Flexible Octopus tariff confusion

SunnyMonday

Good afternoon,
For the past few years family friend been on Octopus Energy and their "Flexible Octopus" tariff (but not on elec/gas Smart Meters).
This last few weeks Octopus migrated them to Smart Meters (elec/gas). They're still by defaukt on "Flexible Octopus" and I'm led to believe they can maximise the Smart Meters by using off peak timing to do certain tasks (Dishwasher/Washing Machine) etc during hours like 1pm-5pm and so on.
This option now because of new meters but not old dumb meters.
They've tried to contact Octopus for clarification but themselves and other forums don't seem to know in clear details. I'm hoping MSE might give them some solid advice due to MSE great reputation 👍 
Thankou in anticipation:-)

QrizB

Replacing their meters with smart ones won't, in itself, change their tariff. They're now on the same tariff they were on before; if that was a single rate all day, it's still that.

Having smart meters will let them pick from Octopus's wide range of smart tariffs, most of which are "time of use" (ToU) tariffs - the price you pay for electricity varies depending on the time of day that you use it. If they're interested in this, they can see most of the options on Octopus's website.

If they want to create an account here on the forum, they can let us know how they want to use a ToU tariff and we can suggest options to them.

Note that there isn't really a ToU tariff for gas, as gas can be stored easily from one day to the next. The closest is Octopus Tracker, where the price varies slightly from day to day depending on the wholesale market.

la531983

The only tariff that would let them do stuff hourly is Octopus Agile but would depend how much they can load shift 

SunnyMonday

Thanks all for info. Seems to clear misunderstanding. THANKYOU SO MUCH

QrizB

la531983 said:

The only tariff that would let them do stuff hourly is Octopus Agile but would depend how much they can load shift 

There are many more options than Agile.

There's boring old Economy 7.

Snug and Cosy.

Go and Intelligent Go.

Flux and Intelligent Flux.

Even Tracker allows for a bit of load shifting, although that's day-to-day rather than hour-by-hour.

QrizB

And all of those are just with Octopus. If you switch supplier you get even more possibilities.

Spoonie_Turtle

Smart meters also mean they can potentially benefit from free electricity sessions (occasional from Octopus, so far, although other suppliers may have different offerings) and savings sessions in the winter (although the financial rewards aren't great, but if they want to participate for 'doing their bit' it's open to them).

But yes, as above, to financially benefit from using off-peak electricity they need to be on a time-of-use tariff; Flexible Octopus is single rate and doesn't have peaks or off-peaks.

la531983

QrizB said:

la531983 said:

The only tariff that would let them do stuff hourly is Octopus Agile but would depend how much they can load shift 

There are many more options than Agile.

There's boring old Economy 7.

Snug and Cosy.

Go and Intelligent Go.

Flux and Intelligent Flux.

Even Tracker allows for a bit of load shifting, although that's day-to-day rather than hour-by-hour.

Well yes i mean on an individual hourly basis. I was on Tracker for a few years. Being on Agile would do my head in.