Octopus Agile

zxzxzx

RavingMad said:

TroubledTarts said:

RavingMad said:

TroubledTarts said:

Eyeing up popping back for a day or two from cosy.

For a day or two? How does that work?

Quite easily so today I switched to Agile as it's likely I can beat Cosy by 3-4p kWh and I may switch back to Cosy either tomorrow or the day after.

Been doing this all winter.

So no 30 day restriction? Excellent! Is that over the phone? Email? X?

Does the billing not get messed up? Got my bill the other day and it's missing the beginning of the month. I won't chase it as no doubt it'll appear at some point but I know it'd freak some others out 

I have been on Agile for 10 months, jumped to Cosy for ‘those’ 2 weeks in Feb and then  back to Agile. No issues, on the app - email new terms - accept - changed at either 00:00 or 12:00 depending on when I initiated.

RavingMad

zxzxzx said:

RavingMad said:

TroubledTarts said:

RavingMad said:

TroubledTarts said:

Eyeing up popping back for a day or two from cosy.

For a day or two? How does that work?

Quite easily so today I switched to Agile as it's likely I can beat Cosy by 3-4p kWh and I may switch back to Cosy either tomorrow or the day after.

Been doing this all winter.

So no 30 day restriction? Excellent! Is that over the phone? Email? X?

Does the billing not get messed up? Got my bill the other day and it's missing the beginning of the month. I won't chase it as no doubt it'll appear at some point but I know it'd freak some others out 

I have been on Agile for 10 months, jumped to Cosy for ‘those’ 2 weeks in Feb and then  back to Agile. No issues, on the app - email new terms - accept - changed at either 00:00 or 12:00 depending on when I initiated.

Yeah, I've gone from Agile to Fixed in Feb, then back to Agile again now

I got the impression TT has been doing it a few more times than we have. With gay abandon as they used to say 

TroubledTarts

RavingMad said:

zxzxzx said:

RavingMad said:

TroubledTarts said:

RavingMad said:

TroubledTarts said:

Eyeing up popping back for a day or two from cosy.

For a day or two? How does that work?

Quite easily so today I switched to Agile as it's likely I can beat Cosy by 3-4p kWh and I may switch back to Cosy either tomorrow or the day after.

Been doing this all winter.

So no 30 day restriction? Excellent! Is that over the phone? Email? X?

Does the billing not get messed up? Got my bill the other day and it's missing the beginning of the month. I won't chase it as no doubt it'll appear at some point but I know it'd freak some others out 

I have been on Agile for 10 months, jumped to Cosy for ‘those’ 2 weeks in Feb and then  back to Agile. No issues, on the app - email new terms - accept - changed at either 00:00 or 12:00 depending on when I initiated.

Yeah, I've gone from Agile to Fixed in Feb, then back to Agile again now

I got the impression TT has been doing it a few more times than we have. With gay abandon as they used to say 

I would say more with foresight and price per kWh planning (but gay abandon works lol)

So yes I have fully tested the switching system in kraken for squtching between smart meter tariffs and can confirm billing has been perfect so far.

I have two bookmarks and in 30 seconds all done and about 1 minute including an agree to the new tariff it is all done without bothering anyone from Octopus Customer Service.

https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

https://octopus.energy/smart/cosy-octopus/

didsbury

I have two bookmarks and in 30 seconds all done and about 1 minute including an agree to the new tariff it is all done without bothering anyone from Octopus Customer Service.

https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

https://octopus.energy/smart/cosy-octopus/

Thanks for that I have been looking online for a way to switch ... "and just like that"

TroubledTarts

didsbury said:

I have two bookmarks and in 30 seconds all done and about 1 minute including an agree to the new tariff it is all done without bothering anyone from Octopus Customer Service.

https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

https://octopus.energy/smart/cosy-octopus/

Thanks for that I have been looking online for a way to switch ... "and just like that"

Fantastic 👍

70sbudgie

Does Octopus Cosy have its own discussion? 

If yes, apologies as this question would be better there.

