As per title, only just spotted this change in terms today and my export tariff with them expires tomorrow - I'm being moved onto the 6p export tariff. Not ideal. Whats the best next provider with cheap night energy and 15p or more export tariff? (ideally for people without EVs).
arczi19
Good spot. My export tariff runs out 1/1/26 so I will be looking around also. I do have an EV though so slightly different needs.
I'm guessing Octopus......
arczi19 for non-EV your tariff options are limited
Octopus Cosy if you have a heat pump
Octopus Flux if you don’t, but their day rates are not great. Really only recommend if your battery capacity is enough for the full day
Or good old Economy 7, again if your battery size will cover the whole day
Otherwise got to look broader, Good Energy, Scottish Power (although they don’t like brown export), British Gas, ?
That's odd, my SEG tariff just renewed with them and I am still being given 16.5p. I am on an eon.next drive tariff with cheap overnight charging. I went on this tariff before having an EV but still had a battery 13.5 AIO.
From a quick look on their page, you can have the "exclusive" rate if you import one of their "next" tariffs, but only the 6p rate otherwise. I guess EV implies Next Drive import?
Josh I think you got lucky, they have changed their rules only a few days ago.
You could always move to their EV tariff and hope they don't check 🤔
Link to the Eon SEG exports https://www.eonnext.com/electricity-and-gas/smart-export-guarantee
Good Energy still offering 15p export rate https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/products/export-tariffs/ as an alternative to Octopus, they have an EV and a heat pump Cosy-like tariff (5-9am & 1-4pm cheap, the rest peak-rate). No battery owner tariff though
Found a blog article that suggests that Ecotricity don’ t require you to have an EV for their EV tariff https://www.capture.energy/blog/the-best-electricity-tariff-for-battery-storage
geoffreycoan Found a blog article that suggests that Ecotricity don’ t require you to have an EV for their EV tariff
They do seem to require an EV charge point, though?
geoffreycoan Thank you. I'm currently still on Eon Drive tariff (until April next year), so getting 7 hours of cheaper energy to charge my battery overnight. Will likely stick with it for the time being (and forget about exporting over winter) and then move over to GoodEnergy - their EV tariff doesn’t seem to require an EV.
This was bound to happen.
Octopus will be next - I've been expecting them to force people onto Outgoing Agile for a while now.
Its frankly taking the proverbial (and we ALL know it) to be able to import at 5p or whatever and immediately export it for 15p....
Vestas I agree the current imbalance between import and export tariffs has been taking the xxxx.
Agile import probably the worst when it’s windy overnight, demand is lower, and you can import for pennies (or even negative) and export for fixed 15p. Putting cycles on the battery but making £ from repeatedly importing and exporting.
Then the EV tariffs with ultra-cheap overnight import, cycling the battery overnight if your charge/discharge rate is high enough, running for the day on the cheap electricity then dumping it to the grid in the evening to make a profit and repeat the whole cycle again.
I’d hope they don’t force everyone onto Agile outgoing or just do a wholesale slash of the 15p export rate to 8 or 6p, what would be more intelligent and helps the grid out would be a tiered export rate similar to what Flux offers.
By all means charge your battery up overnight at 6p, but the overnight export rate is lowered (say to half the import rate) so no pre-overnight battery dumping or overnight churning, and the evening peak export rate is increased (to say 25p) when the grid really needs it.
What happens to the day export rate is of particular concern for me, whether it gets slashed or not will make a big difference to my current strategy of exporting loads in the summer to build up a winter account balance credit
geoffreycoan We digress but I can't see any other option for Octopus than Outgoing Agile.
They've got a lot more vertical integration (windfarms, PV farms etc) than most other suppliers so they're probably the canary in the coalmine so to speak. If you're exporting directly from PV then they probably don't want it for 4-5 months of the year...
They've done their prep work well in advance anyway by making Outgoing Fixed a variable tariff and giving notice from last December onwards IIRC.
I thought if you have agile import you have to be on agile export. So you couldn’t do exactly that. Is that not the case anymore?
