Octopus Tracker

Telegraph_Sam

Yup. The suck-it-and-see approach. May be they would complement each other.

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

Most forecasts I've heard recently are for energy prices to fall in the Spring. This should (?) benefit Agile over Tracker

That's what their respective formulas indicate, yes. Although the Agile evening peak will always be more expensive than Tracker unless the wholesale price is seriously negative.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Most forecasts I've heard recently are for energy prices to fall in the Spring. This should (?) benefit Agile over Tracker.

If the forecasts you are referring to are from the media, then they are probably focused on price-capped tariffs, so wouldn't be relevant to Agile or Tracker as they benefited immediately from prices having fallen. I'm not aware of any forecasts for wholesale electricity prices falling from current (~£50/MWh) level, although that would be welcome. However, it has been trending upwards through March ao far.

MultiFuelBurner

I suspect any forecast for an increase would be relevant to tracker and agile as the preceding few months would see the price gap close. In theory.

Whether that gap fully closes will be interesting for us all.

I wonder how many people would take a fix at say 20p kWh for electricity and 5p kWh for gas that are on tracker and agile now come summertime if a supplier was brave enough to offer that.

However I do feel anyone on Tracker or Agile has a gambling nature anyway but some will be on those products for necessity and couldn't afford prices if they were higher.....

Meanwhile since joining Octopus we have paid 5.8p kWh for electricity. Without solar or batteries and an all electric household it's been a very cheap 9 months. (Referrals and a couple of goodwill gestures from Octopus have bought that price down for those wondering)

Pat38493

BootsMullery said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

There's a solitary post from me, that seems to have vanished, asking if anyone with experience of both can explain the differences between Home Mini and Compare - and any other similar apps worth consideration

Octopus Compare is an App that can compare the costs of any two Octopus tariffs for electricity. It seems to be able to be used with any current Octopus tariffs but only shows two at any one time. eg you can compare Tracker December 2023 v1 with Flexible April 2023 and then compare Agile December 2023 v1 with Flexible April 2023. It can't compare three tariffs all at the same time.
It can show you Yesterdays usage on a half hourly basis, the last weeks usage on a daily basis and the last months usage on a daily basis. If you want to go further, you can subscribe and will give the last years details (if available).

The Octopus mini is like an IHD without a display attached. It connects to the meters by bluetooth and also connects to the Octopus App via the Internet. It provides usage detail better than an IHD
You can find out about the mini at https://octopus.energy/octopus-home-mini-faq/. Effectively, it turns a smart phone into an IHD but it's supposed to be better than the rubbish IHDs.
I certainly use it's info from the app whereas I never bothered with the IHD. I have the App downloaded on my Chromebook.

It's also worth noting that if you subscribe to the Octopus Compare paid option, it has a "shifting" function which automatically shifts usage peaks to the best time on the tariff you are comparing to (on the assumption that you will load shift sensibly) - you can set the threshold of peak that will trigger the shifting in the settings.

This allows you to compare for example Agile or Tracker to Go in a meaningful way if you are already on one of them.

Xbigman

MultiFuelBurner said:

I wonder how many people would take a fix at say 20p kWh for electricity and 5p kWh for gas that are on tracker and agile now come summertime if a supplier was brave enough to offer that.

I fixed at just under 7p kwh on gas last summer. I'd certainly take a 5p fix this summer.



Darren

danco

Thinking about moving from my current Octopus tariff to Tracker or Agile. Feeling that Tracker is best because Agile needs too much watching. On the other hand, my major uses of electricity at variable times are cooking (oven, kettle) and washing/drying, which can easily be shifted in time. I would be interested in people's views.

 live in a purpose-built block of flats, so energy is electric only, no gas. And heating is communal, so is not charged against my electricity.

Also, what are the best ways of keeping track of current and forthcoming prices for these tariffs?

northernstar007

my feb bill has arrived and everyday itemised, very happy with it gas avg price over feb 3.35p and electric 14.35p
if anyone is having doubts on tracker well i'm sticking on that

also  my DD are rather high for going into spring and summer but going to leave it set high as i'm a new customer in small credit (£65) but wanting a good buffer for next winter then lower the dd

Archerychick

danco said:

Thinking about moving from my current Octopus tariff to Tracker or Agile. Feeling that Tracker is best because Agile needs too much watching. On the other hand, my major uses of electricity at variable times are cooking (oven, kettle) and washing/drying, which can easily be shifted in time. I would be interested in people's views.

 live in a purpose-built block of flats, so energy is electric only, no gas. And heating is communal, so is not charged against my electricity.

Also, what are the best ways of keeping track of current and forthcoming prices for these tariffs?

What is your average electricity usage a day? If we didn’t have an EV we would be staying on tracker because shifting the other usage which is very low doesn’t make enough of an impact for it to be worth it for us. Without the EV we use about 3 kWh per day.

Spies

danco said:

Thinking about moving from my current Octopus tariff to Tracker or Agile. Feeling that Tracker is best because Agile needs too much watching. On the other hand, my major uses of electricity at variable times are cooking (oven, kettle) and washing/drying, which can easily be shifted in time. I would be interested in people's views.

 live in a purpose-built block of flats, so energy is electric only, no gas. And heating is communal, so is not charged against my electricity.

Also, what are the best ways of keeping track of current and forthcoming prices for these tariffs?

Install octopus compare from the appstore and have a look how it compares currently without load shifting.