Snug Octopus (Economy 7) Problems

vienna28

Unbeknownst to me it seems my afternoon cheap hour was gone yesterday.

Mind you I'm still staying on snug because even without the cheap afternoon hour I'm still better off on it.  👍

Here is yesterday's graph that I've just seen:

vienna28

As Scot wondered the other day it would be interesting to know if us on SNUG all get the exact same timings and settings from Octopus energy?

Me for example:

(1) Since the 29 April I no longer have the cheap afternoon off peak hour.  Are others on snug the same?

(2) Since the 29 April off peak has come on and off between 12:30am to 6:30am.  So the off peak hours that Octopus say on site.  Do others on snug get the same hours.

I have had to email Octopus because when they switched off my off peak afternoon hour on the 29th April it also switched my timings back to my former economy 7 hours.  So hot water and Storage heaters can now only come on between 1:37am to 8:37am.  So I have to make sure everything is manually switched off by 6:30am or I could use over two extra hours at peak rate. 

This also happened when I first joined snug.  So who knows they may eventually throw me off snug and say that my smart meter isn't compatible.

Scot_39

vienna28 said:

I have had to email Octopus because when they switched off my off peak afternoon hour on the 29th April it also switched my timings back to my former economy 7 hours.  So hot water and Storage heaters can now only come on between 1:37am to 8:37am.  So I have to make sure everything is manually switched off by 6:30am or I could use over two extra hours at peak rate. 

This also happened when I first joined snug.  So who knows they may eventually throw me off snug and say that my smart meter isn't compatible.

Have they had trouble controlling your meter @vienna28 ?
As there is reference to the roll back to meter presets in the terms and conditions.
https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/
"2.14.9 If for any reason we are unable to charge your storage heaters according to an optimised schedule (for example, because we lose contact with your smart meter) your storage heaters will charge according to the set schedule you had before you joined Snug Octopus and you will be charged the day rate for any charging that happens outside of the off-peak hours."

Sounds like this maybe the situation you find yourself in ?

I've often wondered exactly what this means the method of meter control is - that their is a way dynamic commands temporarily override presets like tge ALCS calander [iirc another posters reference] tables etc.
And so worried about the long term stability of the tariff.  Which is why I decided to wait a few months to see what feedback real world users had.
As I am on e10 and 5.5 hrs - including my afternoon and evening charges would revert to day rate if 2.14.9 triggered  if could keep meter as was - but suspect they would configure a new meter to e7.  I could probably live with just 1 hr boost in winter - but my heaters do take more than 1 hr charge in 3 hr afternoon and 2 hr evening slots - even at my low input settings cf many

Have you checked the comms for 1/2hrly reads in other direction been OK. Recently.

Oh and re your second paragraph,  could they use 2.14.7 to do just that?
(Maybe my paranoia but read those clauses defensively as suspect pure e7 alone unlikely to work with my old lossy heaters - and so don't want to lose e10 to e7 if snug fails). 

Now if they would set by default to say cosy off peak instead of e7  - that might be a better fallback for lossy heaters.

Qyburn

vienna28 said:

Unbeknownst to me it seems my afternoon cheap hour was gone yesterday.

Did the meter switch on the storage heater circuits, even though the cheap rate wasn't applied? Or are your heaters on a permanent supply reliant on you setting their timings correctly?

Qyburn

AstuteSaverMan said:

Since my (ancient) storage heaters control their own intake with internal thermostats, I just leave the Snug settings on the maximum 6 hours - My storage heaters will know when they've had enough.  

For maximum efficiency it would be best to have the heaters charging up as late as possible, reducing the amount of heat pointlessly leaking out in the small hours.

vienna28

Scot_39, you probably remember this other snug thread from a few days ago when Octopus told the poster that his smart meter wasn't compatible to go on Snug.  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81417789#Comment_81417789?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=octopus+snug

I responded and said I also had the exact EDMI ES-12B smart meter and that I eventually got on snug.  But maybe Octopus were right about that particular smart meter not being compatible.

When I originally couldn't get on snug they responded: "I've tried activating the ALCS on your meter and I'm getting a 'null' response which indicates this isn't working as intended"

So term 2.14.9 does seem what happened with me.  But looking at my daily graphs and Octopus have no problem taking my half hourly readings.

For years I was also on Economy 10 with I believe East Midlands electricity, then I think they were called Powergen and then E.ON. But they changed my meter and I ended up on the inferior E7.  So I can understand why you would be reluctant to give it up.  And yes it's a pity Storage heater users can't go on the Cosy tariff.

