🐙Cut your energy bills nearly in half with Octopus Tracker

afcb_acklam said:
was there a world previously whereby people just paid the going rate for gas & leccy, and monitoring every fookin thing wasn't a thing? or am I going mad.
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You're not going mad, that used to be a thing, and still is. You can still pay the going rate, but you'll get hammered and pay over the odds. Same way people were being hammered and paying more than they should have been years ago too.

A lot of people have wised up to what has been going on, but only because prices went through the roof, so people naturally took more interest in it. Only those who took that info and did something about it have done better comparatively though, and the more you learn and use, the better it will be.

Obviously if you have an EV and/ or solar then it's an extra incentive to be on the ball with it.

Same goes if people are now a lot worse off than they were 5,10,20 years ago, in real terms etc, when things are tighter people have to take tighter control. So when doing that they learn, but what they learn sticks and then you've got that knowledge for later down the line.

If I had just paid the going rate I would have been paying £200-300 a month in gas and electric, like I was in my old house, plus £250 a month to fuel two cars at the pumps, so £450-550 a month. But for a lot of that time since I've paid £150-250 a month total (bigger house but better insulated), and that's including charging/ fuelling the two cars. For not a lot of time and effort I've probably saved £7,500 over the last few years, which is nuts considering there's been an energy crisis during that time. Being paid to charge my car has really helped, same as our lass doing most of her miles electric with her hybrid.
 
Andy_W said:
You're not going mad, that used to be a thing, and still is. You can still pay the going rate, but you'll get hammered and pay over the odds. Same way people were being hammered and paying more than they should have been years ago too.

A lot of people have wised up to what has been going on, but only because prices went through the roof, so people naturally took more interest in it. Only those who took that info and did something about it have done better comparatively though, and the more you learn and use, the better it will be.

Obviously if you have an EV and/ or solar then it's an extra incentive to be on the ball with it.

Same goes if people are now a lot worse off than they were 5,10,20 years ago, in real terms etc, when things are tighter people have to take tighter control. So when doing that they learn, but what they learn sticks and then you've got that knowledge for later down the line.

If I had just paid the going rate I would have been paying £200-300 a month in gas and electric, like I was in my old house, plus £250 a month to fuel two cars at the pumps, so £450-550 a month. But for a lot of that time since I've paid £150-250 a month total (bigger house but better insulated), and that's including charging/ fuelling the two cars. For not a lot of time and effort I've probably saved £7,500 over the last few years, which is nuts considering there's been an energy crisis during that time. Being paid to charge my car has really helped, same as our lass doing most of her miles electric with her hybrid.
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my point was, there should be an easily understandable rate, or rates, for the masses, not the geeky, IT aware wedge of society. it stinks.

and I say that as someone who has worked IT for 35 years.... most of my customers & extended family have no idea how all this stuff works, and are excluded, and consequently pay over the odds. which has to be wrong?
 
Andy_W said:
Is that a 6p or a -6p? Not seen the latter for a while!
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It was 6p, but tomorrow's final slot is 0p which usually means negative overnight so just in time for us to get back from Malta for a 90kw full chargey 💸💸

afcb_acklam said:
my point was, there should be an easily understandable rate, or rates, for the masses, not the geeky, IT aware wedge of society. it stinks.

and I say that as someone who has worked IT for 35 years.... most of my customers & extended family have no idea how all this stuff works, and are excluded, and consequently pay over the odds. which has to be wrong?
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Tracker and agile etc are complex products, designed to get people willing to take the chance on them as it means they have to hedge less of their supply.

They don't want vulnerable people being on 100p price cap products and ending up being problematic for them. You see enough people stress out on Facebook every time they change tracker or it goes to £0.xp per unit for 2 days - these products aren't for those people and they would have more relaxed time on whatever cheapest fix is out there
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
It was 6p, but tomorrow's final slot is 0p which usually means negative overnight so just in time for us to get back from Malta for a 90kw full chargey 💸💸
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Yeah I saw that 0p notification from Octopus, so hopefully goes below zero.

Think it's about time I got a battery for the house, no reason not to now and village power cuts are starting to do my head in.
 
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So, does that average out at 25.3 over the day? That's on Agile?

You have to be very consumption conscious to be able to make a decent saving, surely.
Most people have most of their devices on during the evening, the most expensive time. There's only so much load shifting you can do to actually make a saving.

I much prefer to turn a light on whenever I want without having to worry about which peak or low rate the electric is set at. Trying to get my family to buy into it would be impossible.
 
