Octopus Agile

la531983

QrizB said:

la531983 said:

And there is is, pricing between 5.30 and 7pm tomorrow sailing over 50p. 

Hitting almost 60p/kWh at 1830 in my region. Still almost 40p at 1900, after the peak period, and doesn't fall below 30p until 2100.

MultiFuelBurner said:

That might be worrying for anyone that doesn't understand Agile pricing (in which case they shouldn't be on that tariff) and for those that do they have their own system for keeping their average cost below 20p kWh tomorrow.

Per the daily energy-stats toot, tomorrows average price is 25.1p - and, excluding the evening peak, it's still 21.3p.

19.8p in my region on Tracker tomorrow.... 

mmmmikey

MultiFuelBurner said:

That might be worrying for anyone that doesn't understand Agile pricing (in which case they shouldn't be on that tariff) and for those that do they have their own system for keeping their average cost below 20p kWh tomorrow.

I agree with the sense of what you're saying....

Tomorrow's low for my region is 12.60p/kWh vs. a low today of 15.81p/kWh and there's a few hours of low prices overnight, so it's actually looking like a pretty good day for anyone concentrating their use to make the most of the best rates, and a worthwhile amount better than today. I'll easily average below 20p/kWh tomorrow and probably not much more than 15p/kWh.

But to be fair, I don't think it's a question of understanding - more a question of needing to have invested in the appropriate technology and having the automation and/or processes in place to use it to best effect. Without that, Tracker is probably a better option for a lot of people.

QrizB

MultiFuelBurner said:

I was always under the impression the experienced shifters would beat the tracker price for the day.
Given that for our region that is 20.24p.I expected the experienced Agile load shifter to beat that.

It's not a given. The formulae are different; for Tracker it's wholesale x1.2 plus 7p (varies by region), for Agile it's x2.2 (again varies by region), plus an uplift during the evening peak.

So if the wholesale price is below about 7p/kWh (£70/MWh), Agile will be cheaper if you can avoid the evening peak. If wholesale is higher than that, Tracker is likely to win out.

Tomorrow, Agile is only significantly below 20p/kWh before 0600 and from 1230-1400. It'll take some serious load shifting to beat Tracker. You could do it if you've got a big enough battery, especially if it's backed up by solar, but without those it's likely to be tough.

MultiFuelBurner

QrizB said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

I was always under the impression the experienced shifters would beat the tracker price for the day.
Given that for our region that is 20.24p.I expected the experienced Agile load shifter to beat that.

It's not a given. The formulae are different; for Tracker it's wholesale x1.2 plus 7p (varies by region), for Agile it's x2.2 (again varies by region), plus an uplift during the evening peak.

So if the wholesale price is below about 7p/kWh (£70/MWh), Agile will be cheaper if you can avoid the evening peak. If wholesale is higher than that, Tracker is likely to win out.

Tomorrow, Agile is only significantly below 20p/kWh before 0600 and from 1230-1400. It'll take some serious load shifting to beat Tracker. You could do it if you've got a big enough battery, especially if it's backed up by solar, but without those it's likely to be tough.

Thanks I know the formula and we were on agile before choosing tracker for its daily simplicity.

But as an exercise and I must stress without any clever automation technolgy

A quick calculation and we could come in under tracker tomorrow without much effort just loading the washing machine up to start at 03:30am (13.2p) then 04:00 (15.4p). Dishwasher on at the same time 03:30am (13.2p) then 04:00 (15.4p).Being early risers the daily tumble dryer load on at 05:30 (15.7p) still got a vented it takes an hour for a load but uses 75% of total energy in the first 30 mins) 06:00 (19.8p)

With our appliances we find the heat phase in the first 15 mins takes the most power for the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer. We set all appliances to hour cycles.

So that 4kwh usage listed above should cost an average of approx 60p or 15p per kWh.

The rest of the day baseload 2.5kwh (24.7p average for the day) 61.75p

Cooking will be a one/twopot deal on the induction hob at 12:30(17.2kwh) and will be 1kwh max. 17.2p

Hot water heat ASHP 03:30am (13.2p kWh) just half hour to lift it from 28-40oC 2kwh 26.4p total

Total for the day 9.5kwh at a cost of £1.65

Average for the day 17.4p kwh

If we take out the hot water as that's not what most do with an ASHP they use gas we have a daily usage for tomorrow if 7.5kwh at a total of £1.39 with an average for the day of 18.5p kWh.