Personally I’d be happy to have an export tariff that Pays 25p or more for export at the grids peak strain times ie 4-7pm, kind of like a continuous daily DFS session all year to support the grid. (That’d definitely get people to shift their export to required need times to help the grid.) And I’d be happy if they reduced the export price overnight, although probably not necessary, as there won’t be many people exporting at night, when the import price is super cheap.
As you say if it was reduced in daytime, that would be a disaster for us solar exporters.
I guess overall Octopus must still be making a profit on what they buy at 15p/ unit. Same for what they sell ant 7p/ unit, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.
It is kind of a weird situation though, where the same customer or customers are paying/ getting paid different rates at the same time of day/ demand.
There can’t be a masssive amount of people with a high enough charge/ discharge rate to fill, export and re-fill a battery in 6 hours though. Mine take the full 6hrs just to fill. And what you’d make on export arbitrage, you miss out on filling up at the cheap rate to get to 100% at 05:30 and would have to buy at standard rate immediately after throughout the day for house load. Unless you’ve got super low daytime usage. In which case you likely wouldn’t have a large inverter and battery system installed. And also that wouldn’t fit in with any IOG smart car charging very well at all, as the slots are pretty random - and change several times within the night these days.
For now I’m happy with the IOG import/export rates as they are and hope they stay that way for years to come. A bit of certainty is highly beneficial. Keep changing things and it’s a pain in the neck.
Octopus could and possibly should implement a Flux like three tier export rate for anyone on a smart tariff. Standard rate from 07:00-22:00hrs (possibly tweaked for sunrise and sunset times but the sun starts very early in the summer), bump at peak rate between 1600-1900hrs when the grid is busier and then a cheaper overnight rate. If people dump their batteries before ten at night there are at least a decent number still up, and it stops people repeatedly charging and discharging overnight which is nonsense.
Pete UK I thought if you have agile import you have to be on agile export. So you couldn’t do exactly that. Is that not the case anymore?
No, it is a misconception and I’ve seen people on Agile export because they were on Agile import, but the import and export tariffs are not linked. I was on Agile import for 14 months with fixed 15p import, and was again on that combination through this summer. I hardly imported anything as Agile import rates were typically 15-20p so ran off stored PV for most of the time, only exporting when the import rates were super low.
Last winter I was on Agile import and Agile export for a month, then Cosy and Agile export for another month. My thinking being that I was self consuming any PV generation and would only export during a DFS session when the rates made it favourable, and then I might as well get the benefit of a higher Agile outgoing rate as well. As a strategy it worked quite well and I may do the same this winter.
Pete UK There can’t be a masssive amount of people with a high enough charge/ discharge rate to fill, export and re-fill a battery in 6 hours though. Mine take the full 6hrs just to fill
If you’ve got a low voltage hybrid or AC coupled inverter then yes, the charge and discharge rates mean there’s limited opportunity to churn the battery overnight. But if you have an AIO, 6kW charge/discharge rates mean, 13.5kWh battery, you can fill, empty and re-fill it overnight in the 6 hour EV cheap rate period and get about £1 profit from the electricity rate arbitrage. Do that for a year and it adds up, plus you discharge whatever you have left in the battery pre-overnight.
Pete UK I thought if you have agile import you have to be on agile export. So you couldn’t do exactly that. Is that not the case anymore?
It hasn't been the case for at least 3 years, probably longer.
I can’t imagine this is a cost effective thing to do in the majority of cases on IOG.
I’d suggest that in most cases it doesn’t make any financial sense to repeatedly charge and discharge overnight during the 7p slots, to try and gain a bit of extra 15p export (assuming you don’t have a tiny battery that you could fill, discharge and fill again in 6 hrs). It doesn’t work; you end up with less exported because overall you’ve imported less at 7p.
You would be effectively charging for half the available time and discharging for the other half of the time during the cheap 6 hours.
So using this strategy, what you’ve done is;
1) Wasted half of what you could have imported at 7p/kW. This costs more.
2) Not ended up with a full battery at 05:30 to use during the day. This cost more.
