Octopus Tracker

bagand96

bagand96 said:

double_dutchy said:

bagand96 said:

Messaged Octopus on Twitter yesterday to fix my gas. They started responding and asked for verification etc and then stopped. Today a more expensive fix has launched. Tried contacting to them today and no response. Nice one octopus, losing your shine! 

People say that Twitter is quicker than email but I emailed yesterday to change my tariff and had confirmation back by email exactly 30 minutes later. I then asked by reply to change to paying by variable DD and had confirmation of that back overnight. Congrats to Octopus, great service all round

Emailed them today. Explained I was trying to change tariff with the social media team and they stopped responding, and that now the fix has gone up in price.

They replied within 25 mins:

I'm really sorry for the delay in getting back to you and for any inconvenience this has caused.

I understand you wanted to switch your gas tariff to the Fixed 12M at the rate of 5.75p/kWh, but were concerned about your electricity supply.

Unfortunately, the rates for the Fixed 12M tariff have now been updated to 5.99p/kWh incl. VAT.

Please let me know if you're okay to put this in place.

Thank you for your patience, and please let me know if there's anything else I can assist you with.

Completely missed the point! I responded straight away again explaining my point that I asked for the switch whilst the old tariff was valid, but due to their delay I've now missed out.... No response at all. 

Seems they can quickly respond to simple requests but when challenged they go silent. Wonder if it was AI? 

I know this could probably have been done with a phone call more effectively but just had a few days where I haven't had chance to call. Seems like just another big energy provider now with mediocre to poor customer service to go with! 

Just to report back on this.  Having had no response from Octopus, on checking my account earlier I can see that they have actually moved my Gas onto 12M Fixed, and at the December rate of 5.74p/kWh with an end date of 02/01/26.

So they got there in the end, even if it seems they never got back to me!  Well done Octopus 🐙

Telegraph_Sam

masonic said:

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.

The Dec 2024 conversion formula for the North East Region F given in Tracker FAQ's is (W*1.17609)+10.86514. That means that if the wholesale price W is £100 this translates into a retail cost  of £128 for me, or £134.9 with 5% VAT added on

The Lipman version is (W*1.19 +7.19) which equates to £132.5 with 5% VAT added.

For Agile the formula is W*2.1*1.05 = £220.5 retail, or (W*2.1+12)*1.05 = £233.1 in the 4 - 7 pm slot.  Octopus and Lipman both give the same result

This makes Agile look wildly uncompetitive. I hope someone can point out the error of my ways and explain the contradiction. Putting W @ £100 is - hopefully - purely for illustrative purposes! Something nearer the current wholesale price can easily be substituted.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

masonic said:

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.

The Dec 2024 conversion formula for the North East Region F given in Tracker FAQ's is (W*1.17609)+10.86514. That means that if the wholesale price W is £100 this translates into a retail cost  of £128 for me, or £134.9 with 5% VAT added on

The Lipman version is (W*1.19 +7.19) which equates to £132.5 with 5% VAT added.

For Agile the formula is W*2.1*1.05 = £220.5 retail, or (W*2.1+12)*1.05 = £233.1 in the 4 - 7 pm slot.  Octopus and Lipman both give the same result

This makes Agile look wildly uncompetitive. I hope someone can point out the error of my ways and explain the contradiction. Putting W @ £100 is - hopefully - purely for illustrative purposes! Something nearer the current wholesale price can easily be substituted.

Putting W @ £100 is where you are going wildly wrong. £100/MWh = 10p/kWh. So 10 is the number you should use for W. You didn't honestly think that a unit price of £134.90 was realistic, did you, especially given it is capped at £1?

That translates into a retail cost for Tracker of (W*1.17609)+10.86514 = 22.6p/kWh or 23.8p/kWh after VAT. 23.8/10 = 2.38

And for Agile, W*2.1*1.05 = 22.1p/kWh after VAT. 22.1/10 = 2.21

2.21 < 2.38

Telegraph_Sam

masonic said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

masonic said:

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.

The Dec 2024 conversion formula for the North East Region F given in Tracker FAQ's is (W*1.17609)+10.86514. That means that if the wholesale price W is £100 this translates into a retail cost  of £128 for me, or £134.9 with 5% VAT added on

The Lipman version is (W*1.19 +7.19) which equates to £132.5 with 5% VAT added.

For Agile the formula is W*2.1*1.05 = £220.5 retail, or (W*2.1+12)*1.05 = £233.1 in the 4 - 7 pm slot.  Octopus and Lipman both give the same result

This makes Agile look wildly uncompetitive. I hope someone can point out the error of my ways and explain the contradiction. Putting W @ £100 is - hopefully - purely for illustrative purposes! Something nearer the current wholesale price can easily be substituted.

Putting W @ £100 is where you are going wildly wrong. £100/MWh = 10p/kWh. So 10 is the number you should use for W. You didn't honestly think that a unit price of £134.90 was realistic, did you, especially given it is capped at £1?

