Export tariffs - FIT, SEG, Octopus Outgoing Agile

70sbudgie

Put your postcode into the Octopus quote page. If you go into the detail, you can extract the unit rates.

QrizB

OK, let's dig in to this.

NoobSolar said:

My BG deal is just the standard rate we have found ourselves on when bulb went bust; it is price cap protected, but that changes soon anyway ... What are Octopus' current rates? If I went to Octopus Agile, what do you think my costs and SEG would be?

That makes things simpler. Octopus's standard variable rate (SVT) is near-as-darnit identical to BGs, so you can switch to Octopus without incurring any extra import costs.

I anticipate importing aboout 1700 KWH of electricity next year, mostly, of course, in the winter; and I imagine I will be exporting something in the region of 2318 KWH.

Assuming the current predictions turn out to be correct, 1700kWh over the next 12 months on the SVT will cost around £1200. The value of exports on Outgoing Agile is more difficult to predict, as it changes so much, but it's currently averaging around 50p/kWh (which is a crazy thing to write, when back on page 2 of this thread it was under 7p). At that rate, your 2318kWh of export will earn you £1159.

It looks like ther'es a reasonable chance your export payments over the 12 months will equal your import costs, leaving you with a net zero electricity bill.

NoobSolar

Very encouraging Qrizb! I think we can see from the historical data on https://www.energy-stats.uk/octopus-agile/

That the outgoing is generally lower most times than the incoming. Hence under 'normal' conditions I imagine these savings would not apply.

What I do notice is that in the months March to at least September I am or will be using only about 2 to 3 kwh a day apart from the iboost, which only uses excess; and exporting about 14-15kwh or more  if we nip off to stay with family. Can one chop and change tariff?

NoobSolar

Thanks for the advice. I have put in my transfer request to Octopus. Apparently (I didn't know this) you have to have their standard tariff if using outgoing agile. So it will be no different to British gas in terms of import.

Alnat1

I'm on Agile for both import and export, as are several others on this forum.

I changed to Agile for import in July, when the price was capped at 35p/kWh. It's now 55p but that will most likely be lower than the SVT come October. As the recent market prices have been crazy high the 55p can almost be seen as a fixed price, it's rarely dropped below that in any time slots for the last few weeks.

As I'm "only" paying 35p to import, I decided to play Magnito's game and filled the battery early this morning, exported the excess solar all day, then did a forced discharge when the export price hit 80p this evening. I did leave a bit in the battery to get the load through the next few hours. I imported 4kWh and exported 14.4.

Spies

Alnat1 said:

I'm on Agile for both import and export, as are several others on this forum.

I changed to Agile for import in July, when the price was capped at 35p/kWh. It's now 55p but that will most likely be lower than the SVT come October. As the recent market prices have been crazy high the 55p can almost be seen as a fixed price, it's rarely dropped below that in any time slots for the last few weeks.

As I'm "only" paying 35p to import, I decided to play Magnito's game and filled the battery early this morning, exported the excess solar all day, then did a forced discharge when the export price hit 80p this evening. I did leave a bit in the battery to get the load through the next few hours. I imported 4kWh and exported 14.4.

If you use the Octopus Watch app,  it will give you the daily net total which is nice.

Reed_Richards

What's the sign convention in that Octopus Watch app?  Does a negative number represent a net export?

Magnitio

I've been using the Octopus Go Agile app which show output like this:

The app was designed to compare Go with Agile. So on Agile, the total export value for these two days was £28.13, whereas at a fixed rate of 4.1p/kWh, the total would have been £2.08. There were some import costs to offset this (£7.02) which are shown by toggling the export button.

Spies

Reed_Richards said:

What's the sign convention in that Octopus Watch app?  Does a negative number represent a net export?

Yes it does. 

Screwdriva

The last few days have been exceptional. We are being incentivized to use the grid as a subsidized battery and to avoid solar consumption altogether, given the 50%+ premium being offered by Outgoing Agile over the price capped import tariff.

Never thought I'd see the day where I was being paid .80p per kWh sold!