Octopus Tracker

jimmy_81

Hi folks, I’ve just somewhat accidentally switched to Octopus Tracker. I emailed customer service and they told me to fill in the form to go on the waiting list… Did so and they swapped me immediately! 

Anyway, I now need to get my head around how to manage the Tracker tariff as best possible. Skimmed this thread but honestly 294 pages is a lot.

Is there a convenient summary somewhere with the best tips for tracking the tracker?   

Sorry for such a newbie post, any advice appreciated! 

vic_sf49

jimmy_81 said:

Hi folks, I’ve just somewhat accidentally switched to Octopus Tracker. I emailed customer service and they told me to fill in the form to go on the waiting list… Did so and they swapped me immediately! 

Anyway, I now need to get my head around how to manage the Tracker tariff as best possible. Skimmed this thread but honestly 294 pages is a lot.

Is there a convenient summary somewhere with the best tips for tracking the tracker? 

Sorry for such a newbie post, any advice appreciated! 

I use this website to check prices, but you only get one day ahead pricing sometimes.  You can look at pricing over the last month, if I remember correctly. 

https://mysmartenergy.uk/tracker/east-midlands

I've got solar, so for me there's nothing to "manage", as I don't loadshift to the day ahead. I just time my consumption around sunny days.  And I put my gas central heating on when I need it. 

Don't know if other people work differently. I shall await their tips too. 

masonic

I'd say there isn't much to be done, other than perhaps bringing forward or pushing back high load activities by a day if you learn tomorrow's price is higher/lower than today, which you can usually know by early afternoon.

Personally, I do very little and just use as I need.

Qyburn

jimmy_81 said:

Anyway, I now need to get my head around how to manage the Tracker tariff as best possible. Skimmed this thread but honestly 294 pages is a lot.

Is there a convenient summary somewhere with the best tips for tracking the tracker?   

Look at gastracker.uk for historical data, tomorrow's pricing and for an option to get man email every day with tomorrow's price.  Just as an example here's what they show for Northern Scotland, 90 days history shown and the red dotted line is SVT  

Pat38493

jimmy_81 said:

Hi folks, I’ve just somewhat accidentally switched to Octopus Tracker. I emailed customer service and they told me to fill in the form to go on the waiting list… Did so and they swapped me immediately! 

Anyway, I now need to get my head around how to manage the Tracker tariff as best possible. Skimmed this thread but honestly 294 pages is a lot.

Is there a convenient summary somewhere with the best tips for tracking the tracker?   

Sorry for such a newbie post, any advice appreciated! 

In add +1 for the gastracker.uk website - if you sign up to the email, you get an email by midday each day with the price of the next day electric in the title of the email.

Just keep an eye on the price and if it's below the tariff you were previously on more than half the time, you are probably gaining.

Do you have an electric car charged at home where you do a lot of miles every day, or solar or in house batteries?  Those are the scenarios where you might have to do a bit more analysis.  Otherwise you are very likely to save money on Tracker but you just need to keep an eye on the daily price to make sure it doesn't go consistently higher than the standard rate for a long period of time.

Also do you heat your house with electricity rather than has - in that situation it could also be a bit more complicated as you will be using a lot more electric on the days when it's probably more expensive.

[Deleted User]

Tracker type tariffs do not follow any pattern other than prices tend to be at their lowest when demand is low. A bit like shares ‘past performance is not indicative of future performance’. They are also the first tariffs to react to World events; eg, a LNG workers strike in Australia. If you are the sort of person who is going to worry about a temporary price increase without knowing how long the increase might last, then Tracker may not be for you.

Pat38493

[Deleted User] said:

Tracker type tariffs do not follow any pattern other than prices tend to be at their lowest when demand is low. A bit like shares ‘past performance is not indicative of future performance’. They are also the first tariffs to react to World events; eg, a LNG workers strike in Australia. If you are the sort of person who is going to worry about a temporary price increase without knowing how long the increase might last, then Tracker may not be for you.

Understood, but If world events are stable it seems to me that forecasts of strong winds together with mild temperature does also have an influence on it (unless it’s just been a coincidence in recent weeks).

[Deleted User]

Pat38493 said:

Dolor said:

Tracker type tariffs do not follow any pattern other than prices tend to be at their lowest when demand is low. A bit like shares ‘past performance is not indicative of future performance’. They are also the first tariffs to react to World events; eg, a LNG workers strike in Australia. If you are the sort of person who is going to worry about a temporary price increase without knowing how long the increase might last, then Tracker may not be for you.

Understood, but If world events are stable it seems to me that forecasts of strong winds together with mild temperature does also have an influence on it (unless it’s just been a coincidence in recent weeks).

Electricity and gas are linked. When we have strong winds, then our reliance on gas to produce electricity reduces, so supply exceeds demand and wholesale prices fall. However, with our limited gas storage, were we to have a particularly bad Winter (similar to 62/63) with below freezing temperatures for 3 months, we could expect European demand for gas to spike and wholesale prices to follow. 

The other big risk is the price of LNG. By its nature, we cannot buy LNG too far into the future as on arrival the carrier has to be offloaded into the Grid or storage.  The amount added to the Grid also has to be managed because of the significantly higher CV than natural gas. The IEA has said in its latest price forecast that China poses a significant risk to European LNG supplies this Winter as the country that is prepared to pay the most gets the gas. Look what happened when the Aussie LNG market was disrupted by strikes.

That said, I have been on Tracker gas for nearly 2 years and I have no intention of changing but my risk is mitigated by a Cap below the Octopus fixed gas rate.

Qyburn

We're on the Nov tracker with electricity cap of £1/kWh.  I may keep a contingency fund in an EA saver that could be used to ride out a peak period. A month of 12kWh @ £1 per day (more than we actually use) would cost around £270 more than SVT. Two weeks to switch back would cost up to another £125.

I'm not sure Tracker has saved us that much just yet, I need to analyse the bills. In reality I'm gambling that this worst case won't happen.

Qyburn

[Deleted User] said:

That said, I have been on Tracker gas for nearly 2 years and I have no intention of changing but my risk is mitigated by a Cap below the Octopus fixed gas rate.

There's really no risk for those on the older version. With electricity price capped at 30p together with the lower standing charge I don't think it could go significantly above current or forecast SVT.