Octopus Tracker

Pat38493

mortgageFTB said:

Pat38493 said:

Griffindog said:

I’ve had an email to say how many points I earned on 29/11 and 1/12 but the 1/12 ones aren’t showing yet. I have allegedly saved 2.1 kwh over the two sessions. The email also mentions free energy sessions but I haven’t received any information about those. Are they only in certain areas or maybe not for tracker customers?

I think this system is still a bit ropey - I received an email saying that I had saved 2.24Kwh and got 7168 Octopus points worth £8.95.  I find this hard to believe as this is more than my entire electric bill for that day.  

When I look at the Octoplus screens in the app, I've been credited with 3792 points which is still actually quite good.  

One of the 2 savings sessions I probably didn't hardly save anything at all.  The other one I happened to be away so it was running on base load, so that was probably the main savings.

In the app, the second saving session is still listed as processing. The email probably has the right figures and you'll see the remaining points credited soon.

The amount in the email, very closely matches my estimates for both saving sessions - so the email is likely correct here.

So it's normal that I could get almost £9 back just from saving a couple of KWh during that 90 minute period?  That pays for more than a day of electric usage for me so I guess that's actually quite worthwhile.

BellaBlondykeTheThird

Everytime I come.to tracker chat to catch up on tracker someone has derailed it when there are other threads covering things other than tracker.

Just to say got an averaged bill, contacted Octopus and they re loaded our data or whatever it's called and the bill.reduce by £5.78 and they added a £20 goodwill gesture.

I wonder if this is because they should overbill?

Anyway super chuffed

BellaBlondykeTheThird

And wow just got the email 17.02p tomorrow so batch cooking, laundry and everything tomorrow.

mmmmikey

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

And wow just got the email 17.02p tomorrow so batch cooking, laundry and everything tomorrow.

Makes sense, but here's something else to think about....

Every kWh you use between, say, 17:00 and 18:00 today will increase your saving session baseline by 0.1kWh assuming that there is another saving session between those times within the next ten days. That 0.1kWh could lead to a payment of 30p, assuming £3/kWh.

So by my reckoning, by holding off with the batch baking or whatever until tommorow, you may gain 2p/kWh or so but you're giving up the chance to gain 30p/kWh during the next saving session - or there or there abouts. So I guess which is best depends on how likely you think there is that there will be another saving session from 17:00 to 18:00 in the next 10 working days.

Of course, this has it's limits depending on how much laundry you've got or how long the oven will be on an so on.

Or you could choose to do your batch baking at the most likely weekend time for a saving session tomorrow but IIRC from last year weekend saving sessions are both less common and the time of day is less predictable.

Decisions, decisions.....

Pat38493

mmmmikey said:

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

And wow just got the email 17.02p tomorrow so batch cooking, laundry and everything tomorrow.

Makes sense, but here's something else to think about....

Every kWh you use between, say, 17:00 and 18:00 today will increase your saving session baseline by 0.1kWh assuming that there is another saving session between those times within the next ten days. That 0.1kWh could lead to a payment of 30p, assuming £3/kWh.

So by my reckoning, by holding off with the batch baking or whatever until tommorow, you may gain 2p/kWh or so but you're giving up the chance to gain 30p/kWh during the next saving session - or there or there abouts. So I guess which is best depends on how likely you think there is that there will be another saving session from 17:00 to 18:00 in the next 10 working days.

Of course, this has it's limits depending on how much laundry you've got or how long the oven will be on an so on.

Or you could choose to do your batch baking at the most likely weekend time for a saving session tomorrow but IIRC from last year weekend saving sessions are both less common and the time of day is less predictable.

Decisions, decisions.....

How does that work that they calculate your baseline then?  Is it your average usage during those times during the last 10 days?

Looks like it could be even lower on Sunday from the wind forecast?

PennineAcute

The money gained (for most people) is a token gesture of thanks.  What is important is that usage, when demand is very high, is decreased.  That it the object of the exercise.

masonic

Pat38493 said:

mmmmikey said:

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

And wow just got the email 17.02p tomorrow so batch cooking, laundry and everything tomorrow.

Makes sense, but here's something else to think about....

Every kWh you use between, say, 17:00 and 18:00 today will increase your saving session baseline by 0.1kWh assuming that there is another saving session between those times within the next ten days. That 0.1kWh could lead to a payment of 30p, assuming £3/kWh.

So by my reckoning, by holding off with the batch baking or whatever until tommorow, you may gain 2p/kWh or so but you're giving up the chance to gain 30p/kWh during the next saving session - or there or there abouts. So I guess which is best depends on how likely you think there is that there will be another saving session from 17:00 to 18:00 in the next 10 working days.

Of course, this has it's limits depending on how much laundry you've got or how long the oven will be on an so on.

Or you could choose to do your batch baking at the most likely weekend time for a saving session tomorrow but IIRC from last year weekend saving sessions are both less common and the time of day is less predictable.

Decisions, decisions.....

How does that work that they calculate your baseline then?  Is it your average usage during those times during the last 10 days?

Yes, for a weekday session (which they have all been so far) the baseline is the average of consumption in the relevant half hour periods from the most recent 10 weekdays with usable data and where there wasn't another session.

knight123

Realistically, what would it take for the wholesale prices to come anything close to that of gas? Everything online I've read says it's a lot higher simply because gas is used to generate a lot of electricity, but I thought with Octopus that wasn't the case?

We're all electric and with a combi boiler so it's horribly expensive compared to gas. Tracker alleviates some of the pain but it's still obscene.

Pat38493

mortgageFTB said:

knight123 said:

Realistically, what would it take for the wholesale prices to come anything close to that of gas? Everything online I've read says it's a lot higher simply because gas is used to generate a lot of electricity, but I thought with Octopus that wasn't the case?

We're all electric and with a combi boiler so it's horribly expensive compared to gas. Tracker alleviates some of the pain but it's still obscene.

You cant distinguish between whether you're getting 'clean' electricity or 'dirty' electricity. Whatever is pumped into the grid, you get.

Octopus or any other energy supplier, does not have a "clean grid" and a "dirty grid". The power being used in your home right now, will be a mix of renewable, nuclear, coal, gas etc. Octopus "offset" the dirty energy by purchasing carbon credits or reinvestment in renewable infrastructure.

Electric is pegged to gas prices, because renewables are not reliable enough and gas is always the fallback for majority electricity production.

Although there are some encouraging signs that they are becoming less rigidly linked - there has been quite a few days recently when almost half the power even in winter was renewables, and days when the gas and electric tracker prices went in opposite directions.

masonic

mortgageFTB said:

Pat38493 said:

Although there are some encouraging signs that they are becoming less rigidly linked - there has been quite a few days recently when almost half the power even in winter was renewables, and days when the gas and electric tracker prices went in opposite directions.

Yup! I don't disagree and I want a future where renewables can consistently handle UK electric demands.

There's probably a storage piece to that, which still needs to be worked out. There will always be periods when renewables cannot meet all of the demand, regardless of how much generation infrastructure we can put in place.