3) As a result of 2) all your solar will go into the battery instead of being exported at 15p (unless you pause it and use grid at 26p when there is not enough solar), which you could have filled up from the grid at 7p. This costs more.
4) as a result of 2) you will have to buy peak rate 26p electricity at some point in the day until 23:30 because your battery ran out too early. This costs more.
5) As a result of all of the above you won’t have anything left to export at 15p at the end of the day. This costs you more as well.
6) Reduced your 6 hours of cheap overnight electricity to 3 hours of cheap electricity.
So it’s a complete of a waste of time, as you’d be worse off financially.
Pete UK One word - Predbat 😉
Ah, ok. Haven’t been watching closely
Ah, yep. Guess it works if you have an AIO or two then.
geoffreycoan But if you have an AIO, 6kW charge/discharge rates mean, 13.5kWh battery, you can fill, empty and re-fill it overnight in the 6 hour EV cheap rate period and get about £1 profit from the electricity rate arbitrage.
Doubly true if you have 2xAIO and no export limit so you have 12kW charge/discharge and 27kWh battery.
Pete UK And also that wouldn’t fit in with any IOG smart car charging very well at all, as the slots are pretty random - and change several times within the night these days.
IOG does not require that you use Smart Charging. You are perfectly at liberty to forgo bonus slots and just use 11.30pm-5.30am to charge your car. Or to do that normally, and choose to use Smart Charging on days in the Winter when bonus slots are more likely (ie windy days). (BTW I understand they are cracking down on blatantly abusive behaviour like setting a low charge rate on your EV and then taking advantage of multiple bonus slots.)
None of which is to say anything more than I imagine Octopus will update their tariffs soon. A TOU export makes such good sense.
I guess it works well with a AIO then and when flux import rate is low but is it always low every night?
Is it on average always lower than the 7p or say 12p every night for 6 hours to make it worth it every day for 365 days a year ?
PianSom IOG does not require that you use Smart Charging. You are perfectly at liberty to forgo bonus slots and just use 11.30pm-5.30am to charge your car.
Yep. Aware of that. I was actually talking about just the std 6hrs without bonus slots to keep it simple. In that 6 hours you’d effectively be charging home batteries for half and discharging for half the time, (or 1/3 and 2/3 with AIO) ignoring any extra slots or any time the car needs to be charging. But you also have some nights where the car charges for almost all of it - the whole time; 6hrs - so you can’t export at all then. So you can’t charge, discharge, charge the home batteries. Only charge.
Thats another good point. Forgot about that.
So, the long and short of it is;
If you have an AIO (or two) and if you’re not needing to charge the car up much that night and if the agile import rate is below your export rate (minus losses), and if you use Predbat or the like, it seems it is plausible.
But how often does that happen and how many people is that?
It’s a good thought exercise and I’m happy to eat humble pie. I just can’t imagine it’s that many people at all. Not enough for Octopus to worry about.
It may be you but not many others. 🤷🏼♂️
Like, for example I don’t imagine very many people have my exact set up.
I have no qualms about importing at cheap Agile rates and exporting at fixed Eon rates. Eon gave me this rate as an incentive for me to use them as my installers and I paid extra for the privilege so getting something back from Eon is entirely fair IMHO.
As to whether I can make anything from doing this have a look at this post...
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/5303-for-those-of-us-thrashing-the-inverter/212
If you look at the Agile prices on 4/10/25 you'll see that the average off peak price was 0.6p.
I have Dual AIO's and I am on IOG I use Wonder Watt and Import and export during the overnight 6 hour cheap rate. I have fined tuned my standard import and export schedules and it runs daily without any intervention from me. I export everything down to 8 to 10% daily by 23:30. I charge to about 85% or so @12KWh and then export and then re charge to 100% by 05:30. I am slightly hampered by my DNO 9.5kWh Export cap but nevertheless, I always start the day @ 05:30 with a full battery and 16.5kWh exported. Usually I have well over 50% left before I start exporting in the evening. My daily average even in November exported is over 32kWh per day on a daily import of around 54kWh per day. If you do the math Octopus are paying me. If they change the rates, times or whatever I will just adapt to give the best return possible.
