Octopus Saving Session

tripled

[Deleted User] said:

There seem to be two different behaviours in connection with an 'energy saving' scheme like this, and I can't work out which they are really trying to incentivise (although it is clear which behaviour is actually most beneficial).

Either they want to reduce the amount of energy used overall or they want to shift when the energy is used in the day (but there is no corresponding desire for overall reduction).  The two behaviours would require a different incentive and a different measurement metric.

Using the restricted in-day window provides clear opportunity to gain by shifting load into the window - even if the overall energy use remains constant.  Whether this is the intent or not, it is certainly how the logic works.

I believe National Grid want to incentivise load shifting, because generation margins are a bit tight, and we might not be able to get as much through the interconnectors as usual (due to French nukes being off line among other factors). However, the current set-up does provide an opportunity for gaming, which perhaps wasn't intended. It is a trial, so I wouldn't be surprised if at some point it will be modified (perhaps spreading the in-day adjustment over a longer period, or capping the adjustment).

peter3hg

I'm sure they will change the calculation of the adjustment after this winter.
They could change it to a fixed adjustment for a geographical area perhaps rather than an individual user adjustment.

[Deleted User]

tripled said:

[Deleted User] said:

There seem to be two different behaviours in connection with an 'energy saving' scheme like this, and I can't work out which they are really trying to incentivise (although it is clear which behaviour is actually most beneficial).

Either they want to reduce the amount of energy used overall or they want to shift when the energy is used in the day (but there is no corresponding desire for overall reduction).  The two behaviours would require a different incentive and a different measurement metric.

Using the restricted in-day window provides clear opportunity to gain by shifting load into the window - even if the overall energy use remains constant.  Whether this is the intent or not, it is certainly how the logic works.

I believe National Grid want to incentivise load shifting, because generation margins are a bit tight, and we might not be able to get as much through the interconnectors as usual (due to French nukes being off line among other factors). However, the current set-up does provide an opportunity for gaming, which perhaps wasn't intended. It is a trial, so I wouldn't be surprised if at some point it will be modified (perhaps spreading the in-day adjustment over a longer period, or capping the adjustment).

And they haven't finished repairing the fire-damaged interconnector station yet as far as I know.

Chrysalis

tripled said:

Deleted_User said:

There seem to be two different behaviours in connection with an 'energy saving' scheme like this, and I can't work out which they are really trying to incentivise (although it is clear which behaviour is actually most beneficial).

Either they want to reduce the amount of energy used overall or they want to shift when the energy is used in the day (but there is no corresponding desire for overall reduction).  The two behaviours would require a different incentive and a different measurement metric.

Using the restricted in-day window provides clear opportunity to gain by shifting load into the window - even if the overall energy use remains constant.  Whether this is the intent or not, it is certainly how the logic works.

I believe National Grid want to incentivise load shifting, because generation margins are a bit tight, and we might not be able to get as much through the interconnectors as usual (due to French nukes being off line among other factors). However, the current set-up does provide an opportunity for gaming, which perhaps wasn't intended. It is a trial, so I wouldn't be surprised if at some point it will be modified (perhaps spreading the in-day adjustment over a longer period, or capping the adjustment).

I expect their concern is just to get the peak load down, and will likely write off gaming costs as part of the costs of doing that. (think in the same way someone mentioned on here that they dont clamp down on bypassed meters but instead write off the costs as leakage).

I wont be gaming the system, just will opt-in when I can and take the free unit's from it here and there.

[Deleted User]

Chrysalis said:

tripled said:

Deleted_User said:

There seem to be two different behaviours in connection with an 'energy saving' scheme like this, and I can't work out which they are really trying to incentivise (although it is clear which behaviour is actually most beneficial).

Either they want to reduce the amount of energy used overall or they want to shift when the energy is used in the day (but there is no corresponding desire for overall reduction).  The two behaviours would require a different incentive and a different measurement metric.

Using the restricted in-day window provides clear opportunity to gain by shifting load into the window - even if the overall energy use remains constant.  Whether this is the intent or not, it is certainly how the logic works.

I believe National Grid want to incentivise load shifting, because generation margins are a bit tight, and we might not be able to get as much through the interconnectors as usual (due to French nukes being off line among other factors). However, the current set-up does provide an opportunity for gaming, which perhaps wasn't intended. It is a trial, so I wouldn't be surprised if at some point it will be modified (perhaps spreading the in-day adjustment over a longer period, or capping the adjustment).

I expect their concern is just to get the peak load down, and will likely write off gaming costs as part of the costs of doing that. (think in the same way someone mentioned on here that they dont clamp down on bypassed meters but instead write off the costs as leakage).

I wont be gaming the system, just will opt-in when I can and take the free unit's from it here and there.

It's a plausible suggestion, that peak shaving is the intent, in which case it's strange that you can get benefit from the scheme without actually changing your peak demand at all.

Given the way the calculation is written, you would get paid for using exactly the same amount at peak time as you usually do if you also used extra in the window just beforehand - in effect, a payment for using more energy. 

wild666

QrizB said:

t0rt0ise said:

It's not happening tomorrow during the football as was suggested. Just heard on the radio.

That's good news for the grid, even if it's bad news for avid moneysavers

I'm not going to start planning an early retirement based on my Octopoints:

I earned 2p from the first session but nothing from the second session.

Petriix

I think we can all see that the National Grid formula is a bit wonky, even if there is some confusion over them using the term 'unadjusted baseline' in an ill-defined way - it certainly confused me. It's pretty obvious that the in day adjustment is given far too much weight in their calculation. A simple tweak to limit the uplift to 50% of the unadjusted baseline would be more than reasonable. As it stands it's very easy to game the system by basically ignoring the original purpose and simply using as much power as you can during that 3 hour reference window.

Magnitio

 I can understand why people want to maximise their profit from these savings sessions and load shifting to the hours before or after the session seems sensible. However, deliberately maximising your usage by consuming electricity that you wouldn’t otherwise have used doesn’t seem ethical. Who is it that ultimately pays for these saving sessions?

peter3hg

Magnitio said:

 I can understand why people want to maximise their profit from these savings sessions and load shifting to the hours before or after the session seems sensible. However, deliberately maximising your usage by consuming electricity that you wouldn’t otherwise have used doesn’t seem ethical. Who is it that ultimately pays for these saving sessions?

In theory they shouldn't cost more to the system because they reduce the need for other expensive demand supply management measures the National Grid would need to take.


As a crude calculation I think it would be a net gain of 41p for each kW of pointless extra energy consumed in the adjustment period.

I shifted a lot this time but it was just the high usage items I would have done that day or the following days anyway. If someone was minded to they could do easily use a lot of needless energy.
To remove the incentive to use extra energy they would need to increase the adjustment monitoring period to a 7 hour window, reduce the effect of the adjustment down to 45% or lower, or make it a geographical based adjustment rather than individual.

bristolleedsfan

Magnitio said:

 I can understand why people want to maximise their profit from these savings sessions and load shifting to the hours before or after the session seems sensible. However, deliberately maximising your usage by consuming electricity that you wouldn’t otherwise have used doesn’t seem ethical. Who is it that ultimately pays for these saving sessions?

Fantastic point you make "Who is it that ultimately pays for these saving sessions"?

Whole point of Agile and saving sessions is to encourage usage away from expensive 4pm-7pm yet Octopus have been applying 17p kWh EPG reduction which is tax payer funded off those hours on Agile tariff.