Octopus Tracker

northernstar007

a little bit off topic but still with electric
i'm topping my icecube box up in the freezer, soon as i fill the tray up with water stick it in the freezer the motor kicks in, now im doing this a fair bit as i love ice with my drinks, but will it be cheaper buying a bag icecubes for £1.20 or keep making my own with the motor kicking in all the time 

RavingMad

t0rt0ise said:

What a guessing game! I keep changing my mind about swapping to Agile , saying I'm not and then I will. I just don't know what will happen in the different seasons.

There's a 7 day free trial of the Octopus Compare pro version which unlocks the Year tab.  Anyone tried that?

double_dutchy

RavingMad said:

There's a 7 day free trial of the Octopus Compare pro version which unlocks the Year tab.  Anyone tried that?

Unfortunately it only seems to go back as far as the start date of the tariff(s) you choose, so if I compare Agile Dec 2023 against Tracker Dec 2023 it only shows me data from 11 Dec 2023..

If I compare Agile Feb 2023 against Tracker Nov 2022 I do get a year's worth of data.

I don't have an EV or do any load shifting so unsurprisingly on those comparisons Agile is slightly cheaper on the former (6% saving), but much more expensive on the latter (18%)

Bendo

Telegraph_Sam said:

@Bendo. That's about the most convincing argument in favour of Agile that I've seen. Presumably the evidence pro Agile will increase after the 15 Feb Tracker price increase?

My comparison is with the December Tracker so effectively the one people will be moved in to in Feb.

For my use, when its cheap, agile wins, as prices rise tracker wins. The question is how much prices will rise and make tracker the better option. At the moment there is so little in it that if I was on Tracker I'd sit it out and see how things pan out.

TheElectricCow

northernstar007 said:

a little bit off topic but still with electric
i'm topping my icecube box up in the freezer, soon as i fill the tray up with water stick it in the freezer the motor kicks in, now im doing this a fair bit as i love ice with my drinks, but will it be cheaper buying a bag icecubes for £1.20 or keep making my own with the motor kicking in all the time 

By chance I did happen to do some rough calculations on the energy cost of making an ice cube not too long ago, prompted by a number of unmelted ice cubes “wasted” in the bottom of a glass. The conclusion was the cost per cube is so small it wasn’t worth worrying about.

Can’t remember the exact figures, but as a single ice cube is a relatively small amount of water it turns out each full tray was costing a fraction of a penny to freeze on SVT rates (if memory serves I believe it was around 30-40 cubes to the penny) - although that figure doesn’t account for any heat transfer from opening/closing the door, the efficiency of any given appliance, or to be precise the exact volume of ice being produced. In any case, buying bagged ice will certainly be the more expensive option than freezing it yourself if you’re able to.

TheElectricCow

t0rt0ise said:

What a guessing game! I keep changing my mind about swapping to Agile , saying I'm not and then I will. I just don't know what will happen in the different seasons.

I’ve got a while left on my fix yet but for when that’s up I’m likely switching to either Tracker or Agile (unless something better comes along by then), the possible seasonal variation is the biggest factor keeping me undecided on which will be best though. 

Having never paid any particular attention to day ahead energy prices before I’ve no idea what to expect for Tracker come summer or how Agile’s peaks will compare to the winter ones, but I intend to monitor closely this year in prep for next.

mmmmikey

The Octopus Compare app will tell you with a high degree of accuracy what you would have paid for Agile and Tracker (new or old) over the last couple of months.

The last couple of months have seen very low prices by  the standards of the last couple of years. The differences in the formulae mean that the lower prices are, the more likely it is that Agile will beat Tracker.

So if you're using Octopus Compare what you're analysing is how the traiffs compare at a time that favours Agile. 

That's not to say that the comparison isn't useful or worthwhile. I'm just making the point that you need to think very carefully about what Octopus Compare is actually telling you. It is only telling you that at the very low price levels we've seen over the last few months you'd have been better or worse off. To quote a saying often used in the financial world "past perfromance is not a guarantee of future results". And to expand on that "past performance when things were looking particularly good is absolutely not a guarantee of future results".

To my way of thinking the big question here that isn't getting enough airtime in this thread is what will happen to prices going forward? If your assessment is that they will continue at their current low levels or fall then that would add weight to the argument for swapping to Agile, and vice versa.

Also, again IMHO of course, predicting energy prices beyond a few months has been something of a fools game in recent years (certainly to the level of accuracy where you can make an informed decision about a marginal difference between two tariffs). As well as the "normal" market fluctuations which the likes of Cornwall Insight do a pretty good job of predicting there are "known unknowns" to consider like the wars in Ukarine and the Middle East. And then of course there are the "unlnown unknowns", such as - err - ummm - well that's the point, we're living in an era where it's probably a good idea to start expecting the unexpected.

So, in summary, it's my view that this discussion is running ahead of itself somewhat. There is far too much uncertainty to draw any particular conclusion. So personally, I would forget the small differences in recent pricing and have a look at yourself in the mirror. If you see someone who understands the risks, comfortable those risks and has a strategy for dealing with them (like keeping an eye on things and swapping quickly without prevarication if things go awry) then Agile may well be a good option. But conversely, if you're agonising over whether to swap or not you're probably not confident in your assessment of the additional risks associated with Agile and/or it may not be in your nature to bail out quickly if the need arises (or you may bail out too quickly).

Remembering at all times that even on Tracker you're saving shiploads of cash vs. SVR at the moment, so it's certainly not a bad deal.

northernstar007

TheElectricCow said:

northernstar007 said:

a little bit off topic but still with electric
i'm topping my icecube box up in the freezer, soon as i fill the tray up with water stick it in the freezer the motor kicks in, now im doing this a fair bit as i love ice with my drinks, but will it be cheaper buying a bag icecubes for £1.20 or keep making my own with the motor kicking in all the time 

By chance I did happen to do some rough calculations on the energy cost of making an ice cube not too long ago, prompted by a number of unmelted ice cubes “wasted” in the bottom of a glass. The conclusion was the cost per cube is so small it wasn’t worth worrying about.

Can’t remember the exact figures, but as a single ice cube is a relatively small amount of water it turns out each full tray was costing a fraction of a penny to freeze on SVT rates (if memory serves I believe it was around 30-40 cubes to the penny) - although that figure doesn’t account for any heat transfer from opening/closing the door, the efficiency of any given appliance, or to be precise the exact volume of ice being produced. In any case, buying bagged ice will certainly be the more expensive option than freezing it yourself if you’re able to.

thanks for the reply, the freezer has a large icecube storagebox and its freezing 2 trays at once in about 2-3 hrs so i'm just going to fill it right up today and tomorrow then just keep topping it up
and yes the motor has kicked in after i put fresh water in, i think its using aprox 80w going off home display cant see the motor running a full hour, so its going to be very little energy being used 

QrizB

It's definitely cheaper to make your own ice.

It depends on the assumptions you make, but freezong a kilogram of water into ice takes about a tenth of a kWh, roughly 3p.

Edit to add: there's a Wired article here that goes into far too much detail but calculated a similar number:

https://www.wired.com/2014/08/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-ice/

BellaBlondykeTheThird

Two things, definitely cheaper to make your own ice even factoring in a brita type filter cost as well (sad I know)

As we get close to the 15th Feb and then once people have compared for a few weeks I suspect the tracker v agile debate will hot up.

We have already done our deal with Octopus and from the 15th will be on the Agile tariff.