Octopus Tracker

masonic

Sun-Is-Fun said:

masonic said:

Sun-Is-Fun said:

Can anyone explain the difference between Octopus Tracker and Agile Octopus?

In a nutshell, Tracker gives a single unit price that changes each day, while Agile gives a unit price that varies each half hour, with an additional peak period between 4-7pm where the unit price is increased relative to the rest of the day.

Thank you for your reply. 

I have been on the Agile tariff a couple of weeks and, so far, really pleased with it - certainly saving quite a bit compared to the SVR. I am also on the waiting list for the tracker, but am wondering if Agile is better for me overall? I am able to shift washing machine loads / dishwasher to in the night or when it is cheaper.

Any thoughts on this? 

Both tariffs have been unusually cheap over the last week or so. Plenty of wind has certainly helped. Agile can work very well if you can shift most of your usage to cheaper times and avoid usage in the expensive peak period. It requires a bit of forward planning/engagement, whereas with Tracker there is no need to load-shift during each day. Both can go through expensive periods. In the past when I've been on Agile, it worked better for me than Tracker would have, but recently Tracker has looked more attractive for my usage. I suggest you run your own comparison if you can work out your average unit price on Agile and compare with the Tracker price for that day.

Personally, I've pretty much made up my mind that I'll move onto Agile when my Go Faster contract expires, but I won't stay on it long-term. I'm hoping for some sort of fix to take me through next winter, as things could get really expensive again at a time of year when my usage is very high. There seems little point joining a Tracker waitlist for that reason.

Alnat1

There's an Octopus Compare app, it can compare what your usage would have been on various tariffs.

masonic

Alnat1 said:

There's an Octopus Compare app, it can compare what your usage would have been on various tariffs.

I have that, but it doesn't include the Tracker tariff. However, it does calculate your average unit cost, which can be manually compared to each day's Tracker price.

I ended up building my own script to pull my usage and pricing of various tariffs from the API. Tracker sits on a separate API endpoint, so that's probably why OC doesn't include it.

silverwhistle

I've found that Tracker for gas and Intelligent Octopus for me works well, the latter as I have an EV and can also load shift (shall do a load of sheets tonight, thanks for this thread reminding me!).

Earlier in the week gas was under 5p a unit and today 5.27. I'm keeping an eye on Agile which I was on before, but suspect it won't be quite worth my while until some more wind capacity goes online this year and we have a windy autumn. My solar panels also complicate the issue in summer so calculating the best tariff gets messy.

It's very difficult to recommend to anybody else as you don't know their circumstances, so one can only point out the possibilities based on one's own experience. There's quite a number of anti-smart meter diehards on these boards so I don't put any effort into persuading them.

Doc_N

Posts on HUKD suggest that Octopus are pulling the Tracker tariff.  

Anything in this?

masonic

Given the amount of hassle and drama they are having to deal with on a daily basis from those trying to jump the queue, and others complaining about queue jumping, it would not surprise me.

bristolleedsfan

Doc_N said:

Posts on HUKD suggest that Octopus are pulling the Tracker tariff.  

Anything in this?

With current version being Variable with no end date Octopus could give notice to end the tariff if they wanted to, sounds to me like an April fools day joke. 

hteebeezdeals

6 h, 47 m ago

Octopus are pulling the Tracker tariff and reverting all customers to SVT.  

LikeReply4

Haz_19

6 h, 51 m ago

Yep such a shame 

LikeReply

LordHippos

6 h, 51 m ago

April something something!

tlcgrantham

Octopus have allowed me to stay on Gas Tracker V2 for another 12 months. Over the past year it has cost me £581.82 and I’ve used 7862kw, that’s an average of 7.4p/kWh, so I’m really chuffed.

SteveNorfolk

tlcgrantham said:

Octopus have allowed me to stay on Gas Tracker V2 for another 12 months. Over the past year it has cost me £581.82 and I’ve used 7862kw, that’s an average of 7.4p/kWh, so I’m really chuffed.

Excellent! How did you manage that? So what will your cap be on V2?

tlcgrantham

V2 has a cap of 11p and an SC of 15.09p