Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

Telegraph_Sam

I think a simple mention of and differentiation between the peak and off-peak pricing in each A-o-T box would have been quite sufficient. As it is you are left to reason that the Go tariff applies in all non off-peak periods which is not intuitive at first sight though simple in retrospect .I think that this is the same as what you are saying but in different words (!). Let us hope that reality bears this out ...
This presupposes that the blatant mistakes in the 4 H early morning timeslots are corrected, assuming that our conclusions in this respect are indeed correct.

Telegraph_Sam

Interesting to see that Octopus, having steadily increased their 12 month price forecasts daily for the past 2 months, have now reduced elec and gas by 25% and 38% respectively. Perhaps another glitch, but dual?

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I think a simple mention of and differentiation between the peak and off-peak pricing in each A-o-T box would have been quite sufficient. As it is you are left to reason that the Go tariff applies in all non off-peak periods which is not intuitive at first sight though simple in retrospect .I think that this is the same as what you are saying but in different words (!). Let us hope that reality bears this out ...
This presupposes that the blatant mistakes in the 4 H early morning timeslots are corrected, assuming that our conclusions in this respect are indeed correct.

They give a much clearer explanation here: https://octopus.energy/go/rates/

There is no need to speculate about whether the charges will be what Octopus say they are because the terms of the tariff dictate what they are. This isn't the Tracker, Flexible or Agile where it is variable. Go / Go Faster are 1 year fixed rate tariffs. Prices cannot be changed over the 12 months after you sign up.

What are the blatant mistakes?

niktheguru

I have to agree, the explanations regarding how go and go faster work are perfectly clear both on octopus' website and everywhere else on the Internet where people have commented on them.

It's a pretty simple tariff plan with a clear payment structure. With only two variables, the duration of off peak and start time.

As masonic has said the prices are very clear and the tariff is fixed. There are several of us on the tariff so we know it works and confirm it does exactly what it says on the tin so there is no uncertainty or speculation. It's not a new tariff and has been around for a few years.

I fear the octopus tariff page has confused you and made you continually question how the tariff works.  However we've provided several resources that clearly explain the tariff. Guy lipmans page is extremely clear about it too.

[Deleted User]

To add my 3 years of experience. Octopus time of use tariffs such as Go and Go Faster have unit prices and daily standard charges fixed for 12 months. Think of them as being equivalent to an E4 or E5 tariff with 4 and 5 hours Offpeak respectively. There are no exit fees. As far as Go Faster is concerned, the only caveat is that Octopus reserves the right to change the 5 hour start time if market conditions change. I have seen no reports of this happening.

Agile and Tracker are similar to any standard variable tariff with one key exception. The unit prices will change every day and Octopus is under no contractual obligation to tell you.

The only other constraint is that you cannot switch between Agile and Go/Go Faster (and vice versa) unless you have been on the tariff that you are switching from for at least 30 days. You can switch from Agile/Go/Go Faster to a fixed tariff at anytime.  This was to stop consumers switching to Agile when there was a forecast of high winds, and back to Go when there wasn’t.

There is nothing complex or underhand about the Octopus offer. All their tariff structures are extremely well explained on their product pages and in various blogs. There are FAQs that address every possible question.

The final caveat that I would add is that, similar to any financial investment that you might be offered, then if you do not understand the mechanisms underpinning these tariffs then just stick to something you do understand.

Telegraph_Sam

Once having established that with Go Faster the non off-peak rates for my postcode are 14.99 p / kwh, the basic system has always been clear enough. The confusion arises when as I reported on 1st July I read that the early morning time slots listed on All our Tariffs are also priced at 14.99 - which conflicts with the info on the individual "offer" that I was sent. If the purpose of the scheme is to encourage switching to off peak consumption then this would seem to go contrary to that.
I'm guessing that other forumites get to see the same All our Tariffs as I do with no more than marginal regional variations. Either there is a mistake on the All our Tariffs page, or what appears to be a contradiction. Octopus can obviously price any particular time slot at whatever level they wish but why they should pitch the early morning time slots the same as at peak times I confess to being puzzled over. 
Anyone motivated to read this might like to check that the All our Tariffs for his / her area bear this out, otherwise what I have been saying will come over as garbage.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Once having established that with Go Faster the non off-peak rates for my postcode are 14.99 p / kwh, the basic system has always been clear enough. The confusion arises when as I reported on 1st July I read that the early morning time slots listed on All our Tariffs are also priced at 14.99 - which conflicts with the info on the individual "offer" that I was sent. If the purpose of the scheme is to encourage switching to off peak consumption then this would seem to go contrary to that.
I'm guessing that other forumites get to see the same All our Tariffs as I do with no more than marginal regional variations. Either there is a mistake on the All our Tariffs page, or what appears to be a contradiction. Octopus can obviously price any particular time slot at whatever level they wish but why they should pitch the early morning time slots the same as at peak times I confess to being puzzled over. 
Anyone motivated to read this might like to check that the All our Tariffs for his / her area bear this out, otherwise what I have been saying will come over as garbage.

The 14.99p is for the peak rate. The off-peak price has never been displayed on the All our Tariffs page. This isn't a mistake, it's an omission.

MWT

Telegraph_Sam said:

Anyone motivated to read this might like to check that the All our Tariffs for his / her area bear this out, otherwise what I have been saying will come over as garbage.

You are still confusing the descriptive title of the tariff with the operational time slot of the tariff.

What you see on the tariffs page is just a handy text description not something that will be used to bill you for the time period shown in the title.

You would be better not looking there and just following the details in the invitation.

I do agree that the raw information in the tariffs section is a bit much for a lot of people to follow but it is the way that Octopus works with open APIs to let people access data that you normally never see as a customer.

The Go Faster products are all composites of two tariffs, one for the peak hours and one for the off-peak hours, both are titled with the time slot and the duration.

The only problem in the tariff display is that I think they are culling duplicates from the display that are not actually duplicates but in the end it doesn't really matter as you can never pick one of the Go Faster tariff pairs from that screen, but only from the invite which makes it all clear.

masonic

MWT said:

The Go Faster products are all composites of two tariffs, one for the peak hours and one for the off-peak hours, both are titled with the time slot and the duration.

The only problem in the tariff display is that I think they are culling duplicates from the display that are not actually duplicates but in the end it doesn't really matter as you can never pick one of the Go Faster tariff pairs from that screen, but only from the invite which makes it all clear.

If that's what they are doing, then they should model them on their range of Economy 7 tariffs, for which they are able to show both unit rates.

MWT

masonic said:

MWT said:

The Go Faster products are all composites of two tariffs, one for the peak hours and one for the off-peak hours, both are titled with the time slot and the duration.

The only problem in the tariff display is that I think they are culling duplicates from the display that are not actually duplicates but in the end it doesn't really matter as you can never pick one of the Go Faster tariff pairs from that screen, but only from the invite which makes it all clear.

If that's what they are doing, then they should model them on their range of Economy 7 tariffs, for which they are able to show both unit rates.

I don't disagree, but having composite tariffs which mix time slots and duration is easier to do with tariff sub-components rather than individual fixed tariffs so it become more of a communication problem than anything.

Regardless of if I'm right or not, the result looks like a mess at the moment. I've drawn their attention to the problem, so we'll see how they fix it...