Octopus Agile

Pat38493

northernstar007 said:

Newbie_John said:

I do wonder what has changed compared to last winter. Last year £1/kWh sounded like theory that we will never experience, this year - it's slowly becoming normal during cold, windless days..  

Gas prices are only 20% more expensive. 

clawing there money back, agile and tracker last year was crazly cheap

If someone is deliberately clawing money back, I don't think it is Octopus.  The formula for Agile has not changed and it's driven by daily auctions and is publicly available, so if someone is playing games to make a lot of extra money it's not Octopus (and it's not clear whether Octopus benefits from it as although they might make extra money from Agile customers, they might have losses elsewhere).

KevinG

Pat38493 said:

northernstar007 said:

Newbie_John said:

I do wonder what has changed compared to last winter. Last year £1/kWh sounded like theory that we will never experience, this year - it's slowly becoming normal during cold, windless days..  

Gas prices are only 20% more expensive. 

clawing there money back, agile and tracker last year was crazly cheap

If someone is deliberately clawing money back, I don't think it is Octopus.  The formula for Agile has not changed and it's driven by daily auctions and is publicly available, so if someone is playing games to make a lot of extra money it's not Octopus (and it's not clear whether Octopus benefits from it as although they might make extra money from Agile customers, they might have losses elsewhere).

But surely they're not making money, if the published formula is being adhered to they are losing out by having to limit the rate to 99.99p.

Pat38493

KevinG said:

Pat38493 said:

northernstar007 said:

Newbie_John said:

I do wonder what has changed compared to last winter. Last year £1/kWh sounded like theory that we will never experience, this year - it's slowly becoming normal during cold, windless days..  

Gas prices are only 20% more expensive. 

clawing there money back, agile and tracker last year was crazly cheap

If someone is deliberately clawing money back, I don't think it is Octopus.  The formula for Agile has not changed and it's driven by daily auctions and is publicly available, so if someone is playing games to make a lot of extra money it's not Octopus (and it's not clear whether Octopus benefits from it as although they might make extra money from Agile customers, they might have losses elsewhere).

But surely they're not making money, if the published formula is being adhered to they are losing out by having to limit the rate to 99.99p.

Yes probably and also they may be losing out if they are not 100% hedged on other tariffs - I am not sure how that all works and it's horrendously complicated.

It's also not too clear why this is happening, but in the past when this happened it was due to perceived or real lack of supply because of short term outages of generating capacity.  However based on my reading of some other forums, it doesn't feel like there is enough of that to justify these spikes compared to previous years, so something weird seems to be happening.

masonic

KevinG said:

Pat38493 said:

northernstar007 said:

Newbie_John said:

I do wonder what has changed compared to last winter. Last year £1/kWh sounded like theory that we will never experience, this year - it's slowly becoming normal during cold, windless days..  

Gas prices are only 20% more expensive. 

clawing there money back, agile and tracker last year was crazly cheap

If someone is deliberately clawing money back, I don't think it is Octopus.  The formula for Agile has not changed and it's driven by daily auctions and is publicly available, so if someone is playing games to make a lot of extra money it's not Octopus (and it's not clear whether Octopus benefits from it as although they might make extra money from Agile customers, they might have losses elsewhere).

But surely they're not making money, if the published formula is being adhered to they are losing out by having to limit the rate to 99.99p.

It's a high multiplier, it seems unrealistic that they'd need to charge more than double the wholesale price at these levels to make a profit. In the extreme, the cap could cause them to lose out, but where it is around the level of the cap there should be a very healthy profit margin.

KevinG

masonic said:

KevinG said:

Pat38493 said:

northernstar007 said:

Newbie_John said:

I do wonder what has changed compared to last winter. Last year £1/kWh sounded like theory that we will never experience, this year - it's slowly becoming normal during cold, windless days..  

Gas prices are only 20% more expensive. 

clawing there money back, agile and tracker last year was crazly cheap

If someone is deliberately clawing money back, I don't think it is Octopus.  The formula for Agile has not changed and it's driven by daily auctions and is publicly available, so if someone is playing games to make a lot of extra money it's not Octopus (and it's not clear whether Octopus benefits from it as although they might make extra money from Agile customers, they might have losses elsewhere).

But surely they're not making money, if the published formula is being adhered to they are losing out by having to limit the rate to 99.99p.

It's a high multiplier, it seems unrealistic that they'd need to charge more than double the wholesale price at these levels to make a profit. In the extreme, the cap could cause them to lose out, but where it is around the level of the cap there should be a very healthy profit margin.

Yes, I guess a 2.2 multiplier gives them plenty of wriggle room. Hard to imagine that the Agile cap was 35p at one time, long before I joined. I'm quite glad I didn't recruit lots of people to the tariff as they'd be freaking out now. 

BeerSavesMoney

I was on Agile back when it had the 35p cap and I’ve been wondering today what their threshold is. How many times can we hit 99p before they update the formula? And I wonder what the new cap would be then..

northernstar007

can you jump straight back on agile when you leave (no 9 months waiting like tracker) and if so is it worth taking a fix then jumping back on agile  in a week or so 

Newbie_John

BeerSavesMoney said:

I was on Agile back when it had the 35p cap and I’ve been wondering today what their threshold is. How many times can we hit 99p before they update the formula? And I wonder what the new cap would be then..

I don't think they will, not many Agilers are using electricity at that time so loss is small compared to SVR ppl.

Seen this guardian article:

German utility Uniper and a subsidiary of the Swiss commodities trading giant Vitol offered to fire up their gas plants during the evening hours in exchange for “super-high” payouts of more than 50 times the market price earlier this week, according to experts.

Under the system to balance Britain’s grid when electricity supply is short, Neso encourages energy companies to bid prices at which they would be prepared to power up their plants.

The Rye House gas plant in Hertfordshire, owned by VPI Power, a Vitol subsidiary, will generate electricity for a price of £5,000 per megawatt hour (MWh), which should earn its owner £6.15m over three hours, according to official market data. The larger Connah’s Quay gas plant in Flintshire, owned by Uniper, will earn just over £6m after agreeing to generate power for a price of £2,900/MWh.

VPI Power and Uniper have been contacted for comment.

masonic

northernstar007 said:

can you jump straight back on agile when you leave (no 9 months waiting like tracker) and if so is it worth taking a fix then jumping back on agile  in a week or so 

You would have to wait a month after leaving a smart tariff before you could go back. Unless you use the cooling off period I suppose.

greenbee

northernstar007 said:

the whole day is a right off, a takeaway is on the cards after a good few hrs down the pub

That'll definitely save you money 🤣