Nice one. That’s impressive. 2x AIO is maximising the price differential. The charge/ discharge rate is definitely a big advantage there.
Sadly, I don’t think the AIO was out when I got my kit.
Does WW manage the times when the car is charging for you as well? Seems like it’s a great bit of s/w.
Pete UK Does WW manage the times when the car is charging for you as well? Seems like it’s a great bit of s/w.
I don't have a big mileage on the EV still only done 800 miles since April. I believe Wonder Watt does manage all the IOG slots and sets your house battery to charge at the same time, however, so far I just plug the car in for 23:30 when it needs charging and do a 4% to 100% on the house batteries at the same time (no exporting) once or month or so, to keep the SOC sync between batteries in shape.
geoffreycoan What happens to the day export rate is of particular concern for me, whether it gets slashed or not will make a big difference to my current strategy of exporting loads in the summer to build up a winter account balance credit
And this too is the concern I have. I have not been interested in the import/export other than to build up credit during the summer months to offset the winter ones resulting in a very low power bill.
Not sure what the ideal strategy needs to be now the export rates are reducing - any thoughts?
CW For me on the Agile tariff it just means I adjust the balance between when I import and when I export. During the winter when there is little solar I will always charge using the cheapest periods and only export if the export rate is 1.2 times the mean charge rate to allow for the battery losses. In the summer it likely will result in me using more of my solar rather than exporting it. I saw some of this over last summer as the Agile rates rose so I used more of my solar and exported less than in the previous summer.
Windy Miller For me, the summer strategy seems straightforward, minimally fill the batteries overnight, then top up during the day with all the solar and charge car, heat water and run heavy machines (tumble dryer etc.) so as much as possible is consumed during daylight hours. Not sure how best to run during winter months though. And I really don't want to get into "software" controlling the system if I can help it - I would prefer something "set and forget" and that is my current dilemma
CW Not sure what the ideal strategy needs to be now the export rates are reducing - any thoughts?
As Windy Miller said, its about balancing the cost of import and the income from export. Like him I was on Agile this summer, the rates were generally the same or higher than my export rates. so I would charge very little (only when windy and cheap) and run mainly off PV. August for example I imported 133kWh at an average of 2.55p inc VAT!
I would start each day with the batteries near empty, and if it was forecast to be sunny I'd do a force export in the morning to drain them further. This had the advantage that I could trickle charge the batteries during the day which helps prevent my inverters from driving the grid voltage above 258V due to high export, at which point the inverters shutdown, the grid voltage drops, and the cycle repeats.
Whilst we'd do the washing, dishwasher etc during the day off solar, I generate so much off my 14.4kW arrays that I can't physically use it all. In June for example we generated 1820kWh and exported 1430kWh for £214 of export income. If the daytime export rates do get cut then I'll just have to suffer the drop and be back to having to pay for electricity again. My £1 Octopus direct debit might have to rise.
But we'll see
CW In the winter months assume no solar. So it is down to the costs of the import versus the export.
If you are on a fixed tariff with a cheap, standard and peak rate like Octopus Go, Flux and Cosy then you can see if at any time of the day the import is cheaper than the export by, say, 20% (for losses) then set a charge timer for those hours and allow it to reach 100%. Then use ECO for the rest of the day. If your batteries run out before any peak period consider holding some charge with another timer just before the peak time
for example...
Timer 1 import 7p export 15p then charge at 7p, say 12am to 5am
Timer 2 import 13p export 15p so set to hold at 13p, say 1pm to 4pm
Timer 3 (or default behaviour) import 28p export 15p so set to ECO using what you charged at 7p (no export unless your batteries are big enough) say 4pm to 7pm
You might need more timers if you have more than one cheap period like Cosy
It is more complex if you use one of the intelligent tariffs but then you've given over control to Octopus in any case. If you're not on Octopus, other tariffs might have similar periods
Interesting development
I've just received an email from eon advising that my tariff expires on the 1/1/26 and that I will be moved onto 'Next Export Exclusive v2' at 17.325p!!!
