Octopus Saving Session

[Deleted User]

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

millie said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too cannot even think about trying to get my head around.

badger09 said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too. My brain hurts just reading the last few posts. 

I couldn’t ‘game the system’ even if I wanted to😊 

Broadly speaking - it seems to be that if you use loads of energy a couple of hours (between 1 and 4 hours actually) before the start of the "savings period", then they'll assume you were going to use loads in the savings period too and the amount that you have "saved" goes up.

So if you do all the stuff you were going to do in the savings hour a little earlier (rather than on a different day, or later in the day), you get extra credit.

User_Name_1

Eon next also did an "energy shift event" between 5pm and 6pm on Tuesday 15th November.For a 40% reduction in electricity paying a reward of 96p .

badger09

Deleted_User said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

millie said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too cannot even think about trying to get my head around.

badger09 said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too. My brain hurts just reading the last few posts. 

I couldn’t ‘game the system’ even if I wanted to😊 

Broadly speaking - it seems to be that if you use loads of energy a couple of hours (between 1 and 4 hours actually) before the start of the "savings period", then they'll assume you were going to use loads in the savings period too and the amount that you have "saved" goes up.

So if you do all the stuff you were going to do in the savings hour a little earlier (rather than on a different day, or later in the day), you get extra credit.

So you’re saying that to calculate your reduction, Octopus looks at your ‘normal’ usage over whatever the selected Savings Session time period is, for the previous 10 days. 

Then completely ignores that, and instead looks at your usage over the 3 hours before the start of the Savings Session, about which it has given you notice. 

That is bonkers. Or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

[Deleted User]

badger09 said:

Deleted_User said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

millie said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too cannot even think about trying to get my head around.

badger09 said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too. My brain hurts just reading the last few posts. 

I couldn’t ‘game the system’ even if I wanted to😊 

Broadly speaking - it seems to be that if you use loads of energy a couple of hours (between 1 and 4 hours actually) before the start of the "savings period", then they'll assume you were going to use loads in the savings period too and the amount that you have "saved" goes up.

So if you do all the stuff you were going to do in the savings hour a little earlier (rather than on a different day, or later in the day), you get extra credit.

So you’re saying that to calculate your reduction, Octopus looks at your ‘normal’ usage over whatever the selected Savings Session time period is, for the previous 10 days. 

Then completely ignores that, and instead looks at your usage over the 3 hours before the start of the Savings Session, about which it has given you notice. 

That is bonkers. Or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

Sort of.

Example:

On a normal day you use 2kWh in each slot that was going to be the saving session period, and 1kWh in each slot outside that time.  Your UAB would then be 2kWh for the saving session slots.

On the day of the saving session you used 2kWh in every slot up to the start of the session. Your IDA would then be 2-1, so 1kWh.

Your effective baseline, against which the savings would be measured, is UAB + IDA or in this example, 3kWh.

I might be wrong, but that’s how I read the formula.

wild666

Unfortunately I didn't save any energy as I didn't turn the desktop, fridge or freezer off, that was the only way I would have saved any electric. The saving would only have being around 0.1kWh over the hour. I liked the gas energy saving they did last year where I saved around 80% of the yearly total gas usage. 

badger09

[Deleted User] said:

badger09 said:

Deleted_User said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

millie said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too cannot even think about trying to get my head around.

badger09 said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too. My brain hurts just reading the last few posts. 

I couldn’t ‘game the system’ even if I wanted to😊 

Broadly speaking - it seems to be that if you use loads of energy a couple of hours (between 1 and 4 hours actually) before the start of the "savings period", then they'll assume you were going to use loads in the savings period too and the amount that you have "saved" goes up.

So if you do all the stuff you were going to do in the savings hour a little earlier (rather than on a different day, or later in the day), you get extra credit.

So you’re saying that to calculate your reduction, Octopus looks at your ‘normal’ usage over whatever the selected Savings Session time period is, for the previous 10 days. 

Then completely ignores that, and instead looks at your usage over the 3 hours before the start of the Savings Session, about which it has given you notice. 

That is bonkers. Or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

Sort of.

Example:

On a normal day you use 2kWh in each slot that was going to be the saving session period, and 1kWh in each slot outside that time.  Your UAB would then be 2kWh for the saving session slots.

On the day of the saving session you used 2kWh in every slot up to the start of the session. Your IDA would then be 2-1, so 1kWh.

Your effective baseline, against which the savings would be measured, is UAB + IDA or in this example, 3kWh.

I might be wrong, but that’s how I read the formula.

Thanks for that. 

If that is how it’s going to work, I stand by my ‘bonkers’ comment. Although slightly less ‘bonkers’ than I’d thought. 

Surely Octopus would spot people gaming the system as suggested earlier in the thread.

t0rt0ise

badger09 said:

[Deleted User] said:

badger09 said:

Deleted_User said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

millie said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too cannot even think about trying to get my head around.

badger09 said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too. My brain hurts just reading the last few posts. 

I couldn’t ‘game the system’ even if I wanted to😊 

Broadly speaking - it seems to be that if you use loads of energy a couple of hours (between 1 and 4 hours actually) before the start of the "savings period", then they'll assume you were going to use loads in the savings period too and the amount that you have "saved" goes up.

So if you do all the stuff you were going to do in the savings hour a little earlier (rather than on a different day, or later in the day), you get extra credit.