If issues continue I may switch to the no exit fee 12 month E7 fix.  Yes off peak is 12.75p but I need less than 3kwh to heat my hot water.  So compared to snug probably 10p more expensive.  But the advantage over snug is my off peak would run to 8:37am and with snug not at present having an off peak afternoon hour, that means I could make savings with off peak until 8:37am.  Plus of course no chance of overrunning into peak rate while heating hot water on E7. 

So when the storage heaters are needed of course I could make big savings on snug.  In the warmer months minimal savings for me on snug.  So I may have actually convinced myself to move back to E7.  And who knows they make fix the glitches for the winter.  👍

.......

To Qyburn:  My storage heaters are old and work manually.  'Octopus Snug' off peak is between 12:30am to 6:30am.  The problem is although I am on the snug tariff my storage heater and hot water timings have reverted back to my former 1:37am to 8:37am economy 7 timings.  So if I were to let them run, then from 6:30am to 8:37am I would be charged at peak rate.  But I am aware of this so I may sure they are manually switched off by 6:30am.  👍

Scot_39

vienna28 said:

For years I was also on Economy 10 with I believe East Midlands electricity, then I think they were called Powergen and then E.ON. But they changed my meter and I ended up on the inferior E7.  So I can understand why you would be reluctant to give it up.  And yes it's a pity Storage heater users can't go on the Cosy tariff.

E10 with EOn Next has become progressively expensive - so with the Apr price increases my rates are now c19p off peak and c32p peak.   

EDF who are the only ones who still publish regional E10 rates are cheaper off-peak here in EM - but higher peak.  I phoned them years ago - they wouldn't accept me on E10 - that was whilst I had my first non RTS digital meter.  

Octopus Snug was / is a potential defence against being pushed E7 with a smets2 upgrade here by EOn Next (as reported here by another user). Hence my interest in the tariff and users experience - and my fear E7 wont save - base don former neighbours experience - probably the reason for my more than a little anal attention to the Terms and Conditions.

vienna28

Scot_39, I can give you a clearer better answer to the question you asked me a couple of days ago.

You asked:

"Have they had trouble controlling your meter @vienna28 ?

As there is reference to the roll back to meter presets in the terms and conditions.
https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/

"2.14.9 If for any reason we are unable to charge your storage heaters according to an optimised schedule (for example, because we lose contact with your smart meter) your storage heaters will charge according to the set schedule you had before you joined Snug Octopus and you will be charged the day rate for any charging that happens outside of the off-peak hours."

Sounds like this maybe the situation you find yourself in ?"

.......

For over a week I had snug settings at the maximum 6 hours, so I always expected to be able to put my hot water on throughout the early hours, but I did quickly notice it had reverted to the 1:37 to 8:37am E7 timings.

However last night I set snug settings to just 1 hour but Octopus had zero control because I could still switch the hot water on and off throughout the E7 hours.   So yes definitely term 2.14.9 applies to me.

I suspect because at first Octopus had trouble contacting and controlling the ALCS on my meter and it required the smart metering team to fix the meter issues.  So when they switched off the afternoon hour on the 29th it created a no response again to the meter and so it reverted back to E7 timings.  So when Octopus via email eventually get back to me they will either fix the meter issues or say my meter isn't really compatible with snug. 

To point out, I don't want to put anyone off joining snug because if they have a compatible smart meter then I'm sure switching to snug would be issue free.  👍

vienna28

Update:

The Octopus smart metering team have fixed and got me back onto the Snug timings.  And to my surprise the 4pm to 5pm cheap hour has also returned after 10 days without it.  That surprised me most because when I had joined Snug on 9th April, for that first week I was also stuck on E7 timings but I still had a cheap afternoon hour but from 29th April to 8th May I was also stuck on E7 timings but without a cheap afternoon hour.  So I have no explanation for that. 

In early May I had emailed Octopus and explained I was on the Snug tariff but was now stuck on E7 timings, I asked if their smart metering team could fix the issue?  I had an email response asking me to send photos of my smart meter.  I did and when the customer service emailed again I wasn't too hopeful because they didn't seem to know the correct snug timings:

However in the early hours on the 9th May I awoke and noticed they seemed to be controlling my hot water because I had set snug setting to one hour and looking back at the 9th May graph the hot water had come on at 1:07am.  Then went off and then came on later:

 

Here is the graph of the previous day when they still hadn't fixed the issue:

 

 Lastly here is the day before graph when I forgot about turning off the hot water before 6:30am and it ran into peak for over 10 minutes:

Scot_39

Glad you made it back onto desired tariff rates / times.

That email is an intriguing response - suggesting the preset alcs is set to e7 (say if moved e10 to snug) - which is not what their T&Cs say - it just says will revert to pre snug timings.

And I see Octopus still cannot scale their graphed rates properly - they really should change the key / description..  

I'd love it if market energy rates were such that the day could be c8/9 p/kWh and off peak c2.5p as the key implies.