Happy days 😁
Edit- I should add, the letter they attached is almost complete gibberish. It clearly is intended for import tariffs and not adapted even a little bit well but the important bit for me is the stated tariff I move in to
Hi Folks,
I've just stumbled into this interesting thread.
I think @Pete UK made an compelling point. Many of us on this forum are/were at the bleeding edge of early adoption of solar + batteries. We are interested in the technology. We will be the gamers, the ones that want to screw out that last 50p from our systems.
…
But really - how many of us are there? I suspect most of us are in this thread! And (forgive me for intruding into the gaming space...) I'm not really one of us either. I do manage my system, but most of my management is an attempt to be kind to my system and to minimise waste. I don't try to game it to maximise profit.
I reckon there will be very few gamers. An insignificant amount compared to the number of installs. I reckon what we might be seeing here is the inevitable result of increasing the total green energy available in the UK. The logical end point to this greenification is that in some cases, it may end up costing money to export back to the grid! This will probably be a long way away in the UK, but it's possible to envisage it.
If I'm right, I can see strategies in the long term shifting towards us needing a large power dump so that solar can go somewhere. EVs should fit this perfectly for most domestic setups.
BobB I reckon there will be very few gamers. An insignificant amount compared to the number of installs. I reckon what we might be seeing here is the inevitable result of increasing the total green energy available in the UK. The logical end point to this greenification is that in some cases, it may end up costing money to export back to the grid! This will probably be a long way away in the UK, but it's possible to envisage it.
there are couple of interesting Gary Does Solar videos on YouTube where he makes similar predictions and compares us to the solar situation in other countries such as California and Australia. In Australia if I remember correctly you are mandated to have a DNO control on your inverter so they can switch your PV off from generating if supply exceeds demand
its all part of the electrification journey we are on I guess
I wrote on another thread, I only re-remembered recently (when reading it on Mick Wall's site) that the Octopus export rate was increased from 8p to 15p in 2022, with Octopus Go customers only being aligned a period of time later.
Prior to that SEG rates were 3-4p, considerably down on the FIT rates you got beforehand and there was much angst at how badly paid SEG was compared to FIT. The idea of paying back the cost of your panels in a few years on SEG or even having a net zero annual bill was unheard of
Just went to the Eon webpage and this has changed since last week when I last looked:
I currently import at 7.5p overnight, but for export I'm still with Octopus and a partly 4p, Eon do offer 6p export, so could move to them also. As not much sun for the next 5 months or so, may stick with this and get ready for Spring and perhaps a better SEG deal with someone else.
arczi19 Looks like I have been lucky and/or a mistake in this email. This email came in on 7th November.
I decided to apply to E-On now, but at the 6p rate, so I think you've been lucky by the sounds of it :-)
I'm with Octopus - but don't want all the faff that goes with Agile. In winter I switch to Economy 7 - nice long period to slow charge the battery to keep it warm (it's located outside), with a better import rate than Flux, then use 15p flat rate export - I mean - how often to you naturally export between 4-7 pm in the winter unless you've automated somehow? In summer with longer eport times covering peak period Flux works for me!
Josh The new tariff rates came in on 11 November so this may well not be valid - I would check it out rather than assume you will get this rate
Karen
Karen exactly same as me.
Eco7 winter and fixed 15p export - 6 months of not much sun and any goes straight to battery top up.
Flux in summer with Predbat to maximize export.
Coys68
As if by magic - Eon email to say they have emailed in error 'system generated that they cannot stop' (cannot stop my a**e!)
I will await their next email with correct figures but I'm guessing a move to Octopus will follow....
Coys68 Interesting - I wonder how many people are in this situation - I know I am, and am currently in "discussions" with them as to how they are allowed to do this (send out conflicting information)!
I've had the conformation email to say I've swapped and will go live with Eon next week the 26th.
Not 100% sure of the amount, as none of their emails state this, but even at 6p it's 2p better than Octopus - will just see what happens when I fully move