So you’re saying that to calculate your reduction, Octopus looks at your ‘normal’ usage over whatever the selected Savings Session time period is, for the previous 10 days. 

Then completely ignores that, and instead looks at your usage over the 3 hours before the start of the Savings Session, about which it has given you notice. 

That is bonkers. Or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

Sort of.

Example:

On a normal day you use 2kWh in each slot that was going to be the saving session period, and 1kWh in each slot outside that time.  Your UAB would then be 2kWh for the saving session slots.

On the day of the saving session you used 2kWh in every slot up to the start of the session. Your IDA would then be 2-1, so 1kWh.

Your effective baseline, against which the savings would be measured, is UAB + IDA or in this example, 3kWh.

I might be wrong, but that’s how I read the formula.

Thanks for that. 

If that is how it’s going to work, I stand by my ‘bonkers’ comment. Although slightly less ‘bonkers’ than I’d thought. 

Surely Octopus would spot people gaming the system as suggested earlier in the thread.

It's not a matter of gaming the system. They say that the whole point is to get you to do things outside the particular period, and suggest cooking earlier etc. So you would be doing what you're supposed to on the day. To really game the system you'd need to know which hours the saver sessions are going to be at least two weeks in advance and that's not going to happen.

peter3hg

badger09 said:

[Deleted User] said:

badger09 said:

Deleted_User said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

millie said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too cannot even think about trying to get my head around.

badger09 said:

Alnat1 said:

All gone way beyond me now, I'll just wait and see 

Me too. My brain hurts just reading the last few posts. 

I couldn’t ‘game the system’ even if I wanted to😊 

Broadly speaking - it seems to be that if you use loads of energy a couple of hours (between 1 and 4 hours actually) before the start of the "savings period", then they'll assume you were going to use loads in the savings period too and the amount that you have "saved" goes up.

So if you do all the stuff you were going to do in the savings hour a little earlier (rather than on a different day, or later in the day), you get extra credit.

So you’re saying that to calculate your reduction, Octopus looks at your ‘normal’ usage over whatever the selected Savings Session time period is, for the previous 10 days. 

Then completely ignores that, and instead looks at your usage over the 3 hours before the start of the Savings Session, about which it has given you notice. 

That is bonkers. Or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

Sort of.

Example:

On a normal day you use 2kWh in each slot that was going to be the saving session period, and 1kWh in each slot outside that time.  Your UAB would then be 2kWh for the saving session slots.

On the day of the saving session you used 2kWh in every slot up to the start of the session. Your IDA would then be 2-1, so 1kWh.

Your effective baseline, against which the savings would be measured, is UAB + IDA or in this example, 3kWh.

I might be wrong, but that’s how I read the formula.

Thanks for that. 

If that is how it’s going to work, I stand by my ‘bonkers’ comment. Although slightly less ‘bonkers’ than I’d thought. 

Surely Octopus would spot people gaming the system as suggested earlier in the thread.

The number of people who would bother to read the National Grid guidance and understand it enough to work out how to game it would be tiny. There is also the point that the adjustment is averaged over three hours so the benefit of gaming it is reduced (but still there).

I wonder what they would do however if someone really gamed it?
I could charge my electric car for the three hours used for the baseline adjustment which would increase the adjusted baseline by 7.2kWh per hour. It would cost about £7.45 to charge for those three hours but the payment from the savings for the artificially increase baseline would be £16.76.
Perhaps I'll try it at the next saving session and see what happens.

Chrysalis

[Deleted User] said:

Petriix said:

One thing which remains unclear is the notion of an 'In Day Adjustment' which they haven't clearly defined. The most obvious interpretation is that they will adjust the average of the previous 10 days' usage for that hour based on the relative use on the actual day so, if your overall usage on the day is higher than average, your relative saving will be considered to be higher (and vice versa). However, it could be the exact opposite of that and it really isn't clear at all.

I wouldn't expected it to be your relative use that gets compared for the in day adjustment - rather the general system demand or some sort of regional number.

Sort of "you usually use 2kWh, but everyone is using 50% more than normal today so we'll compare your saving against a 3kWh target".  This could end up with a stable use being counted as a saving - i.e. your usage didn't go up when everyone else's did.

Certainly could do with some clarification.

Now that would be a good way to do the system, sadly though I think the baseline is your historical peak time usage?

[Deleted User]

Chrysalis said:

Deleted_User said:

Petriix said:

One thing which remains unclear is the notion of an 'In Day Adjustment' which they haven't clearly defined. The most obvious interpretation is that they will adjust the average of the previous 10 days' usage for that hour based on the relative use on the actual day so, if your overall usage on the day is higher than average, your relative saving will be considered to be higher (and vice versa). However, it could be the exact opposite of that and it really isn't clear at all.

I wouldn't expected it to be your relative use that gets compared for the in day adjustment - rather the general system demand or some sort of regional number.

Sort of "you usually use 2kWh, but everyone is using 50% more than normal today so we'll compare your saving against a 3kWh target".  This could end up with a stable use being counted as a saving - i.e. your usage didn't go up when everyone else's did.

Certainly could do with some clarification.

Now that would be a good way to do the system, sadly though I think the baseline is your historical peak time usage?

It's your historic actual time usage, modified by how much more you personally have used extra that day.

So if you decide to use a bit more earlier on the day, you get credited with extra savings.