Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

Telegraph_Sam

So in this case Octopus does the deeming but to do that they would have to enforce right of entry to inspect (the leccy meter. The new gas meter is external and hardly reaching its physical sell-by date). My gut feeling is to sit tight for the present and do nowt.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

So in this case Octopus does the deeming but to do that they would have to enforce right of entry to inspect (the leccy meter. The new gas meter is external and hardly reaching its physical sell-by date). My gut feeling is to sit tight for the present and do nowt.

With the issues numerous customers have had recently, even I'd think twice at the moment, and I was desperate to get mine installed.

Telegraph_Sam

I now see on re-reading the email from Octopus that they are claiming that it is my GAS meter that needs replacing and oh by the way we can upgrade your electricity one also at the same time. Whilst in fact the gas meter was replaced within the last 1 - 2 years and if anything it is the electricity one that needs an MOT.  The exact marketing logic behind this approach escapes me just now. They should be selling smart meters on the benefits that they claim to offer, not as a stop-gap for ageing manual meters. I have asked if I have the option to replace just the electricity meter which would make more commercial and technical sense.

niktheguru

Telegraph_Sam said:

I now see on re-reading the email from Octopus that they are claiming that it is my GAS meter that needs replacing and oh by the way we can upgrade your electricity one also at the same time. Whilst in fact the gas meter was replaced within the last 1 - 2 years and if anything it is the electricity one that needs an MOT.  The exact marketing logic behind this approach escapes me just now. They should be selling smart meters on the benefits that they claim to offer, not as a stop-gap for ageing manual meters. I have asked if I have the option to replace just the electricity meter which would make more commercial and technical sense.

If you ask for the electricity meter to be changed they would fit a smart meter not a dumb one. In that case it makes no sense not to then upgrade the gas one so they are both then giving smart readings rather than having one smart and going out to read the other one every month.

Telegraph_Sam

What I am trying to clarify with Octopus Technical Services is the best permutation of meters if I want to have the flexibility of having smart electricity from Octopus but possibly move my gas supply contract to a different supplier perhaps on a non-smart basis.

MWT

Telegraph_Sam said:

What I am trying to clarify with Octopus Technical Services is the best permutation of meters if I want to have the flexibility of having smart electricity from Octopus but possibly move my gas supply contract to a different supplier perhaps on a non-smart basis.

It doesn't really matter if your gas meter is smart or not, you'll still be able to switch your gas elsewhere if you want to...

niktheguru

Telegraph_Sam said:

What I am trying to clarify with Octopus Technical Services is the best permutation of meters if I want to have the flexibility of having smart electricity from Octopus but possibly move my gas supply contract to a different supplier perhaps on a non-smart basis.

If you want to just change your electricity meter to smart then you can, and then you're free to do what you want with your dumb gas meter. Similarly if you upgrade your gas smart meter, you can still change to a different supplier on a smart or non smart basis depending upon if the supplier supports smart meters (they all SHOULD do, but some of the smaller suppliers are still dragging their heels about this as they want to still charge outrageous upfront charges to customers for their working capital as long as possible)

Telegraph_Sam

The "All our Tariffs" page lists the costs for Go Faster consumption during the various offpeak timeslots depending on one's choice. I seem to remember seeing a table somewhere giving the Go Faster rates at other times of the day. Are these the same as Go = 14.99p + 25p/day? If so It seems that the attraction of Go [Faster] depends heavily on the extent to which one can and does shift consumption into the offpeak times. In my case, ignoring offpeak consumption - which of course is unrealistic - the savings compared with Tracker's average are not that dramatic.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

The "All our Tariffs" page lists the costs for Go Faster consumption during the various offpeak timeslots depending on one's choice. I seem to remember seeing a table somewhere giving the Go Faster rates at other times of the day. Are these the same as Go = 14.99p + 25p/day? If so It seems that the attraction of Go [Faster] depends heavily on the extent to which one can and does shift consumption into the offpeak times. In my case, ignoring offpeak consumption - which of course is unrealistic - the savings compared with Tracker's average are not that dramatic.

The normal rate is the same across all Go (Faster) tariffs. This standard rate was put up by 11% recently, which is why it is no longer a great deal. It was quite clear (given tracker and agile rates) that this was going to happen, hence why some of us were in a rush to lock in the December 2019 v1 tariff @ 13.45p +25p/day, which is fixed for a year.

Don't underestimate the saving from the cheap rate, even if you do no load shifting. The fact you are posting at a little after midnight suggests you can benefit from 4 waking hours of cheap rate, which is better than me. The only load shifting I am doing is taking my morning (electric) shower at the tail end of my cheap period, although my usage is so low at the moment that accounts for 1/4 of my daily use. With the impact of standing charges, even at my cheaper rate I can't make an appreciable saving vs the Tracker during the summer, but those with higher usage would. I suspect if I was on the more expensive v2 tariff, the Tracker would be cheaper at the moment, but I'd still make a saving over the course of a year.

niktheguru

Telegraph_Sam said:

The "All our Tariffs" page lists the costs for Go Faster consumption during the various offpeak timeslots depending on one's choice. I seem to remember seeing a table somewhere giving the Go Faster rates at other times of the day. Are these the same as Go = 14.99p + 25p/day? If so It seems that the attraction of Go [Faster] depends heavily on the extent to which one can and does shift consumption into the offpeak times. In my case, ignoring offpeak consumption - which of course is unrealistic - the savings compared with Tracker's average are not that dramatic.

Its really quite simple sam.

Take todays tracker for example: In the north east the unit rate is 17.35p and the standing charge is 18.73p
The go faster standing charge is 25p and the unit rate is 14.99p and off peak rate (if you go for 5hrs, is 5.5p)

If you use 10kwh in a day:
with tracker: 18.73 + (17.35*10) = £1.92

with go faster: 25 + (14.99*10) = £1.74
This is assuming you use no energy in the off peak period. If you use only 1kwh in 5 hours off peak, then your cost is:

25 + (14.99*9)+5.5 = £1.65

This is without any load shifting. You seem to be obsessing over this need to change your usage. You don't have to, of course you'll save even more money if you do but it is not necessary to save money, by just doing your normal thing you will use some energy in the cheaper period. Do your washing machine during this hours and you will save more money for example.

If its a comparison with Tracker vs go faster, go faster wins in the vast majority of cases, unless you're never in the house.
If its a comparison between the cheapest tariffs on the market vs go faster then that's a different story.
You've already said you want to stay with octopus, so if thats the case then go faster is the best deal by a mile. It was tonnes better at the old price when I was telling you to switch, you would have been laughing now. 

In reality you need to make a decision and not dither. If smart meters are really out, there is no point looking at go or go faster and just stick with tracker. Otherwise you're going to make yourself go mad doing the sums continually.

(even at your average usage of about 2500kwh a year, thats approx 7kwh a day. You still save 19p a day without taking off peak rates into account, unless tracker goes down substantially which i dont think it will. But even if it does you can go back to tracker without penalty, so i don't see where your uncertainty is.

My kwh rate the other day was 7p!