Current Agile prices 11 September 2020 at 4:56PM edited 11 September 2020 at 5:04PM in Green & Ethical MoneySaving 103 replies 2K views

EVandPV

Was looking forward to some nice cheap leccy this weekend as we've had gale force winds across much of Scotland the past 24 hours and forecast for the same over the next couple of days yet Agile prices for the next 24 hours are barely below 7p at any point. What the #%*# !!??
We're currently averaging 7p a unit so far this month too. 

ASavvyBuyer

I was monitoring the future forecasts for wholesale electric over the previous month and realised that it was very unlikely that low prices on Agile would be happening for some time.

With most of the nuclear power stations being ofline because of safety and maintenance issues and the national grid asking the others to run at reduced power, the wholesale prices are unlikely to be low.

We switched back to Go Faster a week ago and have been making the most of the 5p/kWh for 4 hours for charging the EV's etc.

EVandPV

ASavvyBuyer said:

We switched back to Go Faster a week ago and have been making the most of the 5p/kWh for 4 hours for charging the EV's etc.

I can see us switching back soon too. Go is also just so much easier to plan charging around.
I guess the run of cheap/negative prices in the spring was down to a combination of plenty RE due to the very sunny/windy weather plus offices and businesses being closed during lockdown. Unlikely to be repeated any time soon.
As usual, we missed the boat.  

ASavvyBuyer

EVandPV said:

ASavvyBuyer said:

We switched back to Go Faster a week ago and have been making the most of the 5p/kWh for 4 hours for charging the EV's etc.

I can see us switching back soon too. Go is also just so much easier to plan charging around.
I guess the run of cheap/negative prices in the spring was down to a combination of plenty RE due to the very sunny/windy weather plus offices and businesses being closed during lockdown. Unlikely to be repeated any time soon.
As usual, we missed the boat.  

It took Octopus a couple of days to switch us back to Go Faster. The advantage with Octopus is that you can easily switch between tariffs without exit fees. I am still monitoring Agile prices and future wholesale forecasts, so if it looks like it will return to low overnight (and afternoon) p/kWh we can always switch back to Agile.

EVandPV

I did it online when we switched from Go to Agile clicking the option halfway down the info page ..... https://octopus.energy/agile/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwOz6BRCgARIsAKEG4FVu0h3XFPI6L3DnxXmtPJpsVzSiNL-6idOMXrRq3h_ALqmcOrhTTgoaAm1HEALw_wcB

The switch was done at midnight the following day. 
Switching back to Go looks just as easy on the Go info page.

EVandPV

Ah, finally some sub 5p pricing tonight !

ASavvyBuyer

EVandPV said:

Ah, finally some sub 5p pricing tonight !

Hope you can make the most of it. From the forecasts for next week it looks unlikely they will be that low again.

https://energy.guylipman.com/forecasts?region=K

EVandPV

ASavvyBuyer said:

EVandPV said:

Ah, finally some sub 5p pricing tonight !

Hope you can make the most of it. From the forecasts for next week it looks unlikely they will be that low again.

https://energy.guylipman.com/forecasts?region=K

Yup, back to Go for us I think.  

ASavvyBuyer

EVandPV said:

ASavvyBuyer said:

EVandPV said:

Ah, finally some sub 5p pricing tonight !

Hope you can make the most of it. From the forecasts for next week it looks unlikely they will be that low again.

https://energy.guylipman.com/forecasts?region=K

Yup, back to Go for us I think.  

If you ask nicely you can switch to one of the Go Faster Tariffs. All the different versions are listed here.

We choose the 4 Hours from 02:30 @ 5p/kWh as the timing fitted in better for when we want to use the most power.

Quite nice waking up to the washing done, car charged & the smell of freshly baked bread, from the automatic breadmaker, in the morning

EVandPV

Just did the switch back to Go online. Took less than a minute and got an instant email saying we're back on Go from midnight tonight. 
Can't argue with that for a good service !
I'm fine with the standard Go tariff from 0.30am to 4.30am @ 5p. I'll just go back to a timed schedule for charging the car and house batteries. 
Nice and simple compared to running a script for the cheapest Agile times, which could be a bit hit or miss.
I'll still use a more basic script to decide how much charge to put into the house batteries based on a solar forecast from the Solcast API. Should be a bit more accurate now it's tuned to our actual pv generation.

ASavvyBuyer

EVandPV said:

Just did the switch back to Go online. Took less than a minute and got an instant email saying we're back on Go from midnight tonight. 
Can't argue with that for a good service !
I'm fine with the standard Go tariff from 0.30am to 4.30am @ 5p. I'll just go back to a timed schedule for charging the car and house batteries. 
Nice and simple compared to running a script for the cheapest Agile times, which could be a bit hit or miss.
I'll still use a more basic script to decide how much charge to put into the house batteries based on a solar forecast from the Solcast API. Should be a bit more accurate now it's tuned to our actual pv generation.

Looks like you did it just in time, seeing what the rates are like for tomorrow

35p peak rates from 5pm till 8pm for the South Wales Region and fairly pricey at other times of the day.

But they coud have been a lot higher if there wasn't the 35p cap

https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/Market-data1/GB/Auction-prices/UK/Hourly/?view=table