FREE electricity from Octopus

MouldyOldDough

I signed up for this - without really knowing much about it

Anybody have any more knowledge ?

greenbee

There's a whole thread here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6547688/octopus-octoplus-free-summer-energy-sessions-dont-forget-to-sign-up#latest

Peter999_2

When the national grid need to get rid of a surplus of electricity (usually when it's windy) they actually pay other countries to take it away and it costs a fortune.    Octopus are currently giving an hours free use (the only free bit is the amount you would use more than you normally would).     Octopus also have a agile tariff that charges for electricity per every half an hour and sometimes they actually pay you to take the energy away.   When this happens, it's a good idea to charge your electric car, charge any storage batteries you have, run the dishwasher/washer and use as much energy as possible and they'll actually pay you.

Today for example, from 10.30am to 3pm in Yorkshire the prices have gone into the negative.   You can check the daily prices here - agileprices.co.uk/?region=M

Obviously this only works if you have a smart meter.

HumberFlyer

There's a ton of info on Octopus site .... everything you could possibly need to know

AstuteSaverMan

Free Electricity for your Night Storage Heaters (possibly):
If you have a Kaifa MA120B smart meter, this is how to switch on the Night Storage Heaters for the free electricity period (if your MA120B is programmed the same as mine) -
Press top buttion to display menu.
Press bottom button to go down to "Boost".
Hold down top button to choose Boost and display "ALCS1" (which just means Auxiliary Load Control Switch).
Hold down top buttion to choose ALCS1 and display "Activate off".
Hold down top button to choose Activate and display "Activate on", and "15 min".
Press bottom buttion to go down to "Extend".
Hold down top button to Extend to 30 minutes.
Hold down top button to Extend to 45 minutes.
Hold down top button to Extend to 60 minutes.
The display will count down from 60 minutes and then switch off the Heaters.
To switch off early, select "Cancel".

Well, it worked for me!

Krakkkers

I had convector heaters adding up to 7.2kw running during the hour, took my house from 18 to 23 degrees, thanks Octopus.
My solar panels were kicking out 3.5kw at the time though.

matt_drummer

Krakkkers said:

I had convector heaters adding up to 7.2kw running during the hour, took my house from 18 to 23 degrees, thanks Octopus.
My solar panels were kicking out 3.5kw at the time though.

Do you remember one of your posts yesterday on saving money by not heating claiming it doesn't save anything?

You have just heated your house by 5c for free (not really though)  which is great.

But you did give up 3.5kWh of export payments to do it, so it actually cost you 53p (if you are on Octopus at 15p per kWh). It wasn't free at all!

It cost you 7.36p per kWh to heat your house with convector heaters. 

I, however, heated my house to 23c too but did so for seven times less money as my heat pump is currently running at over 700% efficiency. That's how you save money and have heating!

It proves your comment was wrong as you could have saved/made money by not heating, 53p to be exact!

Krakkkers

I am on deemed 50 percent export  no cost involved.

matt_drummer

Krakkkers said:

I am on deemed 50 percent export  no cost involved.

OK, that makes sense then.

I did consider that but thought you couldn't be as you were talking about storing energy and exporting back to the grid for a profit.

You were talking as if you were doing this which you can't be on deemed export.

I have a lot of solar panels and  large battery storage and making use of the Octopus scheme is not always possible.

I have an electric car but don't charge at home.

The electric heaters are scary, I get 7kWh of heat today for about 11p, that is 11p in total.

Krakkkers

But we both have warm houses and another individual does not.
I am glad to see you don't follow his advice.

matt_drummer

Krakkkers said:

But we both have warm houses and another individual does not.
I am glad to see you don't follow his advice.

Yep, I go to work to my make life comfortable, it doesn't even cost that much to heat our house with a heat pump, maybe £300 a year in electricity imports. Even at SVT it would only cost about £500.

I can't think of any holiday I would be happy to go on at that cost!

I will leave my post as it is, even though I was wrong, I said it and it's useful anyway to demonstrate that the free electricity sessions are not like the saver sessions that Octopus run.

I'll stop disrupting the thread now!