Octopus Tracker

Griffindog

vivalaeric said:

masonic said:

vivalaeric said:

Does it mean it's not worth it? Tracker + manual readings?

Not at all. If your usage is fairly consistent from one day to the next, then it might not make a difference. If you load shift to the cheaper days and avoid usage on expensive days, then if you know you have a problem you can submit manual readings whenever you feel it would be beneficial.

Since Tracker has been consistently cheaper than SVR, you'd have saved however your usage was distributed over the billing period, based on historic pricing.

I'm going to switch to Tracker then. I can always submit a manual reading if the rate goes high.

Before I got smart meters I submitted daily readings for about 2 months. If you submit your own daily readings they are charged at the previous day’s rates.

QrizB

Griffindog said:

vivalaeric said:

I'm going to switch to Tracker then. I can always submit a manual reading if the rate goes high.

Before I got smart meters I submitted daily readings for about 2 months. If you submit your own daily readings they are charged at the previous day’s rates.

When my old gas meter went dumb, I was sumitting Tracker gas readings every ~10 days (ie. 3 times a month).

Telegraph_Sam

@masonic. I ought to be able to make more intelligent comments and speculation once my overdue (first) Tracker electric invoice turns up. The word "average" can easily be misunderstood.
Could someone clue me up on "Bright" pls. What does it do and how do you use it?

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

@masonic. I ought to be able to make more intelligent comments and speculation once my overdue (first) Tracker electric invoice turns up. The word "average" can easily be misunderstood.

Good luck with that. You might be in the same boat as me with respect to that too. I've not had an automatically generated invoice since I joined Tracker in July. I've had to request them by email.

noitsnotme

Telegraph_Sam said:

@masonic. I ought to be able to make more intelligent comments and speculation once my overdue (first) Tracker electric invoice turns up. The word "average" can easily be misunderstood.
Could someone clue me up on "Bright" pls. What does it do and how do you use it?

Bright is an app that gives you access to the data collected from your smart meters but independently from your energy provider.

https://glowmarkt.com/bright

I signed up to it over a year ago when I was with British Gas as the data you could access through them was not good.

barker77

QrizB said:

spot1034 said:

vivalaeric said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

Is your conclusion that as far as your crystal ball can see this tilts the balance in favour of Tracker if one can put up with the uncertainty? For gas and electric?
And for each does the high / medium / low consumption factor influence the decision?
At present I'm on Tracker for both fuels and no EV.
I guess that whatever applies for one region more or less applies to all.

I think it's common sense. If the rate has been 40% cheaper for 10/11 months than the cap and it only goes high at the end of November and in December, why would you lock yourself at the cap rates for the whole year? 

Last year was unusual in that we had a quite significant but short lived cold spell at the end of November and the first half of December. The rest of the season was milder than average.

The November-December hump was more to do with low wind speeds. Cold but windy weather (a "Beast from the East" for example) wouldn't look the same.

Does anyone have the tracker prices from this period at all? Not sure if they might be capped by octopus at the time though so maybe not comparable to today? 

mmmmikey

Historic Tracker prices are available from the Octopus API. What date range and region do you want them for?

QrizB

barker77 said:

QrizB said:

spot1034 said:

vivalaeric said:

I think it's common sense. If the rate has been 40% cheaper for 10/11 months than the cap and it only goes high at the end of November and in December, why would you lock yourself at the cap rates for the whole year? 

Last year was unusual in that we had a quite significant but short lived cold spell at the end of November and the first half of December. The rest of the season was milder than average.

The November-December hump was more to do with low wind speeds. Cold but windy weather (a "Beast from the East" for example) wouldn't look the same.

Does anyone have the tracker prices from this period at all? Not sure if they might be capped by octopus at the time though so maybe not comparable to today? 

There's an (uncapped) chart at:

https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-tracker-yorkshire/

It looks a bit like this:

mmmmikey

QrizB said:

barker77 said:

QrizB said:

spot1034 said:

vivalaeric said:

I think it's common sense. If the rate has been 40% cheaper for 10/11 months than the cap and it only goes high at the end of November and in December, why would you lock yourself at the cap rates for the whole year? 

Last year was unusual in that we had a quite significant but short lived cold spell at the end of November and the first half of December. The rest of the season was milder than average.

The November-December hump was more to do with low wind speeds. Cold but windy weather (a "Beast from the East" for example) wouldn't look the same.

Does anyone have the tracker prices from this period at all? Not sure if they might be capped by octopus at the time though so maybe not comparable to today? 

There's an (uncapped) chart at:

https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-tracker-yorkshire/

It looks a bit like this:

Thanks much easier to get the data from there than the API.

teena

Sorry to interrupt here but need your wisdom and knowledge. 

I have wasted lots of time emailing Octopus and either receive weird responses that don't answer my questions or different members of the customer team respond with contradictory answers! The figures they give never state whether they include VAT or not either which is less than helpful. I have written a complaint and sent it in but need to know these answers before the end of the month when my Tracker tariff ends and not sure my letter will have been answered by then so I am here.

I will explain. I had the email telling me that my electricity tracker was ending and I would be rolled over to Flexible if I did nothing (strangely have not received one about my Gas tracker to this day, which ends the day after). I was given all the necessary details about the Flexible costs but nothing about the new Tracker deal i.e. caps, standing charges etc. One would assume that this means I would carry on as I am at the moment ( caps of 11p and 40p and SC of 27.22p and 37.65p) but as someone who reads the messages here I guessed this wasn't the case. I do think it is bad to ask you to make a decision without warning you that the caps etc would be different.

Hence all my messages to Octopus. Wouldn't you think the team would have this information at their finger tips? I have tried to look on the website and saw that the caps would now be 30p and 100p but can't see anything about the SCs (I am Eastern). I sent messages asking for the standing charges for both the gas and electricity including VAT. The various repsonses have been that - they will be unchanged, or a jumble of numbers such as 35.52, 37.65 ( I checked the first value plus VAT doesn't make the second value) or an explanation of how the daily unit charges work. I gave in and phoned yesterday and the person then said she didn't know and would find out- I said shouldn't that be something that is available instantly to them? I had to wait all day and then got an email saying the standing charges are variable and no figures!

So if you have been kind enough to read all this can you tell me what the standing charges (inc VAT) for Eastern area will be if I stay on Tracker tariff when it ends at the end of October or show me how to find out on the website. Please and thankyou.