What rates are you being offered by your provider at the moment?

Telegraph_Sam

Would you agree that the Octopus innovative / ToU tariffs seem to fall into 3 camps
1. aimed at consumers who can shift a MAJOR part of their consumption into the very early morning hours as for EV charging: Cosy, Intelligent, Loyal (I am still trying to work out the fine differences between each of these)
2. aimed at those not averse to take a risk on swings in spot prices in return for better rates some of the time: Tracker, Agile
3. Those who fall into neither of these camps: Flexible, Go [Some doubt if Flexible ECO 7 comes in camp 1?]
Seems to me that Octopus is missing a gap in the market for those that are willing and able to do a limited amount of load shifting, in return for an incentive, but not to the extent of camp 1.
If anyone can refine these distinctions for me I would be grateful.

Spoonie_Turtle

Loyal Octopus is - as far as I'm aware - just a fixed tariff offered to existing customers, no ToU-ness about it.  (Did you maybe mean Flux?)

Economy 7 would definitely be for those who can shift enough to overnight to outweigh the higher day rate. 

Why is Go not in category 1?

Tracker previously was pretty safe for people willing to do a modest amount of load shifting but without the certainty of which days would turn out to be cheapest.  Now with the higher caps it is a higher risk tariff, to an extent - coming off is a gamble, whether you'll regret it in the 9 months until you can go back onto it.

Telegraph_Sam

That was helpful in filling in  (some of) the gaps ..
I had Go originally in camp 1 before moving it. Now I agree that that is where it should belong.
I agree that Loyal non-ECO 7 should belong in camp 3. Not much to choose between it and Flexible?

I got my fingers burned with Tracker in the past but am back on it with gas at present rates. Obviously one has to do a certain amount of rates monitoring and crystal ball gazing to decide if and when to come off it. All the more so with Agile

Rightly or not I associate Flux with importing and exporting to the grid, in a category by itself.

What is really missing is a successor to Go Faster 

AndyDragon

I accepted:
EON Next

Next Loyalty Fixed v4

Electricity: 29.30p/kWh, 47.94p/day
Gas: 7.32p/kWh, 23.08p/day
12month fix

Exit fee: £75 per fuel
all inc VAT

for comparisons variable is:

Electricity: 29.61p/kWh, 53.96p/day

Gas: 7.43 p/kWh, 29.11p/day

my thought was it’s lower than the current variable, even if prices drop towards the end of the year I have 3 months on lower usage to help mitigate (even if small) and honestly, piece of mind plus the forecasts aren’t showing a significant change and it’s way too volatile for my liking

I’m pretty stable. tend to use about 300 to 340kwh a month on electric (so about 4000 per year)

gas as with most is variable, but in the order of 6500 per year. Of course loaded at winter so all a bit of a gamble if gas drops significantly

bristolleedsfan

AndyDragon said:

I accepted:
EON Next

Next Loyalty Fixed v4

Electricity: 29.30p/kWh, 47.94p/day
Gas: 7.32p/kWh, 23.08p/day
12month fix

Exit fee: £75 per fuel
all inc VAT

for comparisons variable is:

Electricity: 29.61p/kWh, 53.96p/day

Gas: 7.43 p/kWh, 29.11p/day

my thought was it’s lower than the current variable, even if prices drop towards the end of the year I have 3 months on lower usage to help mitigate (even if small) and honestly, piece of mind plus the forecasts aren’t showing a significant change and it’s way too volatile for my liking

I’m pretty stable. tend to use about 300 to 340kwh a month on electric (so about 4000 per year)

gas as with most is variable, but in the order of 6500 per year. Of course loaded at winter so all a bit of a gamble if gas drops significantly

No gamble, SC and unit rates are cheaper than current SVR, Eon Next allow switches between all of its tariffs including from 12 month fix without charge/no exit fee.

Happyholidaygirl

I live in an all Electric house and I don’t understand why the kWh price of Electric is so much more than Gas. We can’t afford to use our old storage heaters or use the overnight water heating. We use our electric shower and boil water for washing up. There does not seem much help for people on All Electric from MSE.

QrizB

Happyholidaygirl said:

I live in an all Electric house and I don’t understand why the kWh price of Electric is so much more than Gas.

A good fraction of the electricity you use is made by burning gas. You need to burn about two kWh of gas to produce one kWh of electricity, plus you need to pay for the machinery that turns it into electricity, plus you need to pay to have it delivered to your home.

Happyholidaygirl said:

We can’t afford to use our old storage heaters or use the overnight water heating. We use our electric shower and boil water for washing up.

What tariff are you on, and with what supplier?

For an example house requiring 10MWh of heat a year, heating with storage heaters is currently about £500 a year more expensive than mains gas (see calculations here).

Happyholidaygirl said:

There does not seem much help for people on All Electric from MSE.

Exactly what help are you looking for, that isn't already offeredby MSE corporately or by these forums?

Did you see all the replies to your previous thread?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6368834/economy-7-dilemma

vision2009

Shell energy have a new 1 year fix for electricity. However, the standing charge is being racked up yet again to 63.63p day.This rip off has to stop.  Why are they being allowed to get away with this? The standing charge will soon be £1 a day, it’s criminal. Rip off Britain and they are all in it together.

QrizB

vision2009 said:

Shell energy have a new 1 year fix for electricity. However, the standing charge is being racked up yet again to 63.63p day.This rip off has to stop.  Why are they being allowed to get away with this? The standing charge will soon be £1 a day, it’s criminal. Rip off Britain and they are all in it together.

You can't look at one part of a fixed tariff in isolation. The offer is for the entire tariff.

Standing charges on fixed tariffs are not capped.

You are free to accept Shell's offer, or not. If you feel that you will be worse off, don't accept the fix.

Telegraph_Sam

Has anyone worked out if the total electric cost of being on Agile for the past 12 months would have been the same as on Tracker? Other variables being equal. I think they are both in a sense averages and it might be that the end result would be the same. Or not ..