Agile Pricing - strange things are afoot...

la531983

Just a warning that pricing tomorrow between 6pm and 8pm looks like it could be eye watering

Mstty

la531983 said:

Just a warning that pricing tomorrow between 6pm and 8pm looks like it could be eye watering

But surely Agile users don't touch 4-8pm anyway otherwise it negates the savings from load shifting.

la531983

Mstty said:

la531983 said:

Just a warning that pricing tomorrow between 6pm and 8pm looks like it could be eye watering

But surely Agile users don't touch 4-8pm anyway otherwise it negates the savings from load shifting.

I agree, it was a courtesy message.
Nordpool hourly pricing for those hours tomorrow is 50% higher than today. 55p a unit I reckon. 

mmmmikey

Thanks for the heads-up and I agree with the last 2 posts. If anyone on Agile is using a significant amount of energy during the peak they're probably on the wrong tarriff.

To keep this in perspective, I moved to Agile from E7 which had a day rate of 42p/kWh and a night rate of 17p/kWh (EDF SVR, East Midlands). Even at the peak, the Agile rate has rarely gone above the E7 day rate and most of the time I've enjoyed an "Economy 21" tarriff with the average rate outside the peak rarely exceding 17p/kWh. Overall, I've managed to average < 10p/kWh over the last few months by charging batteries and heating water at the best times.

Be interesting to see what the average price is for the 16:00 to 19:00 peak tomorrow - today it's averaging about 42p/kWh so, although expensive compared to the last few months still only about the same as E7 day rate, and only for a 3 hour period.

mmmmikey

Gulp - as you say prices tomorrow waaaay higher than they have been over the last few months, peaking at 65p/kWh for me and hovering around the 20p/kWh for much of the day. Strategy for me is to use bottled gas for water heating and charge the batteries with solar energy. I haven't needed to do that so far, be interesting to see if this is just a blip or the start of a prolonged period of higher pricee.

Pat38493

This may just be coincidence, but oddly enough there was a big spike in the Agile price last year at exactly the same time - starting 22nd August until the end of the month!

I just switched to Agile recently as an experiment.  If the prices become consistently higher than the appropriately shifted Go usage I will switch back to Go or to Tracker I guess.  I'm already finding that because I don't have batteries or solar, I have to do a lot of load shifting to try to match the daily cost of Tracker, although I've saved a lot versus Go so far.

la531983

Pat38493 said:

This may just be coincidence, but oddly enough there was a big spike in the Agile price last year at exactly the same time - starting 22nd August until the end of the month!

I just switched to Agile recently as an experiment.  If the prices become consistently higher than the appropriately shifted Go usage I will switch back to Go or to Tracker I guess.  I'm already finding that because I don't have batteries or solar, I have to do a lot of load shifting to try to match the daily cost of Tracker, although I've saved a lot versus Go so far.

It's coincidence, this is all due to Australian strikes (well, the threat of them. Hopefully tomorrow they get called off). 

And yes the rates are higher, and indeed earlier, than I predicted. 

17:30 - 18:00	61.15p/kWh
18:00 - 18:30	64.47p/kWh
18:30 - 19:00	64.05p/kWh
19:00 - 19:30	45.78p/kWh
19:30 - 20:00	43.05p/kWh
20:00 - 20:30	46.94p/kWh

la531983

Thursday could be even worse. Natural gas price has just shot up to a 16% gain at the end of day, after being between 3-5% up for most or the day.
This is according to the BBC. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cxwdwz5d8gxt

Oddly enough the line chart has closed for the day around the 107 mark though so no idea if the 16% gain is actually accurate. 

Pat38493

la531983 said:

Pat38493 said:

This may just be coincidence, but oddly enough there was a big spike in the Agile price last year at exactly the same time - starting 22nd August until the end of the month!

I just switched to Agile recently as an experiment.  If the prices become consistently higher than the appropriately shifted Go usage I will switch back to Go or to Tracker I guess.  I'm already finding that because I don't have batteries or solar, I have to do a lot of load shifting to try to match the daily cost of Tracker, although I've saved a lot versus Go so far.

It's coincidence, this is all due to Australian strikes (well, the threat of them. Hopefully tomorrow they get called off). 

And yes the rates are higher, and indeed earlier, than I predicted. 

17:30 - 18:00	61.15p/kWh
18:00 - 18:30	64.47p/kWh
18:30 - 19:00	64.05p/kWh
19:00 - 19:30	45.78p/kWh
19:30 - 20:00	43.05p/kWh
20:00 - 20:30	46.94p/kWh

So is this also the reason why the Agile average price for tomorrow if you used the same amount of energy at all times of day, is much higher than Tracker? 

I would have thought that if both tariffs are based on wholesale prices, the average price over the day should be in the same ballpark each day.  It looks like this is normally the case, but tomorrow the average Agile price is nearly 10p above the Tracker price.

I think I read somewhere that Agile is somehow based on "forecasted" prices but Tracker is based on an auction that takes place each day.  But does this then mean that if the forecast is wrong and much too high, Octopus makes a killing or do they have to hedge against that forecast anyway somehow?

la531983

Pat38493 said:

la531983 said:

Pat38493 said:

This may just be coincidence, but oddly enough there was a big spike in the Agile price last year at exactly the same time - starting 22nd August until the end of the month!

I just switched to Agile recently as an experiment.  If the prices become consistently higher than the appropriately shifted Go usage I will switch back to Go or to Tracker I guess.  I'm already finding that because I don't have batteries or solar, I have to do a lot of load shifting to try to match the daily cost of Tracker, although I've saved a lot versus Go so far.

It's coincidence, this is all due to Australian strikes (well, the threat of them. Hopefully tomorrow they get called off). 

And yes the rates are higher, and indeed earlier, than I predicted. 

17:30 - 18:00	61.15p/kWh
18:00 - 18:30	64.47p/kWh
18:30 - 19:00	64.05p/kWh
19:00 - 19:30	45.78p/kWh
19:30 - 20:00	43.05p/kWh
20:00 - 20:30	46.94p/kWh

So is this also the reason why the Agile average price for tomorrow if you used the same amount of energy at all times of day, is much higher than Tracker? 

I would have thought that if both tariffs are based on wholesale prices, the average price over the day should be in the same ballpark each day.  It looks like this is normally the case, but tomorrow the average Agile price is nearly 10p above the Tracker price.

I think I read somewhere that Agile is somehow based on "forecasted" prices but Tracker is based on an auction that takes place each day.  But does this then mean that if the forecast is wrong and much too high, Octopus makes a killing or do they have to hedge against that forecast anyway somehow?

The Tracker price is based on the hourly average of all 24 hours here... 

https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/#/n2ex/table

A formula is then applied to the average figure which varies slightly for each supply region, to give a unit cost. 

The average of 113.42 equates to a unit price of 21.4p in the cheapest supply region all day tomorrow on Tracker, if another 8 went on the average it would equate to an extra 1p on the unit rate or there abouts. 

I suppose Tracker is treating every hour as an equal which doesn't happen in reality. Electric usage at 3am is different to 3pm etc.