How to live without heating - save £000s

Netexporter

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

The winter fuel payment would cover that and leave over £400/£500 change, depending on age. The WFP could easily cover the whole year's cost if you were reasonably careful.

masonic

JSHarris said:

masonic said:

MultiFuelBurner 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.

I was on Agile earlier this year before joining Tracker and made as much use of the price plunges as I could. They actually made Agile marginally better for my use in summer, but without those two significant plunges in July I was about 10% worse off than Tracker. As it has often been remarked, the best way to compare is to be on the TOU so that you are realistic about what load-shifting you can do, and the answer for me was not quite enough. My dilemma now is what to do when I get moved onto the new Tracker pricing, as I reckon I could be better off through spring-autumn on Agile...

MultiFuelBurner

Netexporter said:

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

The winter fuel payment would cover that and leave over £400/£500 change, depending on age. The WFP could easily cover the whole year's cost if you were reasonably careful.

Indeed, yep just adding some other ideas into this thread for "extreme" savings as this post suggests but sadly I have not read a lot of it as I've just started Reacher season 2 lol

bristolleedsfan

MultiFuelBurner said:

. (Agile has very cheap standing charge btw)

For anyone changing to Agile tariff now Standing charge is the same as the other Octopus tariffs which for example Merseyside/North Wales :60.18 p/day

masonic

MultiFuelBurner said:

So our region on Agile is circa £130 a year. (Agile has very cheap standing charge btw)

I'm getting 48.66p per day (£177 per year) for my region and the same even for the usual cheapest Yorkshire region. Which region is so much cheaper?

JSHarris

bristolleedsfan said:

Netexporter said:

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:

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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.

Using electricity overnight for heating doesn't necessarily meaning heating the house at that time.  Our electric central heating heats the pretty massive ground floor concrete floor slab.  This takes hours to heat up with the heating on and doesn't really start giving out heat to the house until well into the following day.  Our bedrooms are unheated and upstairs, so not much heat gets up there, unless the weather's particularly warm.

This system allows me to use off-peak, relatively cheap, electricity to heat the house, but without making the bedrooms too warm at night.  Right now, the heating hasn't been on since 02.57 last night, yet our living room is sat at 21.4°C, so comfortably warm.  In all probability the heating may not come on again for another day or so, as there is still a lot of heat stored in the floor slab.

Netexporter

bristolleedsfan said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

. (Agile has very cheap standing charge btw)

For anyone changing to Agile tariff now Standing charge is the same as the other Octopus tariffs which for example Merseyside/North Wales :60.18 p/day

I'm glad I didn't chop and change. I'm a mile or two south of that region; still one of the most expensive, though. I wonder how long I can hang on to my 47p SC?

MultiFuelBurner

£153 now on December 2023 v1 Agile for me. Good spot the new December tariff for Agile pricing as well shot the SC up by just under 5p a day 👍

So anyway as said I didn't know Hertslads was off grid and paying no SC so just thought I would add another potential money saving idea for him and others to look at if they are trying a similar project. (It's not for us but some do like a challenge lol)

Merry Xmas @hertslad and good luck should the beast from the east or el nino appear later this winter.

masonic

Well the hertslad-lite approach I have been taking this winter has so far saved me just shy of £100. Lite, because I have allowed myself the luxury of heating my living room to 14 °C on cold days, with the exception of really cheap days like today where I have gone a few degrees higher. With the appropriate clothing, this is no hardship, and I've not needed any heating in other rooms. So I am grateful for this thread and the encouragement within it. It is not something I would have even considered ordinarily.

JSHarris

This is our indoor temperature and outside temperature data for the past 24 hours.  The (electric) heating was on last night for a short time, at a cost of about 27p (this was the first time the heating has come on for three days).  The indoor temperature sensor is in the living room, the outdoor one is under the eves on the North side of the house, inside a Stevenson screen.  Very mild for the time of year, which helps with the low heating cost.  The temperature in the house has been pretty stable, though, despite the heating only having been on for a short time last night

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