Octopus Agile

Netexporter

This week's Gary Does Solar seems to be flying a kite to see if an intelligent version of Agile might be popular.

Intelligent Octopus Agile - Coming Soon? (youtube.com)

I think I'd like it to be switchable, so you could play the market if you have a particular use case but could put it on "auto" when you CBA to play about.

TheBanker

Netexporter said:

This week's Gary Does Solar seems to be flying a kite to see if an intelligent version of Agile might be popular.

Intelligent Octopus Agile - Coming Soon? (youtube.com)

I think I'd like it to be switchable, so you could play the market if you have a particular use case but could put it on "auto" when you CBA to play about.

He's just made that tariff up I think.

If such a tariff existed, I'd like it to work like Agile, but with a certain number of guaranteed cheap hours for EV charging - they could choose the hours, they don't need to be overnight. Would probably not be commercially viable though. 

Netexporter

Yes, that's why I said "flying a kite". I do wonder whether Octopus might have put him up to it, as a means of getting feedback from potential customers. He did say he'd pass comments on to Octopus.

NedS

TheBanker said:

wrf12345 said:

After seeing those rates, got up expecting a super bright sun... and it was actually raining (south west coast for you) but have dug out my infrared heaters, should see off this weeks electricity charges with them at full blast - at least I will be down to shorts in the house! Going to cook a load of chicken to eat cold thru the week as well.

Great fun at the moment but huge battery storage farms are already transforming Chinese and Californian grids, soaking up excess solar and wind to use during the peak.

Hopefully that will mean, longer term, the evening peak prices drop. So we'll loose the super-cheap days, but also the super-expensive hours. Better all round I think.

Octopus have just signed a deal with Gresham House Energy Storage (GRID), a battery storage fund (and their intelligent tariffs put home users batteries under Octopus control):

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/gresham_house_energy_storage_fund_plc2/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=2430&newsid=1828154

5 June 2024

 Gresham House Energy Storage Fund PLC

("GRID" or the "Company")

 Tolling agreement with Octopus Energy

 Delivering significant contractual income for GRID and benefitting UK electricity bill payers

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc (LSE: GRID), the UK's largest fund investing in utility-scale battery energy storage systems, is delighted to announce that fourteen of its projects, representing 568MW/920MWh, have secured fixed price contracts with a subsidiary of Octopus Energy ("Octopus"), the UK's largest electricity provider, which provides attractively priced, two-year fixed-price contracts for approximately half of the Company's 1,072MW target portfolio starting in a phased manner from 1 July 2024.

For the term of these arrangements, Octopus will pay a fixed fee per MW on these projects in return for the use of each project's batteries. The fixed fee rate is determined by the duration of the asset (expressed in hours) and excludes Capacity Market payments which the projects will continue to receive separately.

Including the Company's Capacity Market revenues across its full portfolio, the majority of which are for 15 years index-linked to CPI, the Company expects to have annual contracted revenues of c.£43mn during the tolling arrangement.

This contract underpins GRID's revenues and provides a greater degree of certainty over the Company's cash flows. For the portion of the portfolio contracted with Octopus, the Company has secured a higher price than recent weak performance at the start of the year, and at a competitive price for underlying battery economics.

Following this agreement, which allows time for assets to be onboarded by Octopus and allows GRID to complete the construction and/or augmentation of certain projects, the end-of-2024 portfolio is expected to be c.50% hedged: 568MW/920MWh of the target portfolio will be contracted under the agreement while 504MW/776MWh will continue to operate under existing optimisation agreements.

These fixed price contracts will provide greater confidence in restarting a dividend at the appropriate stage in 2025.

Kieron Stopforth, Head of Flexibility at Octopus Energy, said:

"Every year we're letting hundreds of gigawatt-hours of clean energy go to waste because our system isn't flexible enough - not only that, we also have to pay for this senseless waste.

"Batteries play a key role in unlocking the clean and cheap energy system, storing green energy when it's plentiful and providing it to the grid when energy is expensive.

"Through this landmark deal with GRID we're not only increasing the size of our virtual power plant to over 1.5GW, we're also unlocking the power of flexibility to drive down costs for consumers across the country."

John Leggate CBE, Chair of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc, said:

"The Board and Manager firmly believe that the rebalanced mix of contractual and merchant revenues offers shareholders a superior risk adjusted target return and material risk mitigation, particularly in a revenue environment that remains uncertain in the near term, by reducing direct exposure to the Electricity System Operator (ESO) as the principal counterparty in Great Britain."

Ben Guest, Fund Manager of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc & Managing Director of Gresham House New Energy, said:

"The fixed-price contracts with Octopus secure revenues for GRID at levels which, for the time being, are above those currently being achieved from the merchant revenue stack available in the national wholesale and balancing markets. They demonstrate the value batteries offer in balancing the supply (power generation) and customer demand that are managed by retail and wholesale market players, in addition to balancing supply and demand at a national level.

"The remainder of GRID's portfolio will continue to maintain exposure to merchant market pricing and the potential upside from an improving revenue environment.

"Diversifying revenues via alternative and innovative opportunities has been on the Board's agenda for some time so this transaction is a very important milestone for GRID. By fully contracting circa 50% of GRID's portfolio with Octopus, the Company secures a reliable level of revenues while ESO concludes the rollout of its Balancing Programme which is expected to improve BESS utilisation in Great Britain, in due course.

"End consumers are increasingly demanding electricity that is both renewable and affordable, as well as reliable. Therefore, electricity suppliers increasingly need to balance intermittent, renewable supply with customer demand, for which batteries are well-suited.

"GRID's scale has made this transaction possible with a counterparty as large as Octopus and demonstrates the benefits of having a leading position in this market.

"We share Octopus' passion for innovation, which has helped it become Britain's largest electricity supplier. As renewable generation continues to ramp up, we expect batteries to earn revenues in new ways that deliver cheaper, renewable and reliable power to homes and businesses across the country. We believe working with the largest energy suppliers in this way could become as important as the national market."

MP1995

Octopus - looking to the future 

Newbie_John

Good Saturday, 23kWh, -£0.29, average price -2.87p per kWh. I must admit, it requires a lot more creativity in summer to reach high usage, in winter is simple - all heaters on.
5kWh Saturday roast
7kWh hot water tank
2kWh dishwasher
The rest somewhere among garage radiator & dehumidifier, 3 runs of washing machine etc.

Netexporter

Total tally for yesterday, 31.39kWh used for which I was paid the princely sum of 5 of our (not so) new pence.

Having an EV helps, though.

NedS

61kWh used Saturday, for which Octopus paid us £2.07. All the washing done, lawn cut and Sunday roast cooked a day early!

MP1995

Brings the average price per kwh for 1st-9th June to 6p kwh and 115kwh used.

What a bargain

wrf12345

A grand total of 15p for last week... except there is the s/c to add on, quite nice having the benefits of solar/wind without actually fitting them. I almost went mad and switched the TV on in the peak period on Sunday but could not quite bring myself to do it, could be the start of downward spiral into increased use/cost. Must resist. Daily use is now between 0.9 to 1.3kw, depending on whether I am in or out and how much cooking I do. I did test my new consumer unit by switching on an ancient fridge so I could defrost the smaller, newer one - there was a bit of gurgling, a small popping noise and the smell of burning before the main fuse popped and saved me from burning the house down, though I do need a new kitchen.