Octopus Tracker

Telegraph_Sam

Electricity in the North East is currently trading at 18.42 p. This is pretty much bang on the (horizontal) trend line of averages over the past 90 days. A corresponding discount of 9.38 p over (under) the SVT @ 27.8 is not to be sniffed at.

Gas at 4.04 p is actually below the 90 day average 4.78 p and showing a "comfortable" margin as against the SVT @ 7.34..  Could be worse for this time of the year.

Telegraph_Sam

QrizB said:

I'm sure you're aware that Octopus won't take on new Tracker customers who are in your current situation.

Your gas meter being dumb, you get your usage profiled rather than being billed on your actual daily use. This probably evens outver time but you don't benefit from reducing usage on expensive days and increasing it on cheap ones.

I'd like to reinforce my understanding of this pls.

No smart meter means that my day's gas consumption just goes into the monthly pot when the total is used in calculating the average daily consumption. This is multiplied by the market's average monthly price. One value once per month.

With a smart meter the system records each day's individual consumption and unit price and calculates what value to use in calculating the monthly average value of all days. One calculation once per month and one average value. Useful if I have a crystal ball to tell me which day(s) to load, and which days to go light on in order to take advantage of forthcoming price fluctuations.
This is my attempt to explain the mechanics to myself at 5.30 am.

Griffindog

Telegraph_Sam said:

QrizB said:

I'm sure you're aware that Octopus won't take on new Tracker customers who are in your current situation.

Your gas meter being dumb, you get your usage profiled rather than being billed on your actual daily use. This probably evens outver time but you don't benefit from reducing usage on expensive days and increasing it on cheap ones.

I'd like to reinforce my understanding of this pls.

No smart meter means that my day's gas consumption just goes into the monthly pot when the total is used in calculating the average daily consumption. This is multiplied by the market's average monthly price. One value once per month.

With a smart meter the system records each day's individual consumption and unit price and calculates what value to use in calculating the monthly average value of all days. One calculation once per month and one average value. Useful if I have a crystal ball to tell me which day(s) to load, and which days to go light on in order to take advantage of forthcoming price fluctuations.
This is my attempt to explain the mechanics to myself at 5.30 am.

In my experience from having non-smart meters, your manual readings are apportioned using industry averages, then multiplied by the true daily rate. Daily costs are added together to get the mean price per unit.

I opted for smart meters last year to allow renewal. I believe the terms now include that you must have “a working smart meter”.

Octopus have removed my June end date but I have screen shots so will challenge this if they try to impose the December changes on me before then.

Telegraph_Sam

@Griffindog: I'm not sure I'm with you on the first point. My non-smart bills show just the total consumption between the meter readings at the beginning and end of the month. This total is then multiplied by one "external" price to give the month's bill total. The origin of this "external" price is a bit vague but the "standard industry formula" is one of the components that take account of calorific value. And the market price. Main point: Neither the consumption on a particular day, nor that day's individual price  seem to figure overtly in the calculations. If this is so then the case for using a smart meter is weaker. Correct me if I have misunderstood.
I must check if they change my "endless" contract to one with a fixed end date.

MultiFuelBurner

Ridiculously low prices til the end of the month on tracker.

Glad they haven't enforced the new formula yet and hope.they let us see out this winter before pressing the button.

jcb208

Hi I moved on to the tracker in December and I have Smet's 1 meters installed by British gas. The electric sends the data every 30 Minutes but the gas has not sent a reading since 27.12.This meter has never worked well until Octopus sends a signal then it will work for a week. How will they be charging me for gas.They have put the meter on some sort of diagnostic monitoring

Telegraph_Sam

@jcb208 My "obvious" solution is to religiously upload meter readings (for both gas and electric) each one once a month and keep that as the definitive record.  whether or not there's a smart input also.You want to avoid a situation where the vital details get lost in the passage of time > endless arguments.
What you say explains my reluctance to go smart with gas until forced to do so.

Slinky

Telegraph_Sam said:

@jcb208 My "obvious" solution is to religiously upload meter readings (for both gas and electric) each one once a month and keep that as the definitive record.  whether or not there's a smart input also.You want to avoid a situation where the vital details get lost in the passage of time > endless arguments.
What you say explains my reluctance to go smart with gas until forced to do so.

But you would get nice shiny new Smets2 meters installed by Octopus instead of regraded BG Smets1, so would hopefully encounter fewer problems, if any at all.  

I was a bit worried we would have issues with our smart meters, as the mobile signals in our area are hopeless, but apart from one minor glitch at the weekend when 3 half hour gas readings didn't go across, I'm not aware of any other issues since ours were installed by EDF last April. I bit the bullet and got ours changed because we were having solar panels installed, and the added incentive which put the icing on the cake was EDF gave me £100 credit to have them changed!  I'd been ignoring their requests for some considerable period of time.

mmmmikey

MultiFuelBurner said:

Ridiculously low prices til the end of the month on tracker.

Glad they haven't enforced the new formula yet and hope.they let us see out this winter before pressing the button.

Hi @MultiFuelBurner - what are you basing that prediction on? The emoncms wind/demand forecasts or is there more to your prediction than that? Thanks, Mike

masonic

Griffindog said:

Octopus have removed my June end date but I have screen shots so will challenge this if they try to impose the December changes on me before then.

They can change the formula at any time after giving reasonable notice. It is not a fixed rate or fixed formula, just a fixed term.