Octopus Agile prices from 1st July

Chrysalis

Dont see it there, I even hit ctrl-f and typed tomorrow and said no match.

Last 2 entries on table.

Fri 30/06/23	17.86p/kWh
Sat 01/07/23	12.82p/kWh

"The Electric Tracker November 2022 v1 Price on Sat 01/07/2023 is 12.82p/kWh."

The text you quoted after simply isnt there lol.

But no worries, it is what it is.

brook_heather

Chrysalis said:

Dont see it there, I even hit ctrl-f and typed tomorrow and said no match.

Last 2 entries on table.

Fri 30/06/23	17.86p/kWh
Sat 01/07/23	12.82p/kWh

"The Electric Tracker November 2022 v1 Price on Sat 01/07/2023 is 12.82p/kWh."

The text you quoted after simply isnt there lol.

But no worries, it is what it is.

Select Tracker v3 then you will see it.

mmmmikey

brook_heather said:

Chrysalis said:

Dont see it there, I even hit ctrl-f and typed tomorrow and said no match.

Last 2 entries on table.

Fri 30/06/23	17.86p/kWh
Sat 01/07/23	12.82p/kWh

"The Electric Tracker November 2022 v1 Price on Sat 01/07/2023 is 12.82p/kWh."

The text you quoted after simply isnt there lol.

But no worries, it is what it is.

Select Tracker v3 then you will see it.

Thanks for the link, works for me  - may be a browser or caching issue if you're not seeing it @chrysalis

mmmmikey

Average Agile price tomorrow 2.55p/kWh with a minimum of -18.12p/kWh

Prices <0 from 08:00 to 16:00, think I'm going to smelt some aluminium.....

Chrysalis

mmmmikey said:

Average Agile price tomorrow 2.55p/kWh with a minimum of -18.12p/kWh

Prices <0 from 08:00 to 16:00, think I'm going to smelt some aluminium.....

I literally moved of Agile just before the cheapest I ever seen it hit, those are some crazy rates, when the rates get this cheap it has the edge over tracker, whilst the rates seen in the week and most of the past year tracker has had the edge.

mmmmikey

Agile is working better for me so far. I have been playing with IFTTT to set up various automations so I can benefit from the best prices with minimal effort. For example, my immersion heater and lawnmower battery charger both switched themselves on at 23:30 to catch the first of the sub zero prices. 

It's bizarre to think that I could put a fan heater in the same room as my air conditioner tomorrow and be paid to turn them both on and let them fight with each other!

Chrysalis

mmmmikey said:

Agile is working better for me so far. I have been playing with IFTTT to set up various automations so I can benefit from the best prices with minimal effort. For example, my immersion heater and lawnmower battery charger both switched themselves on at 23:30 to catch the first of the sub zero prices. 

It's bizarre to think that I could put a fan heater in the same room as my air conditioner tomorrow and be paid to turn them both on and let them fight with each other!

Yes, when you load shift its an even better tariff, its aimed at these type of customers.

scobie

mmmmikey said:

Agile is working better for me so far. 

It's bizarre to think that I could put a fan heater in the same room as my air conditioner tomorrow and be paid to turn them both on and let them fight with each other!

Am I the only one who worries about the morality of this?  I too am proactively thinking of ways to use power today and it seems wrong somehow.  

I’ve seen FB posts by agile users saying they will burn electric oil heaters all day with the windows open. I’ve seen people offering to do their neighbours tumble drying.  I’ve even seen EV drivers ask if they can charge their cars at neighbours places for free as both will benefit. 

Does this seem right?

it’s seems strange that between them the power generators and retailers can’t work out a way to store the power to smooth out the benefits of lower wholesale prices and demand, rather than creating this weird state of paying me 20p kWh to waste energy. 

[Deleted User]

scobie said:

mmmmikey said:

Agile is working better for me so far. 

It's bizarre to think that I could put a fan heater in the same room as my air conditioner tomorrow and be paid to turn them both on and let them fight with each other!

Am I the only one who worries about the morality of this?  I too am proactively thinking of ways to use power today and it seems wrong somehow.  

I’ve seen FB posts by agile users saying they will burn electric oil heaters all day with the windows open. I’ve seen people offering to do their neighbours tumble drying.  I’ve even seen EV drivers ask if they can charge their cars at neighbours places for free as both will benefit. 

Does this seem right?

it’s seems strange that between them the power generators and retailers can’t work out a way to store the power to smooth out the benefits of lower wholesale prices and demand, rather than creating this weird state of paying me 20p kWh to waste energy. 

It is not really the retailers' problem. By paying customers to use energy, the calculation from the Grid Operator is that it will cost less than giving wind farm operators a constraint payment.

Yes, more storage would be nice as would a system of wires that can move wind energy in Scotland to southern England and beyond. Sadly, the battery technology is not yet there and we have under invested in our National Grid.

QrizB

scobie said:

Am I the only one who worries about the morality of this?

You probably aren't alone, but (depending on exactly how your personal moral framework works) you might not need to worry.

scobie said:

I too am proactively thinking of ways to use power today and it seems wrong somehow.  

What specifically seems wrong about it?

Today, and yesterday, the UK is generating far more electricity than it can use. This is largely due to strong winds in the North Sea, which mean that many of our neighbouring countries also have a surplus of wind power and exports are low.

Negative prices suggest to me that we're paying generators *not* to produce electricity (known as abatement), despite their contracts saying they otherwise should be.

Increasing demand and using more electricity could result in less abatement and mean fewer abatement payments.

Arguably, it's your civil duty to use as much electricity as you can at times like this

scobie said:

It’s seems strange that between them the power generators and retailers can’t work out a way to store the power to smooth out the benefits of lower wholesale prices and demand, rather than creating this weird state of paying me 20p kWh to waste energy. 

Storing power is really quite expensive. To take an example that's commonly used at home this Pylontech battery can store 3kWh and (at time of writing) costs a little under £1200. At the peak of negative pricing today, youcould charge it and be paid 60p - then save 90p discharging it again later when prices get back to normal. That's a gain of £1.50, so you'd need to do it 800 times to pay for the battery.
If this sort of thing was happening every day, it would be worth doing (the battery would pay for itself in a little over two years). But it's only happening a handful of times a year, so your payback period becomes a century or two. It's not worth spending the UK's money on equipment that is used so infrequently.

Granted, there are large-scale energy storage sites in the UK (the Dinorwig pumped hydro-electric plant being a stand-out example) and I'm sure they will be fully charged today by their operators. But there's only so much capacity they have, and they're big enough that National Grid will already have them factored into their equations.

In the longer term, as the UK builds more intermittent generation (mostly wind, some solar) having "too much electricity" will become more common and we'll find better uses for it (splitting water into hydrogen, making synthetic jet fuel, producing ammonia, whatever). But this weekend, all we can do is fire up the hot tub and let it steam.

(Full disclosure: I am not an Agile customer and will not benefit directly from this. Nor do I own a hot tub.)