Octopus Tracker

QrizB

... and this is why we often say that people shouldn't sign up to Tracker (or any of the other non-standard tariffs) without understanding what they are agreeing to.

For both gas and electricity, the Tracker price on any given day is a several-decimal-point multiple of the wholesale price, plus a fixed amount.

The multiplier and the fixed value, varies by region. And it should be obvious that the factors for gas are quite different to the factors for electricity.

Nevertheless, y=mx+c is still a predictable straight line.

(My youngest is currently taking their GCSEs and this is on the maths syllabus. Every school leaver should know it.)

Qyburn

Telegraph_Sam said:

I'll check it out for the Noth East. Would you happen to have the link to where the various regional formulae are listed?

There's not a specific NE England region, they have NW and North. North England is ..

• Electricity unit charge: (W * 1.1856) + 7.195 p per kWh

Bear in mind that Tracker is an experimental and loss making tariff so don't read too much into why they use a specific formula. They are not actually buying our energy at the day-ahead wholesale price, they have already had to contract for it on longer term hedged deals.

Doc_N

Qyburn said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

I'll check it out for the Noth East. Would you happen to have the link to where the various regional formulae are listed?

There's not a specific NE England region, they have NW and North. North England is ..

• Electricity unit charge: (W * 1.1856) + 7.195 p per kWh

Bear in mind that Tracker is an experimental and loss making tariff so don't read too much into why they use a specific formula. They are not actually buying our energy at the day-ahead wholesale price, they have already had to contract for it on longer term hedged deals.

I suppose that depends how you define the word 'loss'. The definition depends on which accountants and which accounting practices you choose!

Telegraph_Sam

So I take the wholesale gas price for late April, convert to p/kwh, for each day.  Then apply the "North England formula"  and I arrive at a fairly consistent average figure of 1.26 p/kWh. This still looks like a wholesale price to me.
Against this I have for each day the retail price per unit in my invoice tabulation which comes out at a fairly consistent average of 4.53 p/kWh. 
Take the difference as a gross margin and this comes to 72% with which to cover all the "incidentals" including VAT. (going back to the original conversation query)
In different words, my understanding is that the "North England formula" does not say what the retail price should be on my invoice contrary to my assumption. Unless I have missed something.

Spoonie_Turtle

Telegraph_Sam said:

So I take the wholesale gas price for late April, convert to p/kwh, for each day.  Then apply the "North England formula"  and I arrive at a fairly consistent average figure of 1.26 p/kWh. This still looks like a wholesale price to me.
Against this I have for each day the retail price per unit in my invoice tabulation which comes out at a fairly consistent average of 4.53 p/kWh. 

Where are you getting the wholesale price from?  Octopus specify it on the bill, in the tables where they tell you how they worked it out.  Maybe your conversion to p/kWh is off.

Telegraph_Sam

The wholesale price is (in this instance) taken from the first column in page 3 of my gas Tracker invoice in p/therm converted to p/kwh.  [82.6 > 2.82]. Like you I suspect that there is something not quite right in a conversion somewhere.

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

So I take the wholesale gas price for late April

...

Unless I have missed something.

The Octopus Tracker gas formula uses the wholesale price in pence per therm, not pence per kWh. That's why the multiplier is 0.03-sonething, rather than 1.-something.

From the FAQ:

Gas unit charge: (W * 0.03615) + 1.148 p per kWh

If the price per therm on an example day is is 82.6p, the Tracker price per kWh will be 4.13399 p per kWh.

Qyburn

Doc_N said:

Qyburn said:

Bear in mind that Tracker is an experimental and loss making tariff so don't read too much into why they use a specific formula. They are not actually buying our energy at the day-ahead wholesale price, they have already had to contract for it on longer term hedged deals.

I suppose that depends how you define the word 'loss'. The definition depends on which accountants and which accounting practices you choose!

I am going by what Octopus said. And its common sense, selling a kWh to me for around 20p or less, compared to selling it at 32.77p and also receiving 17p subsidy from the government.

SAC2334

Todays Octopus gas rate is 3.4 p/kwh exactly the same as my old supplier s fix was with the late great Zog Energy before  going bust .
Electic is less than half price of EPG at 16p a kwh today  .. No way will I be changing supplier at those rates...at the moment 

pchelpman

Ours is a large house and we are high users. Been with Octopus for years. Dual Fuel. Currently on ‘Flexible Octopus November 2022 v1’

Just read that Octopus has………. “reintroduced its ‘Tracker’ tariff, allowing consumers to closely monitor and adjust their energy consumption in response to wholesale prices.”

Never been on a tracker before but wonder if it may be good for us now. Asking you more experienced users what would be considerations before moving?

I know there may be many but any initial tips would help to marshal my thoughts.

Many thanks.