Octopus Tracker

Telegraph_Sam

I was trying to get my head around the wholesale market price conversion formulas for the North East, region F. Taking the latest Tracker 31/12/2024 version from the website FAQ’s I come to a retail conversion factor of 128.5, or plus 5% VAT  (I suppose) = 134.9, from a base of W = 100. Confusingly Lipman uses a different formula but comes to approximately the same result: 132.5

Doing the same for Agile, both approaches give the same result: 220.5,  and 233.1 for 4 – 7 pm

Disregarding the odd decimal point or two the obvious deduction is that there appears to be a huge difference in favour of Tracker. Almost a no brainer. Whereas from what I read the opposite almost appears to be the case (the latest formula is a slight improvement over its predecessor)

There is obviously more to it than meets the eye. Or my maths is even worse than recorded in my GCE results. I look forward to being corrected.

Chrysalis

Annoyingly Octopus put start date of fixed at end of my tracker which is mid Feb.  I didnt ask for that.

Also got email from Octopus about leaving them. (Tomato Energy)
Will wait for electric to move as I think I already risked disrupting it on the gas change, then ask them to correct it end of week.

Qyburn

Telegraph_Sam said:

I was trying to get my head around the wholesale market price conversion formulas for the North East, region F. Taking the latest Tracker 31/12/2024 version from the website FAQ’s I come to a retail conversion factor of 128.5, or plus 5% VAT  (I suppose) = 134.9, from a base of W = 100. Confusingly Lipman uses a different formula but comes to approximately the same result: 132.5

Tracker formula applies both a markup and a fixed increment. So the ratio between wholesale price and Tracker price won't be constant percentage.

Telegraph_Sam

Qyburn said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

I was trying to get my head around the wholesale market price conversion formulas for the North East, region F. Taking the latest Tracker 31/12/2024 version from the website FAQ’s I come to a retail conversion factor of 128.5, or plus 5% VAT  (I suppose) = 134.9, from a base of W = 100. Confusingly Lipman uses a different formula but comes to approximately the same result: 132.5

Tracker formula applies both a markup and a fixed increment. So the ratio between wholesale price and Tracker price won't be constant percentage.

I took this into account when calculating the conversion factors from both Tracker FAQ's and Lipman

debitcardmayhem

Well I got the fix done for gas at december rates, good. Bad news Octopus changed my DD to 130.25 , can’t see anything in my emails about that, but I am too late to change this month’s so will put it back to £10 now. It won’t affect my budget too badly since I won’t be paying council tax in Jan or Feb £263/mth 😎

Slinky

debitcardmayhem said:

Well I got the fix done for gas at december rates, good. Bad news Octopus changed my DD to 130.25 , can’t see anything in my emails about that, but I am too late to change this month’s so will put it back to £10 now. It won’t affect my budget too badly since I won’t be paying council tax in Jan or Feb £263/mth 😎

If you're still 3 days away from the payment date, there's a link on the email reminder they send where you can click and delay the DD.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Qyburn said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

I was trying to get my head around the wholesale market price conversion formulas for the North East, region F. Taking the latest Tracker 31/12/2024 version from the website FAQ’s I come to a retail conversion factor of 128.5, or plus 5% VAT  (I suppose) = 134.9, from a base of W = 100. Confusingly Lipman uses a different formula but comes to approximately the same result: 132.5

Tracker formula applies both a markup and a fixed increment. So the ratio between wholesale price and Tracker price won't be constant percentage.

I took this into account when calculating the conversion factors from both Tracker FAQ's and Lipman

For NE region today, Tracker: 19.4p, Agile average: 19.0p before 4-7pm penalty. Your conversion factor seems to be way off.

debitcardmayhem

Slinky said:

debitcardmayhem said:

Well I got the fix done for gas at december rates, good. Bad news Octopus changed my DD to 130.25 , can’t see anything in my emails about that, but I am too late to change this month’s so will put it back to £10 now. It won’t affect my budget too badly since I won’t be paying council tax in Jan or Feb £263/mth 😎

If you're still 3 days away from the payment date, there's a link on the email reminder they send where you can click and delay the DD.

Not worth doing really, it will top my balance enough to get through Feb,Mar when hopefully the sun shines, and temps rise.

Slinky

debitcardmayhem said:

Slinky said:

debitcardmayhem said:

Well I got the fix done for gas at december rates, good. Bad news Octopus changed my DD to 130.25 , can’t see anything in my emails about that, but I am too late to change this month’s so will put it back to £10 now. It won’t affect my budget too badly since I won’t be paying council tax in Jan or Feb £263/mth 😎

If you're still 3 days away from the payment date, there's a link on the email reminder they send where you can click and delay the DD.

Not worth doing really, it will top my balance enough to get through Feb,Mar when hopefully the sun shines, and temps rise.

Octopus didn't update my DD figure when I fixed gas last week, at that time it was £5 a month, and we're £180 in credit.

I do wonder how Octopus calculate their DD estimates. I know they claim it's partly based on historic usage, but their own estimate of out actual usage over the 18 months we've been with them and as printed on their bills is £750 (we have solar and export), yet their estimate for the DD remains stuck on £133.09 a month.

marlot

I switched to DD payment on receipt of bill.  Much easier to understand and no big balances with the supplier.