Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

If your opening reading keeps getting "postponed" one wonders how the "missing" kwh's will be accounted for. It will be interesting to hear what you make of your first Tracker invoice.

They'll be billed by the old supplier after the opening read is validated and then provided to them, assuming Octopus takes the last reading submitted in the 10 day opening read window.

Telegraph_Sam said:

I might end up taking the data from Guy Lipman except that this does not attempt to do any forecasting as the video demo does in some obscure way.

There is some forecasting here: https://energy.guylipman.com/forecasts
It's used to generate a forecast for Agile, but you can scroll down and look at the net demand figure to give a guide to the tracker price trend. Looks to be a cheap day tomorrow.

nadsat

Telegraph_Sam said:

These are readings from a smart meter I suppose?

No. Just from before and end readings. As said, they apportion the kWhs across the days and then apply the rate for that day. I don't know why the amount consumed varies to the extent it does per day on this method - I'm sure it's in the small print. 

Telegraph_Sam

I'm wondering if any of this data bears any resemblance to the official "quote" which presumably you and I were given before signing up. In my case the quote was pretty irresistable but I fear that reality could turn out much more expensive.

nadsat

Telegraph_Sam said:

I'm wondering if any of this data bears any resemblance to the official "quote" which presumably you and I were given before signing up. In my case the quote was pretty irresistable but I fear that reality could turn out much more expensive.

There is no quote for a tracker. It does what it says on the tin, and monthly direct debits are subject to change on any tariff. You could argue with the differential between the wholesale and retail price maybe (which is made up of several components). A best comparison would be with another company's tracker - are there any? 

I took out a base rate tracker on our mortgage 12 years ago - that was a great decision...

Telegraph_Sam

I most definitely got (more than one) very competitive official Tracker "quote" but this contaimed some small print saying that prices would be decided on the day. I would have expected something along these lines.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I'm wondering if any of this data bears any resemblance to the official "quote" which presumably you and I were given before signing up. In my case the quote was pretty irresistable but I fear that reality could turn out much more expensive.

Much more expensive than what?

- current prices? That's inevitable over the long term. Over the short term, supply issues have been resolved and demand is lower in the warmer months

- Other Octopus tariffs? Unlikely as Octopus has to price the tariffs to make a profit, which means taking a conservative view of what margins it can make at a given fixed price. It's normal tariffs are not very competitive in general.

- ToU tariffs? Depends on what times of the day you tend to use the most energy, as the tracker is an average day price that has average customer usage patterns factored in

- The best whole of market deal? Possibly, there are cheaper suppliers out there and they could be in customer acquisition mode, so willing to risk making a loss in the short term by pricing very close to breakeven.

Telegraph_Sam

Comparing the Tracker prices in my quote(s) with the current daily and forecast prices as shown in the demo

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Comparing the Tracker prices in my quote(s) with the current daily and forecast prices as shown in the demo

If you are comparing two different sets of fictional prices generated at different times, then it is likely they will differ. Forecasted prices depend in part on predicted weather conditions, and long range weather forecasts are not known for their accuracy. If you want to know what your energy costs will be in advance, then the Tracker is not a suitable tariff to be on. It's worse than a conventional variable tariff, which at least has visibility 30 days ahead.

Telegraph_Sam

I cannot account for how Octopus operates. They certainly provided me with a quote which was sufficiently attractive to persuade me to sign up even if reality works out somewhat more expensive.  I am guessing that they base their forecasts on something that they can justify. If one can "trade off" certainty against good prices then that could work out attractive. Time will tell ..

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I cannot account for how Octopus operates. They certainly provided me with a quote which was sufficiently attractive to persuade me to sign up even if reality works out somewhat more expensive.  I am guessing that they base their forecasts on something that they can justify. If one can "trade off" certainty against good prices then that could work out attractive. Time will tell ..

They are using pricing data from 2019 for comparisons on their Agile sign up page, so best not to assume any quotes will be accurate. The Tracker demo page looks more realistic, for my region the unit price is projected to be around 14p over the next 6 months, with the best whole of market deals (fixed and variable price) coming in at around 12p, so I wouldn't want to be on the tracker myself.

Even today's price, which is unusually low at 12.5p a unit can be beaten by other suppliers normal tariffs. Meanwhile, Agile pricing for most of today is 5-10p a unit. The Tracker worked out well for people during the first lockdown, but I don't see the attraction now.