Octopus Agile

Newbie_John

3:30-4:30 

Netexporter

A bit of plunge tonight. Should be just enough to top my car up for less than nothing.

doningtonphil

Sort of on topic.  Just switched to Agile after not being able to persuade octopus to extend my 5p/13p Octopus Go tariff in to a 4the year!.
We have an immersion heater.  is there a timer/controller that can link to IFTTT so that the immersion can automatically operate when prices are low.  Currently i have to check the app and then reprogram the time to heat the water at the best time over night.
What is available?

QrizB

There are various WiFi fused spurs available. Or ZigBee switches. A forum search should turn up examples of people using them as you describe. If you don't find anything, I'll take a better look later.

mmmmikey

doningtonphil said:

Sort of on topic.  Just switched to Agile after not being able to persuade octopus to extend my 5p/13p Octopus Go tariff in to a 4the year!.
We have an immersion heater.  is there a timer/controller that can link to IFTTT so that the immersion can automatically operate when prices are low.  Currently i have to check the app and then reprogram the time to heat the water at the best time over night.
What is available?

I use one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B5GM2QRT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has the advantage of being able to plug in a temperature sensor. I'm on Tracker for the winter, but when I was on Agile I used IFTTT to heat the water when the price was lowest. If the lowest price is overnight (which is normally but not always the case) then I heat the water in a thermal store to 45C, but if it's in the afternoon I only heat it to 42C as it doesn't need to stay hot as long (I use most hot water in the evening). The temperature sensor also allows you to monitor the water temperature and helps inform any decision about how hot you need it. Although I started with IFTTT I found that could be quite laggy at times so I moved to controlling everything with Home Assistant and using the Octopus API to get the price data which I found more reliable.

Newbie_John

doningtonphil said:

Sort of on topic.  Just switched to Agile after not being able to persuade octopus to extend my 5p/13p Octopus Go tariff in to a 4the year!.
We have an immersion heater.  is there a timer/controller that can link to IFTTT so that the immersion can automatically operate when prices are low.  Currently i have to check the app and then reprogram the time to heat the water at the best time over night.
What is available?

I have my one set from 3:30 to 6:00 (first showers start at 6am).
It runs for about 2h so 6kWh used and if you look at prices:
https://agileprices.co.uk/?region=C

They are mostly the cheapest around that time - if not they don't vary much - by 1-2p.
And I have noticed with my tank that if I set it 3:30-6:00 I have 60 degrees at 6am, but if I pick cheapest times across the day - let's say 22:30-1:00 it will lose few degrees by then - 55*C, or if I set it to heat 13:00-16:00 again it will be much cooler in the morning 50*C etc.
So any few pence gain is lost.

I occasionally adjust it on my app if there are negative prices of below 5p prices - otherwise just keep it as it is. 

Newbie_John

Received an email from Octopus that the standing charge from 15th Feb is going to be the same as with other tarrifs. 

In my case up by 5p, £1.50 extra a month.

jaceyboy

Newbie_John said:

Received an email from Octopus that the standing charge from 15th Feb is going to be the same as with other tarrifs. 

In my case up by 5p, £1.50 extra a month.

Same here, they need to abolish these charges now!

BellaBlondykeTheThird

jaceyboy said:

Newbie_John said:

Received an email from Octopus that the standing charge from 15th Feb is going to be the same as with other tarrifs. 

In my case up by 5p, £1.50 extra a month.

Same here, they need to abolish these charges now!

Wait til they change the formula like they have on tracker and make it 2-3p more per kWh.

Newbie_John

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

jaceyboy said:

Newbie_John said:

Received an email from Octopus that the standing charge from 15th Feb is going to be the same as with other tarrifs. 

In my case up by 5p, £1.50 extra a month.

Same here, they need to abolish these charges now!

Wait til they change the formula like they have on tracker and make it 2-3p more per kWh.

Nothing lasts forever.
It still a surprisingly an amazing product - I have halved my bills in the last three months. Whereas with all the other tarrifs like Eco7, Go, Cosy I would maybe save 10%.

Make most you can, while you can.
Luckily prices are going down in long term so Agile may not be worth a hassle in a year or two.