Octopus Agile

QrizB

QrizB said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Winds forecast to be 80-100+ mph in parts of Scotland, NI and Isle of Man, and 60-80mph in the wider amber warning areas, so while the rest of Britain's wind turbines might be doing okay they'll definitely be needing to be turned off in some areas!

I'll let the thread know how things go with my Ayrshire wind farm!

The storm has blown through here, calm again now (Southern electricity region).

Ripple in Ayrshire was forecasting a shutdown from about 0800-1400 but the live data shows it's still generating now, in 56mph winds. Has been throttled back to about 60% of nominal output. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

Edit: still generating at 1000, approx 30% of nominal output.

Edit: and still generating at 1130, at 20%.

Edit: mostly abated at 1220, only 5%.

Edit: fully abated (zero output) for m about 1230?

debitcardmayhem

my pv/invertor says this at 0934

zxzxzx

Central South

pritchah

We've recently moved home and have changed electricity/oil/some wood energy to electricity/gas. I haven't yet got on top of the best tariffs to use, so would appreciate the forum's advice

In our previous home, we spent like the following - 

electricity £700 pa
oil around £700 - £800 pa

So a total of around £1500 pa

That covered central heating, water heating, lighting, powering domestic items

In our new home, we have electricity and gas, and our latest monthly bill from Octopus was nearly £200 - 

Electricity £79, from 20 Dec to 21 Jan
Gas £120 - From 1 Jan to 21 Jan, so a week still to go in the month

We are on the following tariffs - 

Electricity - Agile Octopus October 2024 v1 - just had a look at Octopus Compare, and we are paying way more than we would if we were on a Flexible tariff
Gas - Octopus 12M Fixed December 2024 v1. We were recommended this by Octopus

It's a bit difficult for me compare unlikes as against our previous house. Just seems way more!

Note - Pretty happy with Octopus on the whole, so would appreciate your advice

tlcgrantham

1. Both Gas and Electric rates are higher than last year and this winter is colder than last year. So some increase is no surprise. 

2 You are already on a good Gas tariff that can’t be beaten significantly if at all.
3. Agile prices have been horrendous over the last month yet your bill doesn’t seem too  high so you must be suited to Agile and the load shifting required. 

    If you’re happy with Octopus stay with them. But if you’re a gambler have a look at the Tomato threads and their Lifestyle Tariff which could save you money.

Debsnewbudget

@pritchah
Agile will only work out less if you are willing to move your consumption around to when the tariff is lower. I think we are all showing higher costs over the last few weeks, however over the last few months our costs are still lower than the flexible.  We usually switch on washing and dishwasher overnight, and try not to use the oven during the peak tea time period.

Somebody

Archerychick said:

I think that’s the problem, if it’s too windy sometimes the wind turbines are switched off 

I did wonder what was meant by "switched off".  Found out Switch Off = disconnect from the grid https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/23/storm-eowyn-gusts-force-thousands-turbines-switch-off/

Chrysalis

Had some moderate gusts this morning, and now calm again, however as expected is noticeably warmer today.

NedS

Slinky said:

Not seeing comments from anybody saying they are ditching Agile for something else (unlike on the Tracker threads where a lot of people are coming to the end of their contract). Are we all just grinning and bearing it?

Someone suggested to me the other day about looking at Economy 7 as a winter option (we have solar and batteries). Is Agile the same as Tracker in that if you come off the tariff you can't go back on again for 9 months?

I switched from Agile to Cosy back in December when some very high pricing started.

I have an ASHP, solar but no storage/batteries.

At this time of year, the heat pump is on all day, solar is negligible and we have no storage. We can move a little usage to cheap slots, such as reheating the hot water, or washing machine etc, but mostly the heating runs constantly at 1.2kWh.

Very high pricing on Agile just wasn't going to work for us. We can turn off the heating for 3h during the peak, but when pricing is high the rest of the day, it's going to be prohibitively expensive. We also often turn off the heating overnight (unless it's below 5C) so the low pricing overnight doesn't help us.

With Cosy we have the 3 cheap periods (8h in total) where we can shift usage, and avoid usage during the 4-7pm peak period. Since switching, we are averaging around 20p/kWh on our imports and the Octopus Compare app shows we have significant savings over Agile (£160 vs £215 for the last month).

I was on Agile from March 24 up until Dec 24, and the savings over the standard rate were great, but now pricing has spiralled, I'm glad we switched when we did. At pricing around 20p/kWh, my heat pump costs are comparable to gas/oil on the coldest of days, and significantly cheaper in the milder weather, so that's my target price point / benchmark at the moment. We also enjoy the consistency of Cosy pricing without the risks of Agile, and adding battery storage would only make things better (although the financial payback still isn't really there)

teaselMay

When there's a day missing in the smart meter data does it get pulled retrospectively at some point? I've not seen it happen before since joining Octopus, but Saturday's electricity data has appeared in my online data whilst Friday's is still missing. As it was a cheaper day and I was away until tea time it'd be a shame if that use, small as it was, was attributed to a different day. Strangely the gas data for the same day was available last night.