Anything Positive about Smart Meters?

Highland76

Thanks MWT, very helpful. Do Octopus do a similar gas tariff? 
Edit: it seems they don't. So how would I combine the Agile Octopus electric tariff with an Octopus gas tariff? I prefer to take both gas & electric from the same supplier, as long as the prices are competitive. I already have smets2 smart meters.

ASavvyBuyer

Highland76 said:

Thanks MWT, very helpful. Do Octopus do a similar gas tariff? 
Edit: it seems they don't. So how would I combine the Agile Octopus electric tariff with an Octopus gas tariff? I prefer to take both gas & electric from the same supplier, as long as the prices are competitive. I already have smets2 smart meters.

They do a Gas Tracker tariff. You just have to ask Octopus for it. Have a look at the guide here for more info.

Petriix

Of course Agile is great for people with exceptionally high usage. I'm only importing ~ 3kWh per day at the moment with the majority being in the peak period so I'm better off on a low single rate; unless I switch dinner time to after 8pm which I doubt the kids would appreciate.

MWT

Highland76 said:

Thanks MWT, very helpful. Do Octopus do a similar gas tariff? 
Edit: it seems they don't. So how would I combine the Agile Octopus electric tariff with an Octopus gas tariff? I prefer to take both gas & electric from the same supplier, as long as the prices are competitive. I already have smets2 smart meters.

Octopus allow you to pick any of their current gas tariffs to go with Agile.

That could be the Tracker Tariff mentioned above, which has a daily variable price, or one of their fixed tariffs if you prefer.

Highland76

Thanks MWT. What sort of electric kWh rates are you seeing between the peak 4pm-7pm period on the Agile tariff? We usually eat around 6pm so concerned that using our electric oven & microwave during this period could send our electric bills through the roof. Other things like dishwasher, tumble dryer etc can easily be used outside the peak period as they have delay timers. Though it would also mean not having to use our Pioneer Kuro plasma TV before 7pm....can see major arguments in the home coming up lol

MWT

Highland76 said:

We usually eat around 6pm so concerned that using our electric oven & microwave during this period could send our electric bills through the roof.

We eat at 7pm so we are using our electric oven/hob & microwave between 6-7pm everyday and that is included in my numbers of course.

I'd suggest that since you already have a smart meter you take a look at your actual usage during that time of day, as for us, even with cooking, it tends to add only around 1-2kWh at most to our base load which is way more than compensated for by the much cheaper usage at other times of day.

As an example of the prices, the average in those 30 min slots for July for us (Eastern Region) was as follows:

19.28605

21.5691

20.78335

22.28905

22.24915

22.15605

It really all depends on how much you use, if 4-7pm is a large part of your daily use then Agile is not for you.

We use around 11% of our daily electricity consumption in the 4-7pm period.

clive0510

I have a smart meter and in answer to the o/p thread title the positive thing about a smart  meter is obviously that you dont have to keep fiddling about sending meter readings every month. my meter box is outside on the back wall, and I can never find the key to it when I want it! so for me smart meter is definitely a positve.

bristolleedsfan

Octopus Agile- National Average Daily Stats -

https://twitter.com/energystatsuk

Highland76

bristolleedsfan said:

Octopus Agile- National Average Daily Stats -

https://twitter.com/energystatsuk

That's very useful, thanks.
Probably a stupid question but I'll ask anyway: considering the Agile tariff changes every 30 mins, does that mean that each day you are charged 48 different unit rates for your electricity usage, considering most of us have appliances running 24/7 such as fridge freezer, router etc? Or nearly 1500 different unit rates each month?! I can see the bills getting quite messy if that's the case but I suspect I've got something wrong! lol

benny5

clive0510 said:

I have a smart meter and in answer to the o/p thread title the positive thing about a smart  meter is obviously that you dont have to keep fiddling about sending meter readings every month. my meter box is outside on the back wall, and I can never find the key to it when I want it! so for me smart meter is definitely a positve.

Thanks for dealing with the subject, appreciate your contribution. Like so many things in life, people generally react to the negative rather than the positives of products/services.