Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

niktheguru

Telegraph_Sam said:

I was assuming that whatever FIT arrangements I have with (in this case) Scottish Power are quite separate from and do not affect the deal I have with Octopus - who are unaware of my SV arrangements. Forget that I mentioned these.

The question is simply if I can get credit for "negative consumption" if I am on a Go or Go Faster tariff?

No, I don't think you can.
As I understand you will get you fit payments which is a different arrangement from Scottish Power.
Then regarding octopus you pay for whatever you use. If you end up using solar and not from grid then you would pay octopus nothing, but wouldn't get any credit for negative consumption.

MWT

Telegraph_Sam said:

The question is simply if I can get credit for "negative consumption" if I am on a Go or Go Faster tariff?

No, your FIT arrangement pays you for this, you can’t get paid for it twice.

[Deleted User]

niktheguru said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

The question is simply if I can get credit for "negative consumption" if I am on a Go or Go Faster tariff?

What ‘negative consumption’? Unlike some analogue meters, smart meters do not back pedal when energy is exported. Smart meters will record all the energy that you import and all the energy that you export on separate registers. If you are paid FITs with deemed exports then all export readings will be ignored. Octopus will charge you for all energy imported and SP will continue to pay your FIT and export payments.

I should have added for completeness that if you are using, say, 25% of your solar and exporting 75% to the Grid, you can elect to forgo the 50% deemed export figure (ie; you still retain the FIT payments), and you can apply to Octopus for Social Export Guarantee (SEG) payments for all the energy exported through the smart meter. Octopus has to apply for an export MPAN before they can pay you.

This is where things can get complicated. If you want to remain on Go/Go Faster then Octopus will only pay 3p/kWh. If you are on any of their other import tariffs, they will either pay you 5.5p/kWh or you can elect to go onto Agile Outgoing where the export figure changes every 30 minutes. Some people have been paid over £1/kWh when supply was limited and demand was high.

Umiamz

I always assumed that if you can access your SMETS1 data via n3rgy it means they have been enrolled and adopted into the DCC. It turns out that this is not the case, because Hildebrand have told me that my meters definitely haven't been enrolled and adopted when I tried to access the data via their Bright app.

It appears that n3rgy have come to some sort of arrangement with Secure to allow the data to be accessed.

Telegraph_Sam

" This is where things can get complicated. If you want to remain on Go/Go Faster then Octopus will only pay 3p/kWh. If you are on any of their other import tariffs...."
I think that is the practical answer: If you have jump through SEG hoops and do a Houdini in return for what may turn out to be marginal savings, the conclusion is that it is not worth it. I have never had any conversation with Octopus about my solar panels so it is difficult to imagine any trade-off. If SMETS2's cannot normally account for negative consumption with Go Faster then that is my answer.

I believe that I have registered with n3rgy, with some hassle, but have yet to find out what I can get out of it. It would appear to be historical consumption data.

[Deleted User]

Telegraph_Sam said:

" This is where things can get complicated. If you want to remain on Go/Go Faster then Octopus will only pay 3p/kWh. If you are on any of their other import tariffs...."
I think that is the practical answer: If you have jump through SEG hoops and do a Houdini in return for what may turn out to be marginal savings, the conclusion is that it is not worth it. I have never had any conversation with Octopus about my solar panels so it is difficult to imagine any trade-off. If SMETS2's cannot normally account for negative consumption with Go Faster then that is my answer.

I believe that I have registered with n3rgy, with some hassle, but have yet to find out what I can get out of it. It would appear to be historical consumption data.

The data that Octopus pulls from your smart meter is by its nature historic as opposed to real-time. 

SEG works for new solar installations and for people who have added panels to their existing installation. Moreover, if you are not using much of your solar, then being paid 5.5p/kWh for all exported energy may result in higher payments than 50% deemed export.

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

" This is where things can get complicated. If you want to remain on Go/Go Faster then Octopus will only pay 3p/kWh. If you are on any of their other import tariffs...."
I think that is the practical answer: If you have jump through SEG hoops and do a Houdini in return for what may turn out to be marginal savings, the conclusion is that it is not worth it. I have never had any conversation with Octopus about my solar panels so it is difficult to imagine any trade-off. If SMETS2's cannot normally account for negative consumption with Go Faster then that is my answer.

I believe that I have registered with n3rgy, with some hassle, but have yet to find out what I can get out of it. It would appear to be historical consumption data.

It's not at all clear to me what you're trying to achieve.

You currently have FIT payments and deemed exports. You have a generation meter. Now that you have a smart meter you also have an export meter.

• Keep a record of your (daily/weekly/monthly) generaton and export numbers.
  
• If you're exporting significantly more than 50% of what you generate it might be worth switching to metered export within your existing FIT.
• If you've got an early FIT where the export rate is 3.something not 5.something you might also want to consider switching from FIT export to SEG, but you can't have Octopus's best SEG export tariff (Outgoing Agile) at the same time as Go / Go Faster.
  

MWT

Telegraph_Sam said:

If SMETS2's cannot normally account for negative consumption with Go Faster then that is my answer.

The choice of tariff or energy supplier for that matter is irrelevant, SMETS2 meters properly account for import and export separately as that is the only correct way to meter in the UK.

We don't have 'net metering' over here, unlike the USA for example, and even there they still track the two separately as they mostly still charge the user for the network overhead on the full import, and just credit the direct cost of the energy component for the export.

Some old meters over here do run backwards during export, but that is a fault not a feature, so we do not have the concept of 'negative consumption' at all.

Telegraph_Sam

Thanks for filling me in with the last 3 posts. Complex as the technicalities are I don't see that anything conflicts with the conclusions that I have come to. Having just decided that Go Faster best fits my present requirements I would be reluctant to switch to Agile or any other.

My solar panels are 8 years old. I doubt if I export significantly more than 50% of what I generate but it would be worth checking. Is this something that the new meter can provide when it is fully functional?

[Deleted User]

Telegraph_Sam said:

Thanks for filling me in with the last 3 posts. Complex as the technicalities are I don't see that anything conflicts with the conclusions that I have come to. Having just decided that Go Faster best fits my present requirements I would be reluctant to switch to Agile or any other.

My solar panels are 8 years old. I doubt if I export significantly more than 50% of what I generate but it would be worth checking. Is this something that the new meter can provide when it is fully functional?

If you look at the actual meter - not the IHD - you should be able to see two registers: one, for import and the other one for export. Octopus will not recover the export data as they have no right to do so.