A provider with cheap electricity overnight? But....

Snozzle

I'm learning allot.  I expected the washing machine to cost more than the dishwasher..... Will look out the gizmo we have to plug in and see specific items usages over the weekend.Have also looked up what a Tapo is!  Thanks again.

Snozzle

Economy 7 - I had many years ago and was useful as were using storage heaters overnight.  Not suitable for our current house unfortunately.  Had been hoping to find a tariff that rewarded households that shifted some of their electricity use to lower demand periods (overnight) without being charged higher rates during the day.  Will continue with the planned meter readings over the weekend but think we are better to forget the idea of switching for now.

dunstonh

  I expected the washing machine to cost more than the dishwasher...

A dishwasher on eco mode can use very little energy.  Especially a modern one.

Economy 7 - I had many years ago and was useful as were using storage heaters overnight.  Not suitable for our current house unfortunately. 

Economy 7 is 7 hours of cheap energy off peak.   Storage heaters took advantage of that but many people have economy 7 without storage heaters.  Myself included.

Had been hoping to find a tariff that rewarded households that shifted some of their electricity use to lower demand periods (overnight) without being charged higher rates during the day.

If that was available then everyone would be on it.  it would become the defaqto norm.

QrizB

Snozzle said:

I have previously looked at Agile but it doesn't recommend it at the moment due to high costs and says we are unlikely to save.

Currently, and for most of this year, almost everyone could save money on Octopus Agile.

When you say "it doesn't recommend it", exactly what doesn't recommend it? What checks have you made?

Spoonie_Turtle

If you can't avoid the peak to make Agile a possibility, Tracker could be a good option.  It doesn't quite do what you're asking but it does reward people for using more on days where there's a significant amount of energy in excess of demand.  It's load shifting across days rather than within a day.

bristolleedsfan

QrizB said:

Snozzle said:

I have previously looked at Agile but it doesn't recommend it at the moment due to high costs and says we are unlikely to save.

Currently, and for most of this year, almost everyone could save money on Octopus Agile.

When you say "it doesn't recommend it", exactly what doesn't recommend it? What checks have you made?

Old writeup still on Agile product page

How much will it cost?

Agile prices vary a lot based on trends in the wholesale energy market (our energy boffins blog regularly about it). Currently, soaring global gas prices have pushed wholesale prices to record highs: they've increased over 400% since the start of 2021. This means Agile's prices are consistently high right now, and it's likely you'll save more money by sticking to a standard variable or fixed tariff throughout the Winter.

ArbitraryRandom

Snozzle said:

Economy 7 - I had many years ago and was useful as were using storage heaters overnight.  Not suitable for our current house unfortunately.  Had been hoping to find a tariff that rewarded households that shifted some of their electricity use to lower demand periods (overnight) without being charged higher rates during the day.  Will continue with the planned meter readings over the weekend but think we are better to forget the idea of switching for now.

Talking lower gains, there are a few 'power move' type events running over the winter that you might be able to sign up with via your current supplier. 

If your current supplier don't offer a scheme, Ovo run their own power move scheme (use less than ~10% of your daily weekly power between 4 and 7pm to be credited £10 a month) - a relatively low amount, but if you've been thinking about switching anyway then ovo have a 'not bad' reputation for customer service (they seem to have struggled a little absorbing the SSE customers). 

Then loop also do 'turn down and save' - where you get £2.50 per kWh 'saved' based on your normal use with the time of the events depending on when there's highest demand on the grid (24 hours notice of timings) - you download the app then register using the code on your smart meter's in home display. Make sure you give permission to send you emails/push notifications to be told when the power events are. 

Snozzle

Re the Agile info - from it's website so I'll look into that further. You have all given me food for thought.

Will explore the tracker option too. 

We are currently with Shell which, because of it stopping providing energy has prompted all of this. Thanks everyone.

lohr500

As others have mentioned, the effectiveness of a time of use or Octopus Agile/Tracker tariffs depends on how much you can shift to the off peak periods.

It might be worth you looking at the EDF ECO20:20 tariff.

It gives an off peak rate from 9pm to 7am weekdays and all weekend which is much greater than the traditional Economy 7 tariff.

In our region the off peak rate is currently 10.96p/11.64p (PAYG/DD). Peak is 37.35p/37.17p and DSC is 56.00p/58.13p

You are still paying a premium for the peak rate and possibly a slightly higher standing charge, but if you can load shift most of your consumption to the weekends or between 9pm and 7am, it might be a good one to consider.

I did look at Agile/Tracker before deciding on ECO20:20 but because we need a degree of certainty on the daily off peak window to heat up our electric storage AGA, ECO20:20 was the better bet. Prior to ECO20:20 we were on a 2 year fix GoElectric98 tariff with EDF which offered the same peak/off peak time windows.

Based on our 365 day history, we are running at 84% off peak.

QrizB

Snozzle said:

Re the Agile info - from it's website so I'll look into that further.

Octopus added that note to their website last winter (I think in Dec?) when electricity prices were crazy. It was wrong by Jan, but they still haven't taken it off.