Octopus Tracker

Telegraph_Sam

masonic said:

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

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.

Here's my YTD:

Not much in it. Over the whole period Agile was 9% more expensive than Tracker Dec22 would have been. From past experience, if I worked hard at load-shifting, I could achieve parity, but I'd be unlikely to better that. The older formula saved me about 19% vs Agile over this period.

masonic said:

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

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.

Here's my YTD:

Not much in it. Over the whole period Agile was 9% more expensive than Tracker Dec22 would have been. From past experience, if I worked hard at load-shifting, I could achieve parity, but I'd be unlikely to better that. The older formula saved me about 19% vs Agile over this period.

Can anyone show a Compare for 12 months? On the basis that this might help reduce the seasonality effect.
Ice cubes made from Tracker kWh's taste better than Agile's

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Can anyone show a Compare for 12 months? On the basis that this might help reduce the seasonality effect.

Sure, but I'm not sure you'll be able to read much into it as it is based on my usage. I've removed the other tariffs to make this look a bit more interpretable, and the TrackerNew price is back-calculated using the Tracker Nov 2022 rates to calculate the Wholesale price and plug this into the new formula. I have also used the new standing charges across the whole period.

Can you spot the period where I was on Agile and there was a price plunge?

Here is a zoomed version:

You can see that between October-January when wholesale prices were relatively high, Agile would have cost me a bit more, while there aren't all that many days when Agile would have been cheaper for me, even in the months I was on it (start of May until mid-July). Over the whole period, my daily average was £2.16 for Agile, £2.11 for TrackerNew and £1.90 for TrackerOld (based on its actual standing charge, putting the new pricing at 11.1% more based on the last year, vs Agile at 13.7% more - even with the near £25 advantage to Agile on that single day).

masonic

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

Looking back doesn't help with the future pricing of energy. 

The future pricing of energy is always speculation. All anyone can do is consider a range of scenarios and apply them to their own usage profile. Someone else plotted a chart similar to the first one below. The second chart shows average daily wholesale prices over the last year:

Wholesale prices have averaged 6.6p/kWh in Jan and 5.0p/kWh so far in Feb. One can know whether or not at these levels they can make a saving, and then must weigh the relative potential for prices to fall further against the risk of prices increasing from where they have been recently. If prices go up, Tracker becomes a more attractive proposition, whereas if prices fall further, the scales tip further in favour of Agile. In my view there is more potential for prices to rise than fall from here, but that is just an unsubstantiated gut feeling.

Telegraph_Sam

I think that is very impressive. Granted that we don't have crystal balls my best guess conclusion is that Tracker new is going to work out more expensive than Tracker old (no surprise) BUT in the long run not enough to construct a case for moving to Agile. Allowing for periods when Agile could be cheaper. I think you are saying that you were able to take SC's into account in your workings. What assumptions did you make about load shifting?
Would you agree with my conclusions?

ecraig

This thread is clearly turning into an agile vs tracker thread, but I can tell you I moved from economy 7 where I imported 85% of my energy to my battery during off peak.
Since the 3rd week of December I’ve seen a 40% reduction to my electricity bill. 

For the past month my savings vs tracker would be 21%.
Agile has been a lot harder work vs E7, and E7 is more hard work than tracker.
i will probably stay with agile though. The savings are worth while the aggravation of planning when to run the dishwasher, washing machine and top up the battery.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I think that is very impressive. Granted that we don't have crystal balls my best guess conclusion is that Tracker new is going to work out more expensive than Tracker old (no surprise) BUT in the long run not enough to construct a case for moving to Agile. Allowing for periods when Agile could be cheaper. I think you are saying that you were able to take SC's into account in your workings. What assumptions did you make about load shifting?
Would you agree with my conclusions?

The 12 month period contained times when I was trying to load-shift and times when I was not. Overall it didn't make a great deal of difference. I know that during the months I was waiting to join Tracker, I couldn't load-shift enough to make Agile cheaper for me (otherwise I wouldn't have left Agile). From what I know of those efforts, I think I probably could get to parity compared with the new Tracker, but I am doubtful that I'd be able to achieve an overall saving. In part that is because in recent years there has been a secondary price peak in the early morning when I use a large proportion of my daily energy, whereas I miss out on the cheap early afternoon period as I am not at home. So for me it is swings and roundabouts, but the swings take a lot less effort on my part. Someone with a battery/EV/heat pump would be able to load shift a lot more than me, so I'd expect that they'd already be able to realise a saving even before the price change. For those people, Agile should be a serious consideration; for me it isn't.

Telegraph_Sam

And the opposite presumably: Where load shifting is very limited, this would act in favour of Tracker and reduce the attraction of Agile⁷

BellaBlondykeTheThird

ecraig said:

This thread is clearly turning into an agile vs tracker thread, but I can tell you I moved from economy 7 where I imported 85% of my energy to my battery during off peak.
Since the 3rd week of December I’ve seen a 40% reduction to my electricity bill. 

For the past month my savings vs tracker would be 21%.
Agile has been a lot harder work vs E7, and E7 is more hard work than tracker.
i will probably stay with agile though. The savings are worth while the aggravation of planning when to run the dishwasher, washing machine and top up the battery.

I actually think it's a healthy discussion about the new tracker formula (for the regions it hits harder for) looking at Agile with no formula change just the SC bought in line with all other tariffs.

As it is a money saving board it's a good discussion to have and the pros and cons.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

And the opposite presumably: Where load shifting is very limited, this would act in favour of Tracker and reduce the attraction of Agile⁷

It does also depend on your normal usage profile. If your use is spread evenly then that is better than a working household that has peaks in the morning and evening, but little use in the early afternoon when Agile is typically cheap. This is where historic comparisons can be of benefit.

Telegraph_Sam

In your graphs there are definite regular price spikes, but it is not clear if there is a (24-hour?) pattern behind this. Similarly is there evidence of a winter price spike (apart from the Putin effect), and a trough in summer? There are good times and bad times to be an Agilite