Octopus Tracker

double_dutchy

masonic said:

......SVT prices are expected to fall in April.....

...and of course if the Ofgem price cap falls in April that will only be because wholesale prices have fallen during the preceding few months. Tracker users are getting the benefits of those lower prices right now, as they fall.

I think I've said this before on here, but it's probably better to be on tracker when prices are falling, when they are rising Tracker users will arguably get the higher prices before they impact the price cap.

Telegraph_Sam

Meanwhile I continue riding both horses - smart for electricity and non-smart for gas. I am not aware of any cost savings from the former other than being on Tracker in the first place. I certainly would not want to have to rely on the smart meter alone without a non-smart manual control-check. If the smart technology did start to play up I could well imagine that having a health effect  which is perhaps what your previous contributor had in mind.
It is conceivable that smart data gathering might have a role to play in a Big Brother 1984 scenario.
Beyond which I would NOT want to have my dealings with Octopus dependent on my internet connection. No way.

spot1034

double_dutchy said:

masonic said:

......SVT prices are expected to fall in April.....

...and of course if the Ofgem price cap falls in April that will only be because wholesale prices have fallen during the preceding few months. Tracker users are getting the benefits of those lower prices right now, as they fall.

I think I've said this before on here, but it's probably better to be on tracker when prices are falling, when they are rising Tracker users will arguably get the higher prices before they impact the price cap.

I trust that the enthusiasts here do appreciate this point - in reality I'm sure they do, but I think some are getting a bit carried away by the spectacular savings they've seen recently which are the result of an unusual, not often to be repeated,  situation, where longer term prices have been way ahead of next day prices when that day finally arrives. Six months ago, the price being paid for gas to be delivered around now was twice what it has turned out to be for next day delivery.   

I'd suggest that we are not going to see another halving of prices in the next six months, and the more normal situation which we seem to be returning to is one where there isn't this vast discrepancy which will mean a much smaller gap between tacker and the more traditional tariffs. 

masonic

spot1034 said:

I'd suggest that we are not going to see another halving of prices in the next six months, and the more normal situation which we seem to be returning to is one where there isn't this vast discrepancy which will mean a much smaller gap between tacker and the more traditional tariffs. 

Quite right. Such a large discrepancy is not expected to continue into the long term. About 2p of it has been the result of Octopus keeping the formula intact while costs have risen. Most of the rest of it has been a result of falling wholesale prices and Ofgem's willingness to build in a buffer for suppliers to make back historic losses. I would suggest that beyond all of that there exists a premium in SVT due to hedging, thus a long term Tracker customer would get an advantage for taking volatility risk. But that risk will mean that at times Tracker will rise above SVT. That is why people are enjoying the magnitude of the winter savings while they last. Based on the projected figures for April, there will still be an appreciable saving to be made up to the summer at least, providing of course wholesale prices do not spike.

MultiFuelBurner

I have always viewed electricity tracker as the worse kind of tariff to offer lazy people cheap energy (we are in that camp currently). The fact you don't have to load shift or do anything at all to reap the benefits over the past 18 months (probably longer) means it is due a change.

For electricity - I recently talked about the latest Agile pricing being cheaper than the latest Tracker pricing for most when compared without load shifting on apps like Octopus compare for the past 30 days.

I do hope Octopus have left the formula alone on Agile so that the ones that follow pricing closely can see the benefits of moving to agile once the new tracker formula is released and then look at a little load shifting where they can.

Tracker gas will be less affected as the increase is less on the new formula.

pfpf

...but......if you have noticed my last couple of posts on this thread iv'e had averaged out bills for both Gas and Electricity around 3 times each in the 12 months iv'e been on tracker. as i said, its not such an issue with Gas but there's no point me actively "load shifting" if a couple of missing 30 minute entries results in me getting "averaged" bills. it's not a complaint as such as i am happy with the "averaged" unit rate but load shifting becomes pointless if its a hit/miss situation.
how does this sit with Agile?

meinnit

UK Natural Gas (https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas) took a tumble this morning. Wonder if we'll see 3p/kWh soon?

northernstar007

pfpf said:

...but......if you have noticed my last couple of posts on this thread iv'e had averaged out bills for both Gas and Electricity around 3 times each in the 12 months iv'e been on tracker. as i said, its not such an issue with Gas but there's no point me actively "load shifting" if a couple of missing 30 minute entries results in me getting "averaged" bills. it's not a complaint as such as i am happy with the "averaged" unit rate but load shifting becomes pointless if its a hit/miss situation.
how does this sit with Agile?

im the same i am getting missed data and load shifting then find out i'm being avg

MultiFuelBurner

To be clear my post was about load shifting electricity there is no agile for gas

pfpf

MultiFuelBurner said:

To be clear my post was about load shifting electricity there is no agile for gas

of course. but how does missing data effect Agile?