🐙Cut your energy bills nearly in half with Octopus Tracker

ThatFragranceGuy

Well-known member
This post and thread is long! But could save you a fortune!

Whistle stop summary;

* Wholesale prices for oil and gas have dropped but the price cap in place today factors in long term pricing so is much higher than wholesale. This tariff lets you pay wholesale prices.

* Supplier octopus offers you £50 to join them, and you join them at the standard tariff which most the country is now on, meaning you don't gain or lose anything other than the £50 bonus.

* Once you join them, you can request to join an octopus Tracker - which is significantly cheaper than the tariffs on the price cap. It's about 50%+ cheaper than the current price cap, and 30-35% cheaper than the new July cap coming soon.

* Prices can go up but you can leave the tracker with 2 weeks notice and people will boost this thread if anything happens with prices but they're forecast to go down, not up. Prices in the last 365 days have not once exceeded the price cap so it has saved money every single day of the year for people on Tracker.

* Octopus has created a new version of this tracker which is slightly more expensive, but a good saving vs price cap still -e.g when tracker old price is 17p, new price is 19p, gas is about 1p more expensive than old one so again still a good saving. Websites like gastracker UK - see the end of the post - has both tariffs listed.

Winter update

Winter is when you would expect prices for this product to be highest, however December has seen some of the lowest prices so far with Christmas day itself crashing to 8p for people on the old rate and about 10p for the new rate.

HOW TO JOIN

Are you already with Octopus? If yes, then tweet them and tell them you'd like to join the Tracker. You can phone them or email them too but I find tweeting easiest.

If you aren't with octopus already, then it is easy to do - if you havent switched before, the supplier does all the legwork for you. Ideally you will need your annual usaage - that should be on your most recent bill.

1) Switch to octopus on the standard EPG/SVR tariff. You can do that here:


This will switch you at the standard price cap rate, same as everyone else is charging and you will also get £50 credit for joining.

2) Once you join octopus (they will email you to keep you updated), contact them by twitter, email or phone and ask to join the tracker. Again, twitter is fastest.

3) they'll let you know once this is done.

You can switch back to standard tariff at any time should prices rocket. It takes approx a week or so to switch back, but once you are off the tracker you cant rejoin for 9 months - so be aware of that.



1703938182884.png


Questions!

Do I need a smart meter?
Yes this is a requirement - if you don't have one they they will fit one, as long as your property is eligible for one (your meter is accessible, not more than 10m between gas an elec meter etc). Takes about 3 weeks

Can I end up paying more?
Technically yes but you'd have to see a huge unit price increase and arguably we're coming to the end of the cold period so I think has prices will drop further but even if they do go up, you've got the buffer of the discount, the £50 credit and the epg discount to protect you, they'd need to go to record levels. Prices in the last 365 days have not gone above price cap as you can see in the graph above.

Price cap is forecast to come down, Is it still worth doing?
Massively yes - it is so much cheaper than the price cap, and when price cap is dropping it is because wholesale prices are dropping so would still expect this to be cheaper.

How long does it take to switch?
About 3 days if you have a smart meter but it may be a little more, they do everything for you though once you request to switch.

How can I track the rates?
Easily - no.8 is the best way to look at history and you can even add your details to see what you have saved vs price cap. You can;
1. Use the octopus app / website
2. Use an app like Octo-aid if on iOS, or octopus watch is on iOS and android but costs 1.99 - this shows you the percentage daily saves vs price cap but has a few less features than octo watch. Octopus compare is another android app
3. Set up iOS alerts
4. Use http://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/North-East-England (or the appropriate page if not in the NE)
5. use this google sheets spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...lRIXTYL3yNuJ0zicqqoGLprOCdNbSs#gid=1855828871
6. Set up discord notifications - just google octopus tracker discord notifications
7. Use telegram - https://t.me/+5zuBZJvLWvw5M2E0
8. Use gastracker.uk - click crowdsource, put your api and username in and pick a nickname- you can then filter the chart to just see your username (once he adds you) and this will show your savings on gas and electricity.


