Octopus Saving Session

QrizB

jessmist said:

Another saving session tomorrow 5-6pm
Surprised we've got another one so soon.

No wind, so high marginal prices.

Half-hourly pricing on Agile looks something like this: (above the EPG therought the daytime):

Alnat1

It did say somewhere we'd get 4 one hour trials in the 1st month, so I guess they needed to get another in quickly.

Might be longer Sessions when the grid really needs it now, as they have some indication of how engaged the public are.

Martico

I'm quite enjoying these. Only a quid or so, so far, but I think it's a decent experiment. Sure they'll iron out how to pitch the savings and rewards as they continue to get the data in. In the meantime I'm encouraged to switch off the PC and pop outside for a walk. I could do that anyway, but the nudge to do so works for me

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

Fully agree, i don't make much too, but i enjoy it making me turn the laptop/TV off and kinda makes me do something 'offline', i am using it to improve my mental health too, as truth be told i do spend far too much time in front of a screen!

Alnat1

Lit a few candles and made phone calls for an hour. It passed really quickly and it seemed a shame to put the lamp back on. 

70sbudgie

I think it is all about the big numbers. I understand that Octopus is only one of three suppliers running trials for the ESO. Octopus did a small trial earlier in the year that worked differently (if you reduced your consumption by a specified % you got the remaining bit free.) I'm guessing that the incentive was such that only those already engaged got involved. This trial is bigger, so they need to engage with a larger group of consumers - probably not those already engaged with energy reductions. Which probably means everyone on here is not their target audience. They may have decided that the ability to game the system will attract an audience that might otherwise not have participated and the overall cost of that gaming is therefore worth it.

Don't forget that this is a trial to offset the ~£4bn that the ESO paid to peaking plants last year. (Sorry if that is the wrong figure, I can't find where I read it, but it was still a big number even if I've remembered it incorrectly). And the ESO are paying the suppliers £3/kWhr for reductions. So the individual payments (which are not even cash yet with Octopus) probably won't mean as much as the fact that more than £200kWhrs were "saved" in the first two sessions.

I also believe that it is a trial of consumers' willing to flex their consumption habits. For the network to be able to cope with higher rates of unpredictable (renewable) generation, consumption habits have to change and continue to be flexible. Are there enough UK consumers willing to do this so that the future of energy consumption can flex to meet available generation, or do we need to build more nukes to provide a higher baseload when the wind doesn't blow?

Nevergonnaretire

So perhaps some clever person can confirm this for me. I've only done 2 sessions so far, the 15th where I got 416 Octopoints and last night which hasn't updated yet.

I am on Octopus GO (40p/7.5p), and normally I'd have the dishwasher and a few other things on after 00:30 tonight. If I put these on after 1pm today, then cut usage right down between 5 and 6pm, I'll actually get more benefit? Was assuming it only took into account what I'd normally use between 5 and 6 but that'd bonkers!

Or would this not be the case as my day tariff is high at 40p?

[Deleted User]

Nevergonnaretire said:

So perhaps some clever person can confirm this for me. I've only done 2 sessions so far, the 15th where I got 416 Octopoints and last night which hasn't updated yet.

I am on Octopus GO (40p/7.5p), and normally I'd have the dishwasher and a few other things on after 00:30 tonight. If I put these on after 1pm today, then cut usage right down between 5 and 6pm, I'll actually get more benefit? Was assuming it only took into account what I'd normally use between 5 and 6 but that'd bonkers!

Or would this not be the case as my day tariff is high at 40p?

You would obviously be paying 32.5p more per unit for using them - but everything you use between 1pm and 4pm makes the target against which they measure your savings higher.

Whether the extra you get paid for the bigger 'savings' is more than the extra you spend on the usage, I'm not completely sure.  I think it probably would be.

peter3hg

[Deleted User] said:

Nevergonnaretire said:

So perhaps some clever person can confirm this for me. I've only done 2 sessions so far, the 15th where I got 416 Octopoints and last night which hasn't updated yet.

I am on Octopus GO (40p/7.5p), and normally I'd have the dishwasher and a few other things on after 00:30 tonight. If I put these on after 1pm today, then cut usage right down between 5 and 6pm, I'll actually get more benefit? Was assuming it only took into account what I'd normally use between 5 and 6 but that'd bonkers!

Or would this not be the case as my day tariff is high at 40p?

You would obviously be paying 32.5p more per unit for using them - but everything you use between 1pm and 4pm makes the target against which they measure your savings higher.

Whether the extra you get paid for the bigger 'savings' is more than the extra you spend on the usage, I'm not completely sure.  I think it probably would be.

The "gain" for every kWh used between 1pm and 4pm is 75p so the net gain would be 42.5p shifting the load from overnight to between 1pm and 4pm.

DeeQS

peter3hg said:

[Deleted User] said:

Nevergonnaretire said:

So perhaps some clever person can confirm this for me. I've only done 2 sessions so far, the 15th where I got 416 Octopoints and last night which hasn't updated yet.

I am on Octopus GO (40p/7.5p), and normally I'd have the dishwasher and a few other things on after 00:30 tonight. If I put these on after 1pm today, then cut usage right down between 5 and 6pm, I'll actually get more benefit? Was assuming it only took into account what I'd normally use between 5 and 6 but that'd bonkers!

Or would this not be the case as my day tariff is high at 40p?

You would obviously be paying 32.5p more per unit for using them - but everything you use between 1pm and 4pm makes the target against which they measure your savings higher.

Whether the extra you get paid for the bigger 'savings' is more than the extra you spend on the usage, I'm not completely sure.  I think it probably would be.

The "gain" for every kWh used between 1pm and 4pm is 75p so the net gain would be 42.5p shifting the load from overnight to between 1pm and 4pm.

Thanks! I knew i'd seen someone on here work it out. I was just checking my numbers over the previous two sessions as I'm also on Go and for the first saving session I just turned stuff off. For the second, I shifted things that would run over night (immersion heating, dishwasher etc, to the previous 3 hours).

15th Nov (normal usage, and then turned off lights etc during the saving hour) - £3.94 usage minus 70p saving = £3.24 for the day.
22nd Nov (shifted overnight to day) - £6.02 usage minus £3.78 saving = £2.24 for the day.

It's rough and ready calc, because running the heating during the day would have also meant less energy usage the following night. I 'saved' about £1 compared to just reducing usage in the period alone.