https://www.edfenergy.com/gas-and-electricity/freephase
It looks similar to Agile in the dynamic variant and possibly Cosy like in the fixed option. My other half won’t consider a move without lots more info on how it works (never into the ‘bleeding edge’)
It looks superficially OK, with a 75p max level per kWh.
On the face of it, looks simpler than Agile, bit more like Tracker, with three price bands rather than changing every half hour, and those bands either being fixed (static variant) or daily variable.
I found https://www.edfenergy.com/tariff-information-labels/freePhase which gives today's prices, and tomorrow's from 12pm which is earlier than Agile prices are released.
Today, which is windy, so cheap prices:
Green 11pm-6am 5p
Amber 6am-4pm, 7pm-11pm 13.7p
Red 4pm-7pm 32.7p
Agile prices for same time periods:
Green 11pm-6am 2.6-7p
Amber 6am-4pm, 7pm-11pm 10-14p
Red 4pm-7pm 31-36p
So look to be very similar and you wouldn't save much either. By pricing on just 3 bands the rate is in effect an average over the underlying wholesale market rates. Agile you get some higher some lower periods.
Interesting
geoffreycoan A possible advantage is when your battery isn't big enough to last the day. You can fully charge in the green period, use your solar, do a top up or hold some of the charge in the first orange period to get you through the red peak period then run through the evening orange period on the grid.
This means that your battery capacity plus what you can shift to 11pm-6am will be at the cheapest rate. The rest will be at the middle rate with nothing at the top rate (as long as your peak load doesn't exceed your battery discharge power limit). You'd need one charge timer, one hold timer (hold at 80% say) and, unless you have a super export rate, no export timers.
I might model this in my spreadsheet to see how it might pan out but I also expect it to be very similar to Agile (although less complex to run).
Windy Miller yes, similar to the advantages of Cosy but without the heat pump requirement
It will be worth seeing a few more days of pricing data to build up a picture of how the rates vary. Today is cheap due to strong winds, what's it like on sunny and gloomy days? The historic pricing information on the Eon website is a bit misleading because they are only giving quarterly averages which of course hides all the underlying price spikes and dips
@geoff
geoffreycoan thank you for the link which I didn’t find. Yes looks interesting and simpler to use than Agile. If it’s the start of some competition in TOU tariffs then that might help us all.
geoffreycoan I'll be keeping an eye on that this winter. Long (long) overdue competition for Agile.
Checked EDF's SEG offering and the application still asks for bank details. Until they can put import and export on the same bill (like Octopus do), EDF won't be getting my custom. Shame as the FreePhase tariff looks quite promising.
Is there any information about export rates? I've had a look but can't see anything.
Edit. Found this:
Customers on a time-of-use import tariff like FreePhase may also have dynamic export rates if they have an eligible battery and solar panel setup, allowing them to maximise earnings by exporting at peak times.
It doesn't specify what these export rates might be (even a range). Standard SEG is 15p per kWh for EDF customers (Import Tariff) and 5.6p per kWh for non customers.
I've called and am awaiting a callback.
Looks interesting for those with battery storage