Is my IHD/ the lcd display I've got in my house accurate?

No - the usage in kWh will be accurate but not the £ values as it can't cope with the daily price changes. You can track usage with octopus app, octo aid, octo watch and others. You can also request a free octopus mini, a small usb stick sized device that sends readings to octopus via the app, it also gives you access to near live elec data with 5-10 second lag. There is a waiting list so make sure you request as soon as you join


How do I set up app alerts on iOS?
iOS Shortcut to Get Daily Notifications of Tracker Prices. Unfortunately not aware of anything similar for android but will keep looking, You'll get alerts that look like this:

08E5A960-CDF3-4F6D-8052-551BF6FC1B94.jpeg

For anyone interested in being notified of tracker prices, there are 2 iOS shortcuts (which use the Apple Shortcuts app) that you can add to your phone and set up a simple automation that gives you a notification of the daily tracker gas and electricity prices.

Gas icloud.com/shortcuts/f5e2b9aa94964f4da0513b3ddaa4edee

Electric icloud.com/shortcuts/f3ce2ba605a34794b2a5d726f0d11d25

Once you add these two shortcuts to your shortcuts app, you can do the following:

1. Click on the “Automations” tab
2. Click the + at the top right corner and select “create personal automation”
3. Select “time of day” which is the first option
4. Choose the time of day (put the time as 10 minutes from now so you can check it works when done and then you can change it after testing) and how often you want it repeated - I chose 8am daily but you can change it any time.
5. Click “next” and in the search bar at the bottom type “run shortcut” and select it
6. Now you will see the words “Run Shortcut” at the top with “Shortcut” written in blue
7. Click on that blue font “Shortcut” text and scroll down the list until you find “Gas price tracker” and then click “next”
8. Toggle off the option which says “ask before running” and then select done

Now you can close the app and if you remember what time you set the automation to run, you can wait until that time to make sure it works and the notification of today’s gas price comes to your phone.

Now you can repeat the same steps above if you want the same automation for electricity daily prices.

By default, the URL used in the shortcut will not be for your region, there is a single letter code for each region, so you will need to open the shortcut by clicking on the 3 dots for each shortcut icon and edit the letter that appears before /daily in the URL to whichever region you’re in.

This is an example of the URL that you will see when you open the shortcut to edit it: https://octopus.energy/api/v1/tracker/G-1R-SILVER-FLEX-22-11-25-F/daily/current/

By default it will say F/daily in the URL, I changed mine to A/daily as my region is North East of England. If you don't live in the NE Google octopus DNO regions and use the right letter!

You can see what letter your region needs in the attached screenshot.

Hope that helps!

Is justthegent a bellwhiff?
Course he is.



Link again - we'll each get £50 credit by joining with a referral link.

If you get stuck either DM me or ask in the thread.
 

Attachments

  • 1676276311767.png
    1676276311767.png
    38.5 KB · Views: 1,688
  • 65668FB5-62A6-4E2C-9D2D-A88478D2A38E.png
    65668FB5-62A6-4E2C-9D2D-A88478D2A38E.png
    913.9 KB · Views: 1,303
  • IMG_5180.png
    IMG_5180.png
    183 KB · Views: 244
Last edited:
How does this work then - surely if Octopus can do it they can and should all be doing it to help people save money or at least not get into greater debt.
 
I'm already with Octopus and just had a quick look at my account but it's not entirely clear how I can do this. Is it only open to new customers?
 
What the actual fook?


I’ve been saying this for a while, it’s absolute madness. Whoever came up with this idea needs to be thoroughly investigated, and sacked.

It’s even worse when they’ve agreed a strike price with producers for all power generation, basically guaranteeing them a profit even if actual demand went through the floor. Even if the market rate was 2p, they would still get paid 10p etc. It’s literally impossible for the producers to lose, they have zero risk, even in the worst times for them. Yet, when demand is high, for any one form of energy, they all make a killing.