That translates into a retail cost for Tracker of (W*1.17609)+10.86514 = 22.6p/kWh or 23.8p/kWh after VAT. 23.8/10 = 2.38

And for Agile, W*2.1*1.05 = 22.1p/kWh after VAT. 22.1/10 = 2.21

2.21 < 2.38

Yes that looks like the explanation taking the difference between p/kWh and £/MWh into account. As I said in my note, the "100" was a purely symbolic figure and correcting it to a more realistic "10" is easy. 10 is much nearer the actual average wholesale price and I can agree with your figures. This puts Agile on average around 7% cheaper at the wholesale level. I think that one of the data sources (gastracker?) gives the actual average at the retail level. The debate progresses to whether an advantage of c. 7% is sufficient to justify a switch given the greater price volatility. I think that the latest SC's are the same for both tariffs.

Spoonie_Turtle

Telegraph_Sam said:

masonic said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

masonic said:

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.

The Dec 2024 conversion formula for the North East Region F given in Tracker FAQ's is (W*1.17609)+10.86514. That means that if the wholesale price W is £100 this translates into a retail cost  of £128 for me, or £134.9 with 5% VAT added on

The Lipman version is (W*1.19 +7.19) which equates to £132.5 with 5% VAT added.

For Agile the formula is W*2.1*1.05 = £220.5 retail, or (W*2.1+12)*1.05 = £233.1 in the 4 - 7 pm slot.  Octopus and Lipman both give the same result

This makes Agile look wildly uncompetitive. I hope someone can point out the error of my ways and explain the contradiction. Putting W @ £100 is - hopefully - purely for illustrative purposes! Something nearer the current wholesale price can easily be substituted.

Putting W @ £100 is where you are going wildly wrong. £100/MWh = 10p/kWh. So 10 is the number you should use for W. You didn't honestly think that a unit price of £134.90 was realistic, did you, especially given it is capped at £1?

That translates into a retail cost for Tracker of (W*1.17609)+10.86514 = 22.6p/kWh or 23.8p/kWh after VAT. 23.8/10 = 2.38

And for Agile, W*2.1*1.05 = 22.1p/kWh after VAT. 22.1/10 = 2.21

2.21 < 2.38

Yes that looks like the explanation taking the difference between p/kWh and £/MWh into account. As I said in my note, the "100" was a purely symbolic figure and correcting it to a more realistic "10" is easy. 10 is much nearer the actual average wholesale price and I can agree with your figures. This puts Agile on average around 7% cheaper at the wholesale level. I think that one of the data sources (gastracker?) gives the actual average at the retail level. The debate progresses to whether an advantage of c. 7% is sufficient to justify a switch given the greater price volatility. I think that the latest SC's are the same for both tariffs.

But the % will change as the wholesale price changes.

I guess the most pegged to reality example you could do with the singular formula for each is find out the average wholesale day-ahead price p/kWh for the past year and plug that in.  But that would still only be a look back and not entirely helpful as the average price for the year ahead may well be different.

However, I see your logic in what you're comparing - on the face of it, if Agile is usually averaging out around the same price (± a small %) even during the peak, the rest of the time is bound to be cheaper on the whole.

[I don't have the brainpower to know if that's correct, whether it still works out that way including potentially fluctuating usage seasonally - for me much more of an issue than for you as you have gas, our winter electricity is much higher than summer because of heating and hot water - but I can see why you did those calculations.]

Telegraph_Sam

I think it it a case of being realistic in the absence of crystal balls. In my case I / we want to make a reasoned decision on which way to jump by 15th Feb, and having made the decision, not go checking out the wholesale market all the time thereafter. The best I can do is try to to see if the present price trends fit into some kind of historical pattern (or not) and adjust the "W" accordingly in the formulas, recognizing the limitations. A better way should be to do a "Compare" for both these new tariffs. On my to-do list. All the more acute if you are 100% electric ...

la531983

Looks like another spike tomorrow, mine going from 22p to 30p. Agile users will have the candles out in the evening!

debitcardmayhem

Gas declining though….

bristolleedsfan

December 24 current version - Northwest Region - Wednesday -  34.34p kWh

Agile peak will be around 92p kWh

matt_drummer

Telegraph_Sam said:

Yes that looks like the explanation taking the difference between p/kWh and £/MWh into account. As I said in my note, the "100" was a purely symbolic figure and correcting it to a more realistic "10" is easy. 10 is much nearer the actual average wholesale price and I can agree with your figures. This puts Agile on average around 7% cheaper at the wholesale level. I think that one of the data sources (gastracker?) gives the actual average at the retail level. The debate progresses to whether an advantage of c. 7% is sufficient to justify a switch given the greater price volatility. I think that the latest SC's are the same for both tariffs.

I think there is a fatal flaw in your logic @Telegraph_Sam

You seem to only ever consider two tariffs?

You just keep comparing Tracker and Agile as if they are the only choices you have.

Agile may be 7% lower than Tracker but that's not very helpful when both tariffs start averaging higher than SVT and fixes let alone comparing to suppliers other than Octopus

I think this is the point you are missing.

Do you really think that Tracker will forever be cheaper than SVT or a well timed fix?

Agile may well be, as long as you are prepared to do most of your importing at the cheapest times.

But look at tomorrow?