Octopus Tracker WITHOUT Smart meter?

Spoonie_Turtle

On Octopus' website the Tracker tariff doesn't come under the category of 'smart tariffs'.  I just wondered whether anyone had experience of being on the tariff without a smart meter?

I understand the intention is to move energy usage to times when it's cheaper so a smart meter would give the most accurate billing, but it looks like the electricity unit rates have been cheaper than the SVT on average for a while and I'm considering whether it might be worth changing. 

[I'm not here to discuss having a smart meter - while I quite like the idea providing it works properly, my parents will not be persuaded.  Honestly I would quite happily take daily readings from our simple meter if it came to it; the only time nobody's around at midnight (or whenever the prices change, I assume around then) is when we're all on holiday together.]

Should probably note, we're already with Octopus and electric-only.

QrizB

Spoonie_Turtle said:

On Octopus' website the Tracker tariff doesn't come under the category of 'smart tariffs'.  I just wondered whether anyone had experience of being on the tariff without a smart meter?

Yes, my gas meter is supposedly smart but hasn't sent a reading for 9 months now.Octopus just estimate your use for each day and charge that much at that day's rate. Something like this:

You don't get the full benefit of using more gas on a day when it's cheap, and less when it isn't.

Octopus are meant to be working on making my meter smart again but for now I'm giving meter readings three times a month - 10th, 20th and last day - and getting three bills a month. That's not necessary but it makes me feel like I'm being efficient! (Manual daily readings would mean 30 bills a month, which seems a bit much ...)

SuperBoro

I'm with EDF and currently on their Standard Variable Tariff which is 27.09p/KWh for electric and 7.22p/KWh for gas.
They are offering a fixed price deal up to 30 June 2024 (called Total Long Term) of 34.16p for electric and 9.96p for gas. With an early exit fee of £300!

I recently bought an electric car so I looked up their tariffs for ev's. They have three. Because I don't have a smart meter my only current option is to use their Go Electric May 24 tariff until they can get round to fitting a smart meter. The rates for this tariff are 30.71p for electric and 12.988p for gas. There is the option to change to other eV tariffs at no extra cost once I have a smart meter. Now, you have probably looked at the tariff for electric and thought that's a good deal compared with the Total Long Term tariff, and less than the probable 40% increase in the Standard tariff come October. However, take a look at the comparable prices of gas. I find it a bit strange that the charge for gas should be higher because I am using an electric vehicle! 

Spoonie_Turtle

QrizB said:
 for now I'm giving meter readings three times a month - 10th, 20th and last day - and getting three bills a month. That's not necessary but it makes me feel like I'm being efficient! (Manual daily readings would mean 30 bills a month, which seems a bit much ...)

Thank you, your experience is helpful.  Yes very true - I was thinking along the lines of replacing the smart meter function but forgot that manual readings generate a bill! 

When initially considering the tariff, weekly readings seemed to me to perhaps be a decent balance of frequent enough to benefit but not ridiculously often.  Every ~10 days also sounds sensible.

JohnPo

SuperBoro said:

I'm with EDF and currently on their Standard Variable Tariff which is 27.09p/KWh for electric and 7.22p/KWh for gas.
They are offering a fixed price deal up to 30 June 2024 (called Total Long Term) of 34.16p for electric and 9.96p for gas. With an early exit fee of £300!

I recently bought an electric car so I looked up their tariffs for ev's. They have three. Because I don't have a smart meter my only current option is to use their Go Electric May 24 tariff until they can get round to fitting a smart meter. The rates for this tariff are 30.71p for electric and 12.988p for gas. There is the option to change to other eV tariffs at no extra cost once I have a smart meter. Now, you have probably looked at the tariff for electric and thought that's a good deal compared with the Total Long Term tariff, and less than the probable 40% increase in the Standard tariff come October. However, take a look at the comparable prices of gas. I find it a bit strange that the charge for gas should be higher because I am using an electric vehicle! 

The current tariffs for electric vehicle owners other than Octopus are all rubbish, all the fixed rate / dual fuel deals that I looked at recently were all worse than the current and expected October price cap. I was struggling to find anything better for the Gas as we use 25,000 KWh annually until I looked at the tracker product.  To answer your question all fixed rates for gas are going to be higher than your current SVT rate,  but this dual fuel offer does seem high as in my region a two year fix from EDF is 11.017p per Kwh - in my online account.

My recommendation would be to switch to Octopus, if you don't have a smart meter they will let join on their SVT, if you say you want to go on their Tracker V3 for both gas/electric (with 11p and 40p cap respectively), you may need to be a little insistent with the agent you call as some are unaware of it as a current tariff. Once live with them order a smart meter through them and inquire about Octopus GO or GO faster, they may will agree to honor the current prices until your smart smart is installed and goes live on their system.

I expect based on previous changes to the price cap tariff that the current day rate of Octopus GO / Faster which was increased in March to go up again sometime later in Aug/Sept time probably to somewhere around 48-50p day rate and the current off peak rates held. 

Just my suggestion, I joined Octopus in April (ex Symbio via Neon Reef then to British Gas via SOLR) but signed up in Feb 22 so got the previous Dec 21 Octopus Go rates honored, this week I decided to move gas to Octopus v3 tracker (Ex Zog and then to EDF again via SOLR) and every calculation I looked at it has to be better than price cap rate - unless gas suddenly between now and October exceeds my current rate of of 7.365p - which is highly unlikely in the summer period.

Spoonie_Turtle

Just as an update, I did ask to switch to Tracker and in the e-mail they said they're rolling out smart meters for everyone on the tariff over this summer!  (Rather sooner than 'eventually' as a previous e-mail stated.)

tlcgrantham

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Just as an update, I did ask to switch to Tracker and in the e-mail they said they're rolling out smart meters for everyone on the tariff over this summer!  (Rather sooner than 'eventually' as a previous e-mail stated.)

I have an Octopus smart meter for Electricity but not for gas and I only went on Gas tracker tariff 10 weeks ago and they haven’t mentioned a need to have one.