Octopus Agile

Archerychick

steveKn said:

interesting to hear how people are saving energy costs with agile. ( at 3am!)
serious question… why do people without batteries use agile ? how much so they actually save over “normal” rate ? is the lifestyle disruption worth it ?

i just choose the lowest rates to charge my batteries, then carry on as before. ( although shifting (dish) washing to charging periods so as to use grid directly) 

No batteries here. Have a hybrid EV, which is charged perhaps 3 times a week max, 10 kWh a go. Don’t do any cooking between 4&7pm. Save about 20% on average against tracker, and no disruption to normal life  

Pat38493

teaselMay said:

Just being nosy but what uses 11kWh when you're not there?

Probably the biggest offender is the pond pumps - 2 pumps in the fish pond, one of them running 24/7.

Other than that, my wife seems to like to leave a dehumidifier running a lot in one of the rooms.

We have 2 fridge freezer in the house, and a lot of devices on standby like Sky boxes etc. 

Would be interesting to see what the base load is if the pond is left off for a day.

It does seem quite high compared to a lot of other comments here, but I can't think of anything else that would cause it.

Pat38493

Telegraph_Sam said:

I wonder if the same would apply if you didn't have the EV's.  I believe that GO was specifically designed for EV-people (and probably not for ordinary mortals)   

If we had no EVs, the savings would be a lot less.  I suspect Agile might still be a bit cheaper across the whole year for us, but the savings wouldn't be anything like what I quoted above. (but we would spend a lot more on petrol).

EssexHebridean

bob2302 said:

EssexHebridean said:

steveKn said:

interesting to hear how people are saving energy costs with agile. ( at 3am!)
serious question… why do people without batteries use agile ? how much so they actually save over “normal” rate ? is the lifestyle disruption worth it ?

i just choose the lowest rates to charge my batteries, then carry on as before. ( although shifting (dish) washing to charging periods so as to use grid directly) 

Since I switched in Mid October we've paid on average around 16.5p per kWh for electricity,
...

We also have a small amount of electric heating in the house which we can use overnight when rates are low enough that it's cheaper to use that than the gas central heating, so another win. 

Small compared with gas consumption or small compared the electricity you would have used without the low prices.

Unless that extra electrical heating is negligible compared with ordinary electrical use that figure of 16.5p/kWh is suspect. 

Underfloor heating in the kitchen and (tiny) bathroom. And as said, the use of those overnight saved us circa 17kWh of gas this morning. It matters not a jot whether anyone thinks my figure on electric is “suspect” either - it tells me what I need to know, which is what counts! 

teaselMay

Pat38493 said:

teaselMay said:

Just being nosy but what uses 11kWh when you're not there?

Probably the biggest offender is the pond pumps - 2 pumps in the fish pond, one of them running 24/7.

Other than that, my wife seems to like to leave a dehumidifier running a lot in one of the rooms.

We have 2 fridge freezer in the house, and a lot of devices on standby like Sky boxes etc. 

Would be interesting to see what the base load is if the pond is left off for a day.

It does seem quite high compared to a lot of other comments here, but I can't think of anything else that would cause it.

Pond pumps and dehumidifier would add up. I had visions of some massive heated aquarium

Telegraph_Sam

I have a Meaco "Low Energy" dehumidifier. I confess I haven't bothered to work out what the cost per hour (when used for clothes drying) comes to. Ditto when I leave the computers on sleep and hibernation respectively when not in use. If it's pennies then I'll donate them to the Octopus good causes box.

MikeyPGT

northernstar007 said:

Argyle-mikey said:

After just 3 days on fixed we’ve run back to Agile using the “cooling off” clause. Never again. 

Our SC has gone up from 45p to 55p for some reason, but I’ll live with that. 

Two adults, three pets, no EV’s, no solar etc. 

why, whats happend

That's why I would't consider a shift while my SC is 52p - if you shift and come back you go onto the current SC which is higher ...

Newbie_John

Telegraph_Sam said:

I have a Meaco "Low Energy" dehumidifier. I confess I haven't bothered to work out what the cost per hour (when used for clothes drying) comes to. Ditto when I leave the computers on sleep and hibernation respectively when not in use. If it's pennies then I'll donate them to the Octopus good causes box.

160W, so 4p/1h on 25p SVR. 

Drying mode is literally full power dehumidifying with no preset humidity level when to stop and it runs for 6h - so it will use 1kWh.

EssexHebridean

Well, glad I decided to leave the dishwasher until tonight, now! 

bob2302

EssexHebridean said:

bob2302 said:

EssexHebridean said:

steveKn said:

interesting to hear how people are saving energy costs with agile. ( at 3am!)
serious question… why do people without batteries use agile ? how much so they actually save over “normal” rate ? is the lifestyle disruption worth it ?

i just choose the lowest rates to charge my batteries, then carry on as before. ( although shifting (dish) washing to charging periods so as to use grid directly) 

Since I switched in Mid October we've paid on average around 16.5p per kWh for electricity,
...

We also have a small amount of electric heating in the house which we can use overnight when rates are low enough that it's cheaper to use that than the gas central heating, so another win. 

Small compared with gas consumption or small compared the electricity you would have used without the low prices.

Unless that extra electrical heating is negligible compared with ordinary electrical use that figure of 16.5p/kWh is suspect. 

Underfloor heating in the kitchen and (tiny) bathroom. And as said, the use of those overnight saved us circa 17kWh of gas this morning. It matters not a jot whether anyone thinks my figure on electric is “suspect” either - it tells me what I need to know, which is what counts! 

It tells you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. Once you start using significant amount of gratuitous electricity or extra electric heating to bring  down the cost, the figure from Octopus Compare is no longer a useful figure for comparison. When I corrected my figures manually, it added about 4p/kWh, but you simply don't know.

I don't really care what you do, but those misleading figures from Compare are probably keeping people on Agile that should have left. They can come out so low that there doesn't seem much point in making detailed comparisons with other tariffs.