Octopus Tracker

Griffindog

I wonder if they will introduce a new version with lower caps once they have weeded out all the ‘stay safe’ people?

Last year I hovered over leaving for quite a while but fortunately my summer bills are quite low so I didn’t pay too much extra. It has definitely been worth sticking with it. £1/30p caps could be eye watering though. I can’t afford to stick around if prices go really high.

QrizB

Eccles04 said:

So as of today the wholesale price of UK gas is quoted at around 2p per kwh and I will be required to pay around 8p per kwh which is a mark up of 400%.

That is not how the retail energy market works, unless you're on a very non-standard tariff like Octopus Tracker.

This has been explained in exhaustive detail several times recently, and a cursory search of the forum should find a relevant thread.

MouldyOldDough

Eccles04 said:

So as of today the wholesale price of UK gas is quoted at around 2p per kwh and I will be required to pay around 8p per kwh which is a mark up of 400%. Most retail businesses in the UK average a mark up of 20-25% in my experience (qualified accountant) which means that Ofgem has failed and needs to be replaced by a "toothed" watchdog working for the consumer. Will this government do it?

Electricity is currently 1.36p per kWh wholesale

Gas is 0.64p per kWh

That's some mark up isn't it ?

The government will do absolutely nothing about this - mainly due to taxation and revenue generated from.....

QrizB

MouldyOldDough said:

Electricity is currently 1.36p per kWh wholesale

Gas is 0.64p per kWh

Your source for those numbers? They're not showing at any of the usual marketplaces. I suspect someone is making stuff up.

Edit to add:

Nordpool the electricity market, gives the average price of a MWh as £72.52 today. That's 7.25p per kWh, not 1.36p.

Trading Economics lists natural gas for June delivery as 56p a therm, which is about 2p per kWh, not 0.64p.

Mstty

Eccles04 said:

So as of today the wholesale price of UK gas is quoted at around 2p per kwh and I will be required to pay around 8p per kwh which is a mark up of 400%. Most retail businesses in the UK average a mark up of 20-25% in my experience (qualified accountant) which means that Ofgem has failed and needs to be replaced by a "toothed" watchdog working for the consumer. Will this government do it?

I am happy if you want to just pay your energy supplier 2p kWh + 25% so 2.5p kWh.

Let us know how you get on with that.

Telegraph_Sam

Just to add to the noise:
According to My Smart Energy the latest Tracker Gas v 1 price for the North East is 3.41 p/ kWh which I take to be retail.
My last gas invoice dated 14th May charged me 4.42 p/kWh plus VAT which I take to be a 30 day average (no smart meter). I know that gas prices have been on a downward trend.
From here it ought to be possible to work back to what the corresponding wholesale price is by "reversing" the so-called "standard industry formula" shown on the invoice. But at that point I gave up in the hope that a more mathematically inclined forumite can shed some daylight into this murky world.

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

Just to add to the noise:
According to My Smart Energy the latest Tracker Gas v 1 price for the North East is 3.41 p/ kWh which I take to be retail.
My last gas invoice dated 14th May charged me 4.42 p/kWh plus VAT which I take to be a 30 day average (no smart meter). I know that gas prices have been on a downward trend.
From here it ought to be possible to work back to what the corresponding wholesale price is by "reversing" the so-called "standard industry formula" shown on the invoice. But at that point I gave up in the hope that a more mathematically inclined forumite can shed some daylight into this murky world.

I'm not sure quite what you are trying to calculate.

The daily wholesale prices that Octopus use for billing are tabulated at the back of your bill, and the formula they use is published on the Tracker FAQ page of their website.

Do I need to screenshot a recent bill for a demonstration?

Telegraph_Sam

Correct - the daily wholesale prices are quoted on my bill in p / thm alongside my retail rate  in p/kWh. What doesn't seem to be there - for the sake of this particular thread - is the conversion into common units i.e. from p / thm into p / kWh for comparison. Is this what you found on the FAQ page (which I have yet to see)? 

QrizB

Thats simple enough, a therm is 29.3 kWh.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therm

Telegraph_Sam

Picking up the thread first launched by MouldyOldDough, I have checked the break-down of my most recent Tracker V 1 gas invoice. The variations are greater than I would have expected. Over a 20 day period Octopus' gross margin ranged from a min of 26% to a max of 40%, the mark up from min 36% to a max of 66%. This is comparing the daily wholesale price with my unit retail price.
For a commodity product of this nature I would have expected lower trading margins.