This is without using any fancy scheduling technology just timers and the like all agile users should avoiding 4-8pm

mmmmikey

Interesting to compare the different approaches here.

@MultiFuelBurner has a lifestyle that either naturally works well or has been adapted to use Agile to good effect - for example cooking in the middle of the day. This is supported by a minimal amount of technology - in the form of timeswitches.

I've gone the other way, as per @QrizB 's observation and have a solar panels and a big enough battery to allow me to concentrate my paid energy usage to suit the daily Agile tariff. In my case, about 4kWh of storage is enough because I'm a low user. I have automation in place to heat my hot water during the cheapest time slot, whatever time of day that may be and this keeps my average down. I've hardly adapted my lifestyle at all - I still eat in the evening and do most things when it suits me best without worrying about the tariff at that particualr time.

Both approaches seem to work well - I have the flexibility of living my life how I want; @MultiFuelBurner is saving more money without investing £1000's in solar panels etc.

But there are plenty of people who couldn't practically adjust their lifestyle to shift consumption away from peak times, or just don't want to. That's why the peaks are peaks - there's a lot of demand at coming home from School/Work time and dinnertime for good reason. And there are also plenty of people for whom investing in the technology is either outside their means or just not viable (I doubt my setup would ever pay for itself if I went out and bought it - it works for me because the panels were on the house when I bought it and playing with batteries is as much of a hobby as it is a money saving exercise).

And that's why I'm very much of the opinion that Tracker is a much better bet for most people, or SVR or a fixed tariff (TOU or otherwise) if you don't want the risks associated with Tracker.

Spoonie_Turtle

mmmmikey said:

And there are also plenty of people for whom investing in the technology is either outside their means or just not viable …

Yep, most people renting would have no say over their setup for a start.

la531983

MultiFuelBurner said:

A quick calculation and we could come in under tracker tomorrow without much effort just loading the washing machine up to start at 03:30am (13.2p) then 04:00 (15.4p). Dishwasher on at the same time 03:30am (13.2p) then 04:00 (15.4p).Being early risers the daily tumble dryer load on at 05:30 (15.7p) still got a vented it takes an hour for a load but uses 75% of total energy in the first 30 mins) 06:00 (19.8p)

I hope you live in a detached house with all that running before a sociable hour!

Also, tumble drying? Looks nice out today.

MultiFuelBurner

@Spoonie_Turtle

Just to clarify that example was to backup my assumption that those on the Agile tariff know what to do because otherwise they should no be on that tariff. Those people can quite easily beat the tracker rate even without solar and batteries. With Solar and batteries it must be an amazing tariff.

We moved off Agile to Tracker as like others we do like to cook in the evening, especially coming into Autumn and then Winter.

That said if prices of tracker rocket we will adjust (and can adjust as you point out) to cooking meals in batch/lunchtime and reheating cheaply in a microwave for the evening hot meal should we wish on the Cosy Tariff or Agile (we will see which works out best for our lifestyle)

I am waiting on a couple of quotes for solar and batteries but the property has a number of flaws for solar like shading from trees and only one roof that is south facing and it's small (4 panels only) we do have a decent amount of west facing roofline so perhaps it could work. We shall wait for the prices but battery wise with the ASHP thats where most of the stored battery energy will be diverted and we may be looking at 5-10kwh of battery storage to maximise our savings.

MultiFuelBurner

la531983 said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

A quick calculation and we could come in under tracker tomorrow without much effort just loading the washing machine up to start at 03:30am (13.2p) then 04:00 (15.4p). Dishwasher on at the same time 03:30am (13.2p) then 04:00 (15.4p).Being early risers the daily tumble dryer load on at 05:30 (15.7p) still got a vented it takes an hour for a load but uses 75% of total energy in the first 30 mins) 06:00 (19.8p)

I hope you live in a detached house with all that running before a sociable hour!

Also, tumble drying? Looks nice out today.

I will put it this way, what we do and when we do it will not impact neighbours.

Then to answer the tumble dryer question, again I won't go into details but there are reasons and for those reasons I have to include that in our calculations for TOU and beta tariffs.

Outrage! Lol

la531983

Fair enough, if anyone ran the tumble drier on a day like today at home I would have a fit.