Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

Telegraph_Sam

The beauty of Go Faster was that you could get a good deal in return for "limited" load shifting whilst not going to the extremes. The question facing many is which way to jump if the "middle way" GF is now coming to an end. My gut feeling is that Tracker looks like the least worst option provided you keep an eye on the spot prices and have a plan to jump ship if these appear to do more than "spike". The reasoning may not be the same for both gas and electricity however.
If it comes to opting for a fixed price tariff then Intelligent seems to me to be worth investigating if I have  understood the mechanics correctly.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

If it comes to opting for a fixed price tariff then Intelligent seems to me to be worth investigating if I have  understood the mechanics correctly.

Would they let you on this though, without an EV?

Telegraph_Sam

"If I have understood .." I suspect that your understanding of the T's and C's is better than mine      Is this spelled out somewhere?

BargainBear

masonic said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

If it comes to opting for a fixed price tariff then Intelligent seems to me to be worth investigating if I have  understood the mechanics correctly.

Would they let you on this though, without an EV?

Wasn't this supposed to be the case on Go Faster? Although many of us, including myself, who don't possess an EV were on the tariff previously, and renewed just fine.

How heavy do Octopus police this requirement? I can't see them requesting a copy of V5C's and storing them on file.

We're currently on Flexible (July 2021 v1) for gas, and Go Faster for electricity until the beginning of August this year. Having the same quandary about jumping back on Tracker, which we were on just before it went haywire.

bristolleedsfan

Telegraph_Sam said:

If it comes to opting for a fixed price tariff then Intelligent seems to me to be worth investigating if I have  understood the mechanics correctly.

Intelligent "The next generation tariff for electric vehicle charging" has been Variable rate tariff for new switches to it from October onwards.

BargainBear

It's a damn shame Octopus aren't bringing out more TOU tariffs to encourage shift loading. I get the impression that more are potentially on their way, although they'll be heavily aimed at EV's purely because the supplier can utilise the battery power elsewhere, instead of pulling from the grid; shift loading only goes so far.

masonic

BargainBear said:

masonic said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

If it comes to opting for a fixed price tariff then Intelligent seems to me to be worth investigating if I have  understood the mechanics correctly.

Would they let you on this though, without an EV?

Wasn't this supposed to be the case on Go Faster? Although many of us, including myself, who don't possess an EV were on the tariff previously, and renewed just fine.

How heavy do Octopus police this requirement? I can't see them requesting a copy of V5C's and storing them on file.

We're currently on Flexible (July 2021 v1) for gas, and Go Faster for electricity until the beginning of August this year. Having the same quandary about jumping back on Tracker, which we were on just before it went haywire.

It wasn't the case when many of us signed up to it. I didn't try to renew after the requirement was added. I was able to get an extra year out of them at the original pricing when they failed to send out renewal emails in good time and therefore rolled it over without any checks or price variation. Things have changed this year. I don't know what evidence they collect, but it was suggested that they may request sight of relevant documentation. All options presented to me required signup and completion of the relevant survey. The default option I'd have rolled onto if I didn't pro-actively sign up to something else was Flexible.

I don't really see any benefit of moving onto vanilla Go for most non-EV owners, so the allure has more or less gone away now. As mentioned, these are all variable tariffs now, as the change allowed them to benefit from the EPG.

Telegraph_Sam said:

"If I have understood .." I suspect that your understanding of the T's and C's is better than mine      Is this spelled out somewhere?

The prerequisites are:

Also, their sign-up page suggests they need to authenticate your car through a test charge before you'd be successfully switched.

Telegraph_Sam

Arguably the total load shift would be increased if the system was less rigid in its demands, and catered for moderate converts (like me) also.

Is the only way one can examine and compare the individual T's & C's by "signing up" for each in turn?

What is the minimum notice period that the supplier should give of a change of tariff in the absence of which the tariff used rolls over / defaults to the original as I understand it?

BargainBear

We managed to shift I'd say 80% of our load on the original 8:30pm Go Faster slot. Admittedly we've struggled more on the 9:30pm slot, which has been noticeable in our bill.

I'm hoping with the launch of the new DSO, and the savings they're looking to make, we'll see a lot more TOU tariffs in the South/London/Eastern areas. Albeit they present the savings they want to make to the suppliers and the suppliers are then responsible for formulating the plan/tariffs to make those savings, fingers crossed!

I've seriously been considering installing solar+battery(ies) recently. I need to explore this further as there's a lot of competition in the market right now which is helping drive prices down.

Telegraph_Sam

Interested to read about your experience with GF.
For what it's worth I installed solar panels many years ago and by now they must have paid for themselves. On the other hand whenever I have looked at solar batteries I have looked no further. Break even point invisible over the distant horizon. [Sorry if this is off topic]