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How to live without heating - save £000s

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  • MultiFuelBurner
    MultiFuelBurner Posts: 2,928 Forumite
    1,000 Posts First Anniversary Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 24 December 2023 at 3:26PM
    Bendo said:
    It's an interesting concept (and absolutely not one for me), but no idea why you wouldn't use something like Octopus Agile and at least heat the house overnight when you could be getting paid to use electric?
    I agree and I suspect @hertslad doesn't know about Agile fully and the fact he could just set some electric heating or Electric hot water on for the negative pricing periods during the year and recoup the standing charge from those. Effectively zero or negative bill for the year. Fitting in with his ethos.
  • bristolleedsfan
    bristolleedsfan Posts: 12,644 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 24 December 2023 at 4:50PM
    I agree and I suspect @hertslad doesn't know about Agile fully and the fact he could just set some electric heating or Electric hot water on for the negative pricing periods during the year and recoup the standing charge from those. Effectively zero or negative bill for the year. Fitting in with his ethos.



    Agile tariff does not go negative when weather is cold.

    Correct me if I have any of this wrong, you have electric heating and chose a tariff other than Agile.
  • That's not the point 

    I believe @hertslad wants as free energy as possible and he must have an electricity supply he pays a standing charge for and perhaps some usage on top.

    What I was saying was he can utilise Agile whenever it goes negative (Spring, Summer, Autumn and yes it does go negative in winter as well) the usage he uses then can heat his hot water and he could run some heaters or any other electrical items to then (for want of a better word) game the Agile systen to only use it when negative and end up with Octopus paying him for his electricity use.

    Knowing how extreme he can go on heat this might be his next money saving step.
  • JSHarris
    JSHarris Posts: 374 Forumite
    100 Posts Name Dropper
    Agile goes negative whenever the wholesale price goes negative and in winter this tends to happen whenever it's mild, there is a public holiday (which reduces industrial demand) and it's windy.  Right now it's very mild, a lot of heavy industry has shut down and a pretty high 52.79% of our total electricity demand is coming from wind power, only 7.5% is coming from gas and coal is sat idling, just keeping the boiler's warm.
  • Netexporter
    Netexporter Posts: 1,959 Forumite
    1,000 Posts First Anniversary Name Dropper
    Agile tariff does not go negative when weather is cold

    It was negative most of last night. It's been close to zero all day. It will peak at under 20p about now and be below 7 after the peak period. It will be negative later tonight. It's been negative several times in the past week or so.


    My average price for the past 6 months was 16.2p. The highest month was last month at 19.5p, the lowest just under 13p. Beats the SVT into a cocked hat, as long as you avoid 16:00 to 19:00, which isn't difficult.

  • bristolleedsfan
    bristolleedsfan Posts: 12,644 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 24 December 2023 at 5:39PM
    That's not the point 

    I believe @hertslad wants as free energy as possible and he must have an electricity supply he pays a standing charge for and perhaps some usage on top.


    ."Then I would also have to pay a whopping standing charge again"


    ¬
    "Ahh fair enough, hadnt realised you were pretty much off grid"




  • masonic
    masonic Posts: 27,202 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 24 December 2023 at 5:44PM
    That's not the point 

    I believe @hertslad wants as free energy as possible and he must have an electricity supply he pays a standing charge for and perhaps some usage on top.

    What I was saying was he can utilise Agile whenever it goes negative (Spring, Summer, Autumn and yes it does go negative in winter as well) the usage he uses then can heat his hot water and he could run some heaters or any other electrical items to then (for want of a better word) game the Agile systen to only use it when negative and end up with Octopus paying him for his electricity use.

    Knowing how extreme he can go on heat this might be his next money saving step.
    Is it really feasible to be paid more than ~£175 per year to offset the standing charge? There was only one day in the last 365 when prices went appreciably negative (-18p, 2nd July), once when it went quite negative (-8p, 16th July) and several occasions when it was slightly negative. An immersion heater is only going to be a few kW. It would take a lot of heating to make up the difference and would probably require a few thousand units usage to break even, much of which would involve running appliances at specific half hour slots during the night. Suspect this would also require an initial outlay on heating equipment that could be safely run on a timer.
  • So our region on Agile is circa £130 a year. (Agile has very cheap standing charge btw)

    But my fag packet calculation mistakenly thought Hertslads might already have a supply and pay an SC and not be off grid.

    Just for info this link shows the negative drops which is handy for those with minimal electricity use and on grid if they want to try some extreme saving 

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/energy-stats.uk/agile-price-plunges/amp/
  • JSHarris
    JSHarris Posts: 374 Forumite
    100 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 24 December 2023 at 5:52PM
    masonic said:
    That's not the point 

    I believe @hertslad wants as free energy as possible and he must have an electricity supply he pays a standing charge for and perhaps some usage on top.

    What I was saying was he can utilise Agile whenever it goes negative (Spring, Summer, Autumn and yes it does go negative in winter as well) the usage he uses then can heat his hot water and he could run some heaters or any other electrical items to then (for want of a better word) game the Agile systen to only use it when negative and end up with Octopus paying him for his electricity use.

    Knowing how extreme he can go on heat this might be his next money saving step.
    Is it really feasible to be paid more than ~£175 per year to offset the standing charge? There was only one day in the last 365 when prices went appreciably negative (-18p, 2nd July), once when it went quite negative (-8p, 16th July) and several occasions when it was slightly negative. An immersion heater is only going to be a few kW. It would take a lot of heating to make up the difference and would probably require a few thousand units usage to break even, much of which would involve running appliances at specific half hour slots during the night. Suspect this would also require an initial outlay on heating equipment that could be safely run on a timer.

    Probably not.  During the roughly two years I compared our actual usage (with a data granularity of 10 readings per hour) with the published Agile 30 minute pricing I found that Economy 7 was about 15% cheaper overall.  Obviously this will vary a lot with different usage patterns, but my usage pattern is pretty optimised for the lowest electricity price period each day, so I think my comparison was fair.
    Someone using electricity during the day, especially the very high peak time during the later afternoon/early evening, would probably find Agile even more expensive.
    I'm not knocking it, it's a fun tariff and one that helps a great deal to educate people about peak and off-peak electricity pricing.  The fact remains that so far in 2023 the average price I've paid for electricity has been 14.114p/kWh, on a standard variable Economy 7 tariff.  I'd have certainly paid a lot more than this on Agile, without considering the higher standing charge.
  • Agile tariff does not go negative when weather is cold

    It was negative most of last night. It's been close to zero all day. It will peak at under 20p about now and be below 7 after the peak period. It will be negative later tonight. It's been negative several times in the past week or so.



    HertsLad said:
    Heating the house overnight would be my lowest priority. I have always preferred a cool bedroom.  They say it could be the warmest Christmas ever. It has been hovering around 10C in my house for quite a few days now. I wish it was cooler, so the fridge and freezer would use less energy.
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