainly - you were both committing fraud against the lender so I'd keep that one very quiet were I you 😉

I've been reading up about DFS for 2024/25 - effectively trying to establish whether my recent move to Tomato from Octopus will be a net positive or not.

My thinking: (1) Will I be able to participate? and if not (2) How much might I lose out by?

On (1) my concern is (a) that I have import with Tomato and export with Octopus, and (b) my postcode wasn't eligible for all year long GivBack (GE tie up with Axle Energy).

I don't think Axle mind if I have two different suppliers for import/export, but I'm not sure about Octopus. I'm hoping the fact that I am ineligible for the year long GivBack setup doesn't exclude me from participating in DFS.

Q1. Does anyone have a view on DFS eligibility given my current situation please?

On (2) it's not clear how much DFS earning opportunities will reduce this year i.e. how much is going to be on the table if I could participate (I earned £130.27 in total from Axle last winter).

Others on this forum seemed quite negative, but I think what's interesting about that changes is that potentially the opportunities might be enhanced for those with API controlled domestic systems i.e. this forum.

Why? While the £/MW on offer is expected to be lower, the notice period is going from day before to within day, and the system is moving to "in-merit dispatch" i.e. if DFS is cheaper than an alternative supply, NESO will call on it more often.

So we won't see as many broadcast style "use less energy between these hours tomorrow" which all households can join and plan for easily, but more automated calls to participating equipment at short notice and for short periods - a bit like what happened earlier this week due to grid frequency going out of bounds from a sudden loss of an overseas link. Yes FFR is a different flexibility service, but the action - automated control and use of domestic batteries - is the same.

The changes proposed by NESO went out to consultation and are now with OFGEM to review - expected service go live is November https://www.neso.energy/industry-information/balancing-services/demand-flexibility-service-dfs

Q2. Do any others have views on whether DFS earning potential this winter will be higher or lower?

More reading

NESO Winter outlook
https://www.neso.energy/document/330221/download

Industry commentary on the consultation from earlier in the year:
https://www.axle.energy/blog/news/dfs-news
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/demand-flexibility-service-flex-winter-2024-25-meuc-o527e/
https://energy.drax.com/insights/whats-next-for-demand-flexibility-service/

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

DFS 2024/25 will be interesting to see how Octopus respond vs Axle. Last year Octopus were able to dominate with customer volume but got turned down for the later sessions due to the price they asked. Would anticipate that Octopus’s ability to manage demand for their customers on IOF and IOG will be a good match as will their strategy of API-enabling most services so likely we will be able to do our own automations (or add to Predbat), but whether the in-day demand will suit ordinary customers, we’ll see.

geoffreycoan Agreed - given how much of a market maker Octopus was last year (and how much they bid), it almost feels as is some of the DFS changes were chosen deliberately to clip Octopus' tentacles and make them work harder/smarter/cheaper for the grid. They were tests after all.

I thought Axle's claim at the bottom of their post was interesting:

Axle Energy was the largest automated participant in DFS 2023/4, helping clients like GivEnergy deliver > £120,000 of rewards to customers.

£120K at an average price of £2.19 / kWh suggests about 55MWh. At an average of 40kWh reduction per household participating over the winter, that's approx 1,400 households. Surely Octopus has more on their Intelligent tariffs?

Perhaps Axle were the largest (only?) fully automated participant - they were a long way down the list when ranked by MW size of bids.

One thing to note, no tests this year.

So the opportunity to earn might be reduced!

There might be the occasional real need to save electricity (or use use use when there's excess), plus perhaps respond to frequency dips like Axel did the other day (loss of an interconnect).