Some wind farms have a strike price of £40 per mwh (4p per kWh) so they’re still happy at that, and still making money. Yet because gas rocketed the electric price to £150/ mwh, we have to pay the wind companies £150.
 
Last edited:
I’ve been saying this for a while, it’s absolute madness. Whoever came up with this idea needs to be thoroughly investigated, and sacked.

It’s even worse when they’ve agreed a strike price with producers for all power generation, basically guaranteeing them a profit even if actual demand went through the floor. Even if the market rate was 2p, they would still get paid 10p etc. It’s literally impossible for the producers to lose, they have zero risk, even in the worst times for them. Yet, when demand is high, for any one form of energy, they all make a killing.

Some wind farms have a strike price of £40 per mwh (4p per kWh) so they’re still happy at that, and still making money. Yet because gas rocketed the electric price to £150/ mwh, we have to pay the wind companies £150.
It is to make nuclear viable.
 
I'm already with Octopus and just had a quick look at my account but it's not entirely clear how I can do this. Is it only open to new customers?
You need to contact CS or tweet them and ask to be moved over


The key thing is, on paper, prices could skyrocket and it would become very expensive as it's a tracker, but this hasn't happened yet from the comments and on average it's a 30% saving in SVT prices

As long as you keep an eye on it you'll be fine as you can ask to move back to SVT prices at any time
 
I'll have to second this. I've been on the gas tracker since October

Screenshot_20230201-074653.png

Also, to jump on bandwagons, if anyone else wants to share the love, here's another referral


 
With this tracker rate you save money if prices continue to fall.
But if something happens to cause the prices to spike upwards you could be paying more than the standard with the energy cap.
Although you can contact Octopus and be put back on the standard.

In summary: If you on a standard you have nothing to lose by switching to this if you keep an eye on the rates.

If you one of the lucky ones and are still on a fix I doubt it's worth switching to this.
 
Can't believe I didn't know about this. Been on the EPG throughout with Octopus. A 30% reduction on my current bill would be a big monthly saving.
 
With this tracker rate you save money if prices continue to fall.
But if something happens to cause the prices to spike upwards you could be paying more than the standard with the energy cap.
Although you can contact Octopus and be put back on the standard.

In summary: If you on a standard you have nothing to lose by switching to this if you keep an eye on the rates.

If you one of the lucky ones and are still on a fix I doubt it's worth switching to this.
Yeah wouldn't leave a fix for it. But it's fairly risk free if you look at the graph in original post or that poster has shared above - it went above cap rates for about 3 days in the coldest days in December but rest of the time has been below, so good savings to be made.

You can ask to go back to the cap rate if anything drastic happens, but it's not set & forget but think most people are keeping an eye on prices anyway so not really a hardship.

I might try build a card for home assistant that shows energy usage vs tracker rate to track the savings and alert me when price exceeds cap rate
 
What are the standing charges? Are they higher to compensate for the lower unit price? For simplicity, at today's prices is it guaranteed to be cheaper, whatever your usage or is there a point that it is more expensive? I'm high electricity usage (EV charging) but low gas usage (energy efficient new build). Would it be suitable?
 
What are the standing charges? Are they higher to compensate for the lower unit price? For simplicity, at today's prices is it guaranteed to be cheaper, whatever your usage or is there a point that it is more expensive? I'm high electricity usage (EV charging) but low gas usage (energy efficient new build). Would it be suitable?
Gas standing charges are the same across all regions: 25.56 p/day.

Electricity standing charge: 45.99 p/day (north east)

The epg gives you some protection from higher prices

Below is from their faq

The Government’s Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) offers a 17.9p / kWh discount against your electricity unit rates, and a 6.7p / kWh discount against your gas unit rates.

Given the money for this discount comes from every UK home, it’s important we’re fair with how the EPG is applied.

The EPG discount will apply whenever Tracker unit rates go above the base EPG level (34p / kWh for electricity and 10.3p / kWh for gas; on average, but this does vary regionally).

