Octopus energy company. Anyone use 'em?
Discussion
Greshamst said:
Negative rates on energy later today. I only joined agile a few weeks ago, so first time for me.
I’m out all day, typical haha
I have had a similar situation but also had a total of about 8 hours of power ups this week where I've charged the car for free anyway so can't complain too much.I’m out all day, typical haha
There must be a decent amount of solar generation during the day at the moment as we are seeing very low prices most afternoons between 12 and 4pm even on weekdays. One of my power up sessions was 1pm to 4pm as well. It works for me as I work from home most days but does require a slight behaviour change from having cheaper prices overnight.
An article I thought interesting about the economics of the Octopus Agile tariff and who is actually paying for the cheap/free/negative priced electricity - https://davidturver.substack.com/p/agile-octopus-f...
TLDR: The contracts with the wind and solar farms mean that they get paid their subsidies whatever the underlying wholesale price, so when wholesale prices plunge and thus Agile prices plunge, the money to pay the wind and solar farms has to be coming from somewhere and that somewhere has to be those people on standard flat rate tariffs.
The article also touched on the future with the future introduction of grid sized batteries and the operators of those batteries hoovering up the plunge price electricity thus reducing the price benefits for Agile users, although the standard flat rate tariff users still get screwed as the use of the batteries will continue to allow the wind and solar farms to game the system for subsidies.
TLDR: The contracts with the wind and solar farms mean that they get paid their subsidies whatever the underlying wholesale price, so when wholesale prices plunge and thus Agile prices plunge, the money to pay the wind and solar farms has to be coming from somewhere and that somewhere has to be those people on standard flat rate tariffs.
The article also touched on the future with the future introduction of grid sized batteries and the operators of those batteries hoovering up the plunge price electricity thus reducing the price benefits for Agile users, although the standard flat rate tariff users still get screwed as the use of the batteries will continue to allow the wind and solar farms to game the system for subsidies.
SpidersWeb said:
An article I thought interesting about the economics of the Octopus Agile tariff and who is actually paying for the cheap/free/negative priced electricity - https://davidturver.substack.com/p/agile-octopus-f...
TLDR: The contracts with the wind and solar farms mean that they get paid their subsidies whatever the underlying wholesale price, so when wholesale prices plunge and thus Agile prices plunge, the money to pay the wind and solar farms has to be coming from somewhere and that somewhere has to be those people on standard flat rate tariffs.
The article also touched on the future with the future introduction of grid sized batteries and the operators of those batteries hoovering up the plunge price electricity thus reducing the price benefits for Agile users, although the standard flat rate tariff users still get screwed as the use of the batteries will continue to allow the wind and solar farms to game the system for subsidies.
Interesting article, and I'm not an expert, but it completely glosses over what happens when you have too much wind/solar generation and not enough electricity use. I assume if wind/solar is required to be turned down, then the wind/solar generators are going to want to be paid (why would they turn off if they can generate a MW and get paid the subsidy price for it?) so presumably that also factors into why people are paid to use energy rather than telling generators to turn off?TLDR: The contracts with the wind and solar farms mean that they get paid their subsidies whatever the underlying wholesale price, so when wholesale prices plunge and thus Agile prices plunge, the money to pay the wind and solar farms has to be coming from somewhere and that somewhere has to be those people on standard flat rate tariffs.
The article also touched on the future with the future introduction of grid sized batteries and the operators of those batteries hoovering up the plunge price electricity thus reducing the price benefits for Agile users, although the standard flat rate tariff users still get screwed as the use of the batteries will continue to allow the wind and solar farms to game the system for subsidies.
AyBee said:
Interesting article, and I'm not an expert, but it completely glosses over what happens when you have too much wind/solar generation and not enough electricity use. I assume if wind/solar is required to be turned down, then the wind/solar generators are going to want to be paid (why would they turn off if they can generate a MW and get paid the subsidy price for it?) so presumably that also factors into why people are paid to use energy rather than telling generators to turn off?