The_Tiler said:
So, does that average out at 25.3 over the day? That's on Agile?

You have to be very consumption conscious to be able to make a decent saving, surely.
Most people have most of their devices on during the evening, the most expensive time. There's only so much load shifting you can do to actually make a saving.

I much prefer to turn a light on whenever I want without having to worry about which peak or low rate the electric is set at. Trying to get my family to buy into it would be impossible.
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No one is sitting in the dark over the cost to power a light on the costs between agile and tracker or even price cap 😂

However I've got a 90kwh EV and will happily charge it to full for free and cheap rather then paying full rate, which gives us about 240 miles of range for almost nothing.

Our dishwasher, washing machine, dryer goes on for the cheapest spots of the day via timers which takes seconds to do and the app tells you the cheapest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 hour slot so whatever your appliance needs. Usually eco modes which use less energy but take longer.

Everything else is used as normal. I work from home so make use of the cheap slots then too.

We cook at normal times, I game during the peak times and we have a sound system that would put most cinemas to shame with a series of high powered amps and subs.

Average unit rate is cheaper than tracker, but doesn't average out at 25.3p because there isn't a flat usage curve, and the aforementioned high draw activities are put into the cheapest times. Our dishwasher will run a 4 hour cycle for free or cheap, washer will be on, EV will be charging for free. The rest of the use will be fairly minimal. Lighting costs Pence, charging phones and tablets costs about a quid a year so not worth changing timing on.
 
The_Tiler said:
I much prefer to turn a light on whenever I want without having to worry about which peak or low rate the electric is set at. Trying to get my family to buy into it would be impossible.
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Welcome to the world of intermittent energy supply.

ThatFragranceGuy said:
However I've got a 90kwh EV and will happily charge it to full for free and cheap rather then paying full rate, which gives us about 240 miles of range for almost nothing.
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I find it a bit odd that while there are millions struggling to pay their energy bills relatively wealthy people are being given cheap and even zero rates to charge their EVs. Why are the poor subsidising the well off?
 
I know its a tracker but do people really watch this ? Ive been on it nearly a year know racked up about £700 credit thats all i need to know without watching it daily ?
 
BoroBosco said:
Welcome to the world of intermittent energy supply.



I find it a bit odd that while there are millions struggling to pay their energy bills relatively wealthy people are being given cheap and even zero rates to charge their EVs. Why are the poor subsidising the well off?
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To be fair they aren't. They are taking up the cheap energy that others aren't using and helps balance the load.

Unfortunately it will always be the case that those who are low information (awful description I know) will pay more and those with a small advantage will seek to maximise it.

Where you have an agreeable point, is the awful premium that the poorer pay on pre pay meters which I understand can be 30% more expensive. That is disgusting
 
Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
To be fair they aren't. They are taking up the cheap energy that others aren't using and helps balance the load.

Unfortunately it will always be the case that those who are low information (awful description I know) will pay more and those with a small advantage will seek to maximise it.

Where you have an agreeable point, is the awful premium that the poorer pay on pre pay meters which I understand can be 30% more expensive. That is disgusting
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It's also those willing to take risks, no one was crying for the poor when I was paying a quid a unit the other day. You pay your money & take your chances and those genuinely poor will be eligible for free boilers, solar, glazing upgrade grants and so on.

As you say, this isn't subsidised cheap energy, it's excess energy which we can't store and it's right that we incentivise its use.

Prepayment isn't more expensive now btw
 
Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
To be fair they aren't. They are taking up the cheap energy that others aren't using and helps balance the load.
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ThatFragranceGuy said:
As you say, this isn't subsidised cheap energy, it's excess energy which we can't store and it's right that we incentivise its use.
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There isn't any cheap energy that others aren't using, energy is only produced when there is something consuming it.

What we have is spare capacity and as generators make their money from producing energy they want people to utilise it. They are very happy when someone consumes the equivalent to an average homes weekly consumption to charge their EV as they will make money even if the EV owner is paying nothing.
How?
If the market price is very low or even negative the renewable energy generators on "contract for difference" agreements still get paid the strike price regardless (Hornsea 1 partly owned by Octopus £140/MWHr). Those on the "renewable obligation" agreement get market price plus ROC's which they then sell to the suppliers or energy traders. ( Kincardine Offshore Wind made the equivalent of £217/MWHr from ROCs last year on top of the £100/MWHr from selling the energy).

The cost of this gets added to bills and is divided out between the wealthy & the poor equally so yes the poor are subsidising the well off.
 
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