Does anyone only run their heat pumps during the Cosy dips? How does that impact the efficiency, turning it on and off? Or is Cosy not meant for load shifting, it just helps to keep down the cost of something that is running continuously?

NedS

70sbudgie said:

Does Octopus Cosy have its own discussion? 

If yes, apologies as this question would be better there.

Does anyone only run their heat pumps during the Cosy dips? How does that impact the efficiency, turning it on and off? Or is Cosy not meant for load shifting, it just helps to keep down the cost of something that is running continuously?

All else being equal, a heat pump is more efficient when run constantly, just putting enough heat into the house to match the heat loss, thus maintaining a steady state temperature.

But when using the Cosy tariff, all else is not equal as the price of electricity varies dramatically, so we try to shift as much usage as possible into the cheap slots and away from peak rate. The savings of half price electricity more than compensates for any loss of efficiency.

How you run your heat pump will depend on the property (is it very lossy) and your individual comfort levels.

We are on Cosy as have been running ours like so:

We do an overnight setback or switch off between midnight and 4am, otherwise it is too warm in the house to sleep comfortably, even at minimum (unless it's -5C outside)

We switch on at 4am to start warming the house for morning, taking advantage of the heat pump working hard in the first few hours to recover the heat lost in the cheap Cosy slot. This is a win for us.

From 7am through to 1pm we run as normal

At 1pm we bump it up a bit to increase the temperature by 4pm

At 4pm, we switch off until 7pm during the peak rate slot, during which time the temperature does drop 2-3C. Again, a big win by running harder in the cheap slot and then turning off at peak rate.

Turn back on at 7pm as it's a bit chilly by now, and run through to midnight/bedtime.

Obviously the hot water can be heated during any one (or more) of the three cheap slots as required.

Using the above strategy, with solar (of limited use in winter) and no battery storage, we managed an average import price of 19-20p during Dec-Feb this winter. Overall I feel Cosy works well for us over winter where the majority of our usage is the heat pump. This isn't usage you can shift into a couple of cheap Agile slots each day, it's more constant use, although as above a certain amount of time shifting is possible.

To answer your question, I don't believe you'd be able to run a heat pump for only 8 hours per day during the Cosy cheap rate slots in winter, unless you don't mind a very cold house!

If you have battery storage, with sufficient capacity to get you through the 6h windows between the cheap rate slots, you may be able to manage totally on Cosy cheap rate for all import, whilst not requiring the huge battery capacity that would be required if you were on a cheap overnight tariff such as any of the EV tariffs. We currently have a G98 application in for a Tesla Powerwall 3 (13.5kW) which will allow us to run on Cosy cheap rate all winter and store enough solar in summer so as not to have to import at all (and export the excess).

Spoonie_Turtle

Ours runs 4?am-4pm, off for the peak, then 7-11pm.  The house is chilly by about 6.30pm so we certainly couldn't have it off all the time outside of the lower rate slots. 

I guess we could try bumping the temperature up a lot if we were to try that, but then what we'd be saving from the lower rate would be eaten into - even possibly wiped out - by the MUCH extra energy it would be using to get up into the 20s℃.  And I'm not convinced it'd work anyway, to get the house up to temperature within a 3hr slot enough to maintain comfort the rest of the time.

Edit: hot water is set for the early slot, and allowed a boost in the afternoon slot if it needs it.

70sbudgie

Thank you very much @NedS and @Spoonie_Turtle . Both those replies are very helpful.

One more question - do either of you use weather compensation with those patterns?

NedS

70sbudgie said:

Thank you very much @NedS and @Spoonie_Turtle . Both those replies are very helpful.

One more question - do either of you use weather compensation with those patterns?

Yes, I use weather compensation, which basically just adjusts the flow temperature based on the outside temperature. I also then manually bump the flow temps up a little in the cheap afternoon slot to compensate for the fact we turn off for 3h during the evening peak (on my Samsung controller, I can manually adjust the flow temps +/-5C over what the Weather Compensation thinks they should be).