Pretty much, which is why Octopus is running the Power-Up scheme in those areas with lots of wind and solar generation (East Anglia and Scotland) to give the electricity away for free. And even though those Power-Up customers are getting their electricity for free, all the other customers not on the scheme or in the rest of the country who are on standard rate tariffs will be suffering higher unit costs because the renewable generators still get paid the full rate even though the wholesale rate is low or even negative and the money has to come from somewhere.
SpidersWeb said:
AyBee said:
Interesting article, and I'm not an expert, but it completely glosses over what happens when you have too much wind/solar generation and not enough electricity use. I assume if wind/solar is required to be turned down, then the wind/solar generators are going to want to be paid (why would they turn off if they can generate a MW and get paid the subsidy price for it?) so presumably that also factors into why people are paid to use energy rather than telling generators to turn off?
Pretty much, which is why Octopus is running the Power-Up scheme in those areas with lots of wind and solar generation (East Anglia and Scotland) to give the electricity away for free. And even though those Power-Up customers are getting their electricity for free, all the other customers not on the scheme or in the rest of the country who are on standard rate tariffs will be suffering higher unit costs because the renewable generators still get paid the full rate even though the wholesale rate is low or even negative and the money has to come from somewhere.
My flexible rate is the same whether someone 100 miles away is getting free leccy.
I'd have something to complain about if my rate went up to pay for their free stuff, but it hasn't.
No ideas for a name said:
Zoon said:
For those on Agile, Saturday/Sunday looks like it could be negative/very cheap.
I am sure you posted it before, but could you post your source... wasn't it a combination or weather/wind forcast and usage forecast.Or you can use agilepredict which gives you a rough idea of prices but not always 100% accurate
https://agilepredict.com/
https://agilepredict.com/
pingu393 said:
SpidersWeb said:
AyBee said:
Interesting article, and I'm not an expert, but it completely glosses over what happens when you have too much wind/solar generation and not enough electricity use. I assume if wind/solar is required to be turned down, then the wind/solar generators are going to want to be paid (why would they turn off if they can generate a MW and get paid the subsidy price for it?) so presumably that also factors into why people are paid to use energy rather than telling generators to turn off?
Pretty much, which is why Octopus is running the Power-Up scheme in those areas with lots of wind and solar generation (East Anglia and Scotland) to give the electricity away for free. And even though those Power-Up customers are getting their electricity for free, all the other customers not on the scheme or in the rest of the country who are on standard rate tariffs will be suffering higher unit costs because the renewable generators still get paid the full rate even though the wholesale rate is low or even negative and the money has to come from somewhere.
My flexible rate is the same whether someone 100 miles away is getting free leccy.
I'd have something to complain about if my rate went up to pay for their free stuff, but it hasn't.
- Those on the Power-Up scheme are getting electricity for free and are not paying for it.
- The generators of renewable electricity are getting paid for that electricity
- That money has to be coming from somewhere, and the only place it can come from is everyone else's bills - and that means you are paying for it.
SpidersWeb said:
Your standard unit rate hasn't gone up to pay for the free electricity - it was built into the rate from the start.
- Those on the Power-Up scheme are getting electricity for free and are not paying for it.
- The generators of renewable electricity are getting paid for that electricity
- That money has to be coming from somewhere, and the only place it can come from is everyone else's bills - and that means you are paying for it.
Yes, but I don't have to pay extra when it goes dark with no wind, thanks to the price cap. I really can't see the problem.- Those on the Power-Up scheme are getting electricity for free and are not paying for it.
- The generators of renewable electricity are getting paid for that electricity
- That money has to be coming from somewhere, and the only place it can come from is everyone else's bills - and that means you are paying for it.
Almost every business has one demographic subsidising another within the cost model.
pingu393 said:
SpidersWeb said:
Your standard unit rate hasn't gone up to pay for the free electricity - it was built into the rate from the start.
