Outgoing Octopus is changing to a variable rate tariff

vic_sf49

As per the email I've just received, Outgoing is changing from a fixed 15p, to a variable rate.

Don't know how often it might change, or by how much. So I'm sure I'll either love it or hate it, at various points in the future.

Has anyone been on the variable version for a while? Have the rates changed much / at all?

Netexporter

I've been wondering when this day might come. My contract started last December, so hopefully I'll be OK until nearly Christmas. I'll be installing batteries before then, so I'll probably looking at a ToE tariff and discharge at peak times, for a bit more reward.

QrizB

Much like @Netexporter I've wondered how long Octopus can carry on paying ~2.5x the average wholesale price for small scale solar export. This looks like an adjustment is coming.

Edit: I've been wondering for two years!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80076314/#Comment_80076314

MWT

This isn't news really, the change happened before Christmas as I recall.

Edit: November 2024.

NedS

They've said they will continue to pay 15p for now. I'm guessing they will wait until most have rolled off the fixed export rate so they are not paying two different amounts for SEG. My 'fixed' contract ends in July.

Netexporter

MWT said:

This isn't news really, the change happened before Christmas as I recall.

Edit: November 2024.

Just had another look at my Home Page and it does indeed say "flexible" and "prices follow wholesale costs", although still quoting 15p as the rate. Annoyingly, I might have got in before 24th November, if I hadn't assumed that the required paperwork would be a week or two in coming. As it turned out, the DNO letter was issued the day after installation, on the 6th November and the MSC certification a couple of days later, but both sent to the installer. It only took a couple of days from application to be up and running, so all things being equal I would have been collecting SEG well before the 24th.

All water under the bridge/photons through the panels, now.

<cancels plans to be a solar billionaire>

NedS

At the point export becomes worthless, storage will become a lot more viable. At the moment, the grid is acting like a huge battery at a SEG rate that is close to import rates.

wrf12345

Less solar export, more the temptation to go off-grid (with large savings in installation costs)...

QrizB

Less solar export, more the temptation to go off-grid (with large savings in installation costs)...

You seem to have misspelled "increases" as "savings".

A battery-backed off-grid system will be considerably more expensive than a grid-tied system, even ignoring the question of how to provide electricity during the winter.

See for example the prices in this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6603992/solar-quote

That's £5.5k for a 6kWp solar PV system without a battery, or £11.5k for one including a Tesla Powerwall.

For an "average" household, the £5.5k no-battery system will reduce their grid electricity use by perhaps 1500kWh/yr (a saving of £375) and a 15p export tariff will earn £600 a year from the remaining generatior. Value £975 a year, payback in less than six years.

If the export tariff is reduced all the way to 5p, the £600 becomes £200, the annual saving is £575 and payback takes ten years.

Going off-grid with the Powerwall and assuming that you're happy with the risk of running out of electricity during a dull December, the saving is £882 (the current Ofgem cap for average electricity, including standing charge). That's less then the current earnings from the no-battery system and payback will take 13 years.

Withe the Powerwall and connected to the grid, you'd be saving £695 a year (still paying the standing charge) and earning £420 a year from export (at 15p). Total value £1115, payback in about ten years. And that's ignoring the special Powerwall tariffs which are even more lucrative ...

noitsnotme

QrizB said:

Less solar export, more the temptation to go off-grid (with large savings in installation costs)...

And that's ignoring the special Powerwall tariffs which are even more lucrative ...

Are there specific Powerwall tariffs?

QrizB

noitsnotme said:

QrizB said:

Less solar export, more the temptation to go off-grid (with large savings in installation costs)...

And that's ignoring the special Powerwall tariffs which are even more lucrative ...

Are there specific Powerwall tariffs?

I was thinking of Octopus Intelligent Flux. It requires a battery from a very short list that includes the Tesla Powerwall.

Tesla were also talking about launching a tariff of their own, but that all went quiet.