Octopus Go Faster without electric vehicle 5 August 2022 at 4:24AM in Green & ethical MoneySaving 27 replies 2.4K views

nitsuanomis

Hi all,

We have just installed a solar array with battery storage and were intending to sign up for Octopus Go Faster, but Octopus are no longer offering this to customers who don't have an electric vehicle - which is a shame!

As I understand it, part of the intent of tariffs such as this is to move load from times of peak demand to the small hours of the morning, which we're doing regardless of whether we charge a vehicle battery or a home battery.

Regardless:

1. Is anyone else getting the same story from Octopus?

2. In the absence of access to the Go Faster tariff, what other options are there out there?

Thanks in advance,

Simon

QrizB

1. Yes, it's been like this for six months or more.

2. Other time of use tariffs are available, although few are as generous as Go. There's boring old Economy 7, for example. Green Energy UK have a tariff called Tide which was looking quite attractive a month ago; I don't know if they're still offering it.

70sbudgie

On their tariffs, Octopus list "Intelligent Octopus". It seems to be a variable time of use tariff (ie you have an option of the start time of your cheap hours). It doesn't seem to be restricted. But, I don't know how you get it. I have been trying (admittedly not very hard) to get onto the Agile tariffs, but Octopus won't let me change my tariff.

Edit: they seem to be developing a battery tariff and there is Agile.

QrizB

70sbudgie said:

On their tariffs, Octopus list "Intelligent Octopus". It seems to be a variable time of use tariff (ie you have an option of the start time of your cheap hours). It doesn't seem to be restricted. But, I don't know how you get it.

Intelligent Octopus is an EV tariff that requires a compatible charger and/or vehicle.

I have been trying (admittedly not very hard) to get onto the Agile tariffs, but Octopus won't let me change my tariff.

Agile shoild be open to every Octopus customer with a working smart meter. But it's debatable whether it is going to offer much in the way of cheap off-peak periods in the next year.

nitsuanomis

70sbudgie said:

Edit: they seem to be developing a battery tariff and there is Agile.

... developing a battery tariff; interesting - do you happen to know anything more about a possible timeline or rates?

I did ponder Agile; is it worth sucking up the higher incoming costs to benefit from the higher Agile Outgoing prices, for example?

70sbudgie

nitsuanomis said:

70sbudgie said:

Edit: they seem to be developing a battery tariff and there is Agile.

... developing a battery tariff; interesting - do you happen to know anything more about a possible timeline or rates?

I did ponder Agile; is it worth sucking up the higher incoming costs to benefit from the higher Agile Outgoing prices, for example?

The Octopus website says not, but you would have to do your own calcs.

If you are more computer literate than I am, you can get API data and overlay recent Agile prices onto your consumption. (If you have a smart meter with Octopus). 

nitsuanomis

QrizB said:

2. Other time of use tariffs are available, although few are as generous as Go. There's boring old Economy 7, for example. Green Energy UK have a tariff called Tide which was looking quite attractive a month ago; I don't know if they're still offering it.

For reference, I just spoke to Green Energy UK re: Tide and they say they are not taking any new customers at the moment.

Boffinboy24

nitsuanomis said:

70sbudgie said:

Edit: they seem to be developing a battery tariff and there is Agile.

... developing a battery tariff; interesting - do you happen to know anything more about a possible timeline or rates?

I did ponder Agile; is it worth sucking up the higher incoming costs to benefit from the higher Agile Outgoing prices, for example?

It is not necessary to be on Agile (import) to be in Agile outgoing, apparently. You can be on their price capped tariff (presumably the E7 one too) which may be lower than Agile, and then pair it with Agile outgoing. I plan to switch to Octopus after my fix expires and they confirmed this is possible to me over Twitter DM. What you can’t do is combine agile outgoing with Go or Intelligent as the arbitrage opportunity is massive and they’d lose a ton from people buying low overnight and selling high at peak. 

Alnat1

I can confirm re Octopus tariffs.

I've been on Agile outgoing for export since I switched gas/electric to them in April. My supply electric started on Flexible, I then switched to Tracker for a month and am now on Agile for in and out.

I luckily got on Agile just before the cap was raised in July, so it seems I'll get a year with a max. of 35p/kWh. It's now a 55p cap .

The Outgoing has paid me an average of around 24p/kWh for my exports over that last couple of months.

nitsuanomis

Boffinboy24 said:

nitsuanomis said:

70sbudgie said:

Edit: they seem to be developing a battery tariff and there is Agile.

... developing a battery tariff; interesting - do you happen to know anything more about a possible timeline or rates?

I did ponder Agile; is it worth sucking up the higher incoming costs to benefit from the higher Agile Outgoing prices, for example?

It is not necessary to be on Agile (import) to be in Agile outgoing, apparently. You can be on their price capped tariff (presumably the E7 one too) which may be lower than Agile, and then pair it with Agile outgoing. I plan to switch to Octopus after my fix expires and they confirmed this is possible to me over Twitter DM. What you can’t do is combine agile outgoing with Go or Intelligent as the arbitrage opportunity is massive and they’d lose a ton from people buying low overnight and selling high at peak. 

Do you happen to know if you can be on an Economy 7 tariff without an Economy 7 meter?

We do have a smart meter (SMETS2) if that helps?

mrmajika

My recent experience of signing up of Octopus Go (Which was largely instructed over Twitter DMs) is that you have to confirm to Octopus that you have an Ev.  There were no further checks to have to prove that this was accurate.