- Those on the Power-Up scheme are getting electricity for free and are not paying for it.
- The generators of renewable electricity are getting paid for that electricity
- That money has to be coming from somewhere, and the only place it can come from is everyone else's bills - and that means you are paying for it.
Yes, but I don't have to pay extra when it goes dark with no wind, thanks to the price cap.- Those on the Power-Up scheme are getting electricity for free and are not paying for it.
- The generators of renewable electricity are getting paid for that electricity
- That money has to be coming from somewhere, and the only place it can come from is everyone else's bills - and that means you are paying for it.
We've been on agile since the beginning of December '23 and so far have reduced our electric bill by 34%.
We now have an octopus installed air source heat pump and this is proving to be more economical than the gas boiler that it replaced. Running it at the cheapest 1 or 2 hour slot has taken a daily £0.5 - £1 charge in gas down to around £0.3! Now to get the induction hob fitted and the gas meter capped off.
We now have an octopus installed air source heat pump and this is proving to be more economical than the gas boiler that it replaced. Running it at the cheapest 1 or 2 hour slot has taken a daily £0.5 - £1 charge in gas down to around £0.3! Now to get the induction hob fitted and the gas meter capped off.
chrismoose91 said:
We've been on agile since the beginning of December '23 and so far have reduced our electric bill by 34%.
We now have an octopus installed air source heat pump and this is proving to be more economical than the gas boiler that it replaced. Running it at the cheapest 1 or 2 hour slot has taken a daily £0.5 - £1 charge in gas down to around £0.3! Now to get the induction hob fitted and the gas meter capped off.
Have you used your heat pump in the winter yet? We now have an octopus installed air source heat pump and this is proving to be more economical than the gas boiler that it replaced. Running it at the cheapest 1 or 2 hour slot has taken a daily £0.5 - £1 charge in gas down to around £0.3! Now to get the induction hob fitted and the gas meter capped off.
megaphone said:
Have you used your heat pump in the winter yet?
No, but confident of a decent scop from it. Have been keeping an eye out on the openenergy site for performance of others with th same unit, promising! I'm not expecting it to save us money over the old gas boiler, but rather match it at least. The naysayers will point to those experiencing sky high bills, from poorly set up systems. I will be fine tuning my install when the heating kicks in to maximise efficiency and comfort. The tech works (former f-gas engineer), it's human error that skews it.
That article is poor
If the wholesale price of electricity goes to -5p, the subsidy is 2p and the customer is paid 2p during that time, then octopus still makes 1p profit
Wind subsidies are there precisely to get us using it and find ways to best use it. Once we have done that the subsidy will go
Who pays the subsidy? The energy company on every kWh they sell. So maybe if what I wrote above is incorrect then fixed rate octopus customers are subsidising agile...but that is up to octopus how they structure their tariffs.
Not sure how the author struggles to understand how wind farms + batteries= a much better way of producing electric and balancing production with demand than turning a gas turbine up and down.
If the wholesale price of electricity goes to -5p, the subsidy is 2p and the customer is paid 2p during that time, then octopus still makes 1p profit
Wind subsidies are there precisely to get us using it and find ways to best use it. Once we have done that the subsidy will go
Who pays the subsidy? The energy company on every kWh they sell. So maybe if what I wrote above is incorrect then fixed rate octopus customers are subsidising agile...but that is up to octopus how they structure their tariffs.
Not sure how the author struggles to understand how wind farms + batteries= a much better way of producing electric and balancing production with demand than turning a gas turbine up and down.
Edited by was8v on Friday 21st June 21:13
Saleen836 said:
Had my latest bill from Octopus today and I have to pay more in standing charge than for the gas I have used 
Also had an email from them informing me of prices reducing, it is also getting close to paying more in standing charge than what I have used in electricity
Me too, 6.70 for 155kwh vs 8.11 last monthAlso had an email from them informing me of prices reducing, it is also getting close to paying more in standing charge than what I have used in electricity
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