Octopus Tracker

QrizB

SJMALBA said:

I don't (yet) have a smart meter, but when I log into my account, there's a daily cost showing for electricity & gas under the heading of ‘Today's Octopus Tracker costs’ - is this based upon Octopus' guess as to what my daily usage might be on that day?

That's my assumption, yes.

Does the Tracker applet work for you? Mine tries to but then doesn't get past the intro pages. It could just be my browser / adblocker / plugins but I've tried various options without success. It might be the same for everyone?

SJMALBA

No, it doesn't work for me, either - I automatically assumed that it was down to my lack of a smart meter, so didn't investigate further; however, I'll check into it, with different browsers etc, just to see...

edit: No joy, with a few different browsers...

Spies

I've done some calculations for the past 30 days on the electricity side of the tracker.

I've compared the cost using the last 30 days tracker prices vs the current SVT (28.01p).

I've come to the conclusion over the past 30 days I would have saved £7.89 by being on the Tracker, HOWEVER because I offset my self consumed solar, this also has an effect, so as a result, if I was on tracker, my self consumed solar would have been worth £7.87 LESS than it would have been on SVT which gives me a net saving of 2p but also increases payback time for my solar system.

Really tough one!

Alnat1

Maybe we need to learn not to be so concerned about payback time. It's the home improvement that will pay for itself over time but does it matter when?

We buy lots of items to improve life and hopefully save a few £s but don't track them the way we do with solar installations. Hopefully that new super AAA+ rated washer will save money but we don't do calculations to prove how much. We happily fit new bathrooms/kitchens that don't give us a penny back.

k_man

QrizB said:

SJMALBA said:

I don't (yet) have a smart meter, but when I log into my account, there's a daily cost showing for electricity & gas under the heading of ‘Today's Octopus Tracker costs’ - is this based upon Octopus' guess as to what my daily usage might be on that day?

That's my assumption, yes.

Does the Tracker applet work for you? Mine tries to but then doesn't get past the intro pages. It could just be my browser / adblocker / plugins but I've tried various options without success. It might be the same for everyone?

Tracker applet doesn't work for me either. Never has.
Just get an animated infinity at the bottom of the page

masonic

Spies said:

I've come to the conclusion over the past 30 days I would have saved £7.89 by being on the Tracker, HOWEVER because I offset my self consumed solar, this also has an effect, so as a result, if I was on tracker, my self consumed solar would have been worth £7.87 LESS than it would have been on SVT which gives me a net saving of 2p but also increases payback time for my solar system.

Maybe you should look for the most expensive tariff so that your payback time is minimised and your self-consumed solar can save you more money

Your self consumed solar is free energy. It shouldn't come into the calculations of savings between two tariffs.

Spies

masonic said:

Spies said:

I've come to the conclusion over the past 30 days I would have saved £7.89 by being on the Tracker, HOWEVER because I offset my self consumed solar, this also has an effect, so as a result, if I was on tracker, my self consumed solar would have been worth £7.87 LESS than it would have been on SVT which gives me a net saving of 2p but also increases payback time for my solar system.

Maybe you should look for the most expensive tariff so that your payback time is minimised and your self-consumed solar can save you more money

Your self consumed solar is free energy. It shouldn't come into the calculations of savings between two tariffs.

Technically it does though because otherwise I'd be using extra from the grid if it wasn't there, so I class it as a saving.

I've taken the month with the highest tracker prices, March, and done more calculations, if we were using a 40p cap for tracker and 28p for SVT at that time it would have been almost an additional £19 to be on the electricity tracker, using the figures from that time (30p Tracker and 20.8p SVT) the difference is similar (within a few pence).

Once more I gain an extra £9 value on top from using my own generated power but it still makes it overall £10 more expensive.

I just cannot ignore that statistic, the other thing is (obviously) that the Tracker will be higher during the darkest months when I'm unable to offset that extra cost.

masonic

Spies said:

masonic said:

Spies said:

I've come to the conclusion over the past 30 days I would have saved £7.89 by being on the Tracker, HOWEVER because I offset my self consumed solar, this also has an effect, so as a result, if I was on tracker, my self consumed solar would have been worth £7.87 LESS than it would have been on SVT which gives me a net saving of 2p but also increases payback time for my solar system.

Maybe you should look for the most expensive tariff so that your payback time is minimised and your self-consumed solar can save you more money

Your self consumed solar is free energy. It shouldn't come into the calculations of savings between two tariffs.

Technically it does though because otherwise I'd be using extra from the grid if it wasn't there, so I class it as a saving.

That doesn't make sense, a kWh is a kWh regardless of price. The fact that it is priced at 28p vs 40p or some other price doesn't change how much you are pulling from the grid. If you can get that kWh from your solar array, then it is reducing your import reading by 1 kWh, and will do so whatever tariff you are on. From your table, what you should do is calculate your net imported units ( kWh used - (generated - exported) ) and then multiply the imported kWh used by each tariff rate. That will give you a real world saving of being on one tariff vs the other. Nothing to stop you using SVT to calculate the theoretical profitability of your solar array, but it would be rather silly to give up a tangible saving to use a more flatteringly expensive unit rate in your theoretical payback calculations.

QrizB

Spies said:

I've come to the conclusion over the past 30 days I would have saved £7.89 by being on the Tracker, HOWEVER because I offset my self consumed solar, this also has an effect, so as a result, if I was on tracker, my self consumed solar would have been worth £7.87 LESS than it would have been on SVT which gives me a net saving of 2p but also increases payback time for my solar system.

You've already spent the money on your solar PV, it's a sunk cost. Let it go.

Payback time was a useful tool for helping to decide whether to make the investment, but now you've spent the money it's just a curiosity.

masonic said:

Maybe you should look for the most expensive tariff so that your payback time is minimised and your self-consumed solar can save you more money

Your self consumed solar is free energy. It shouldn't come into the calculations of savings between two tariffs.

We occasionally get this fallacy on the "Green and Ethical" board. At least one of the regulars can be relied upon to chip in with "well, if you switch to a more expensive tariff you'll break even sooner".

... but it would be rather silly to give up a tangible saving to use a more flatteringly expensive unit rate in your theoretical payback calculations.

 I agree, you shouldn't let the payback tail wag the moneysaving dog.

Alnat1

Right, it's done, a few weeks of deciding, now I've finally requested to change from Flexible to Tracker on both gas and electric.

Thank you to those who've given advice and posted links to info on the Energy and G&E threads