For example, a unit rate of 80p / kWh is reduced to 62p / kWh. A gas unit rate of 20p / kWh is reduced to 13.3p / kWh.

The EPG is also applied after the maximum unit rate cap. This offers an additional saving for Tracker customers against high wholesale unit rates.
 
If you look at the graphs above nano you can see it's only gone above cap rate a couple of times, rest of the time it's been a decent way below. If they did rise because of something drastic, you'd just ask to go back on svr
 
I’ve been saying this for a while, it’s absolute madness. Whoever came up with this idea needs to be thoroughly investigated, and sacked.

It’s even worse when they’ve agreed a strike price with producers for all power generation, basically guaranteeing them a profit even if actual demand went through the floor. Even if the market rate was 2p, they would still get paid 10p etc. It’s literally impossible for the producers to lose, they have zero risk, even in the worst times for them. Yet, when demand is high, for any one form of energy, they all make a killing.

Some wind farms have a strike price of £40 per mwh (4p per kWh) so they’re still happy at that, and still making money. Yet because gas rocketed the electric price to £150/ mwh, we have to pay the wind companies £150.

Liz Truss was going to fix this by separating the electric and gas prices. Not sure if Sunak will follow through with that though - probably not. More tax innit.
 
If you look at the graphs above nano you can see it's only gone above cap rate a couple of times, rest of the time it's been a decent way below. If they did rise because of something drastic, you'd just ask to go back on svr
Thanks. I've made the switch. Got nothing to lose even if I stay on the standard.

Do you know if you can switch gas and electricity to different tariffs. I'll do the calculations but I think it might be cheapest for me to be on one of their overnight EV tariffs like Go for electricity and then the variable for gas.
 
Thanks. I've made the switch. Got nothing to lose even if I stay on the standard.

Do you know if you can switch gas and electricity to different tariffs. I'll do the calculations but I think it might be cheapest for me to be on one of their overnight EV tariffs like Go for electricity and then the variable for gas.
Yes I'm on intelligent for electric and tracker for gas.
 
Liz Truss was going to fix this by separating the electric and gas prices. Not sure if Sunak will follow through with that though - probably not. More tax innit.
They should all be their own price, or if being price moved by others they should have an individual cap where they can't go so far above the strike price, where they make one of the initial main reasons for them pointless. Interesting that no other country has cocked up their generation contracts. We have the highest energy prices in Europe, yet are one of the most renewable (60% renewables), using what should be cheaper sources.

This is a massive problem which is going to absolutely destroy the economy (even more). The government need to force these new power generation schemes (which are built) to take up their CFD's, to get these prices down. If they don't, ban them from further construction (more schemes) or take them off them/ nationalise (for a fair price, not the inflated price). Any project which has not started needs to have the planning rights revoked, and a new contract put into place.

I knew these contracts were bad, but when I think about it more, it's much, much worse than I thought.

You know I'm all for renewables, but we're giving massive valid arguments to those that aren't here, which will be:
1 - "I thought wind was supposed to be cheap, 4p/kwh, but now we're paying the same price as gas (4x more) and we can't turn the wind on and off when we like".
2 - "Why are we funding these renewables like nuclear and wind etc, and giving them favourable access contracts, and free land, if they're going to be charging us the same as the highest price on the market?
3 - "I thought Nuclear was going to be expensive at 10p/kwh, but that's ok as it's very reliable, and was only meant to be a backup, low source and it's green, but it makes no sense at 15p per kw/h"
3 - "It doesn't matter what we do about renewables, we could be at 99% renewables, but if 1% still comes from gas, and the world is still using gas, then we're always going to be paying massive prices (for all). The only time prices will come down is when the world starts using less gas, but growth in the USA, Asia, Africa, South America etc is not going to let this happen."
4 - "Why should I get solar and feed back into the grid for 3p, when they're going to charge me 35p to get it back? I don't have the money for a battery."

Renewables should be dragging these prices down. At the minute (fag packet maths), based on a 10MW example (av price this year is £200/MW), we're paying say 4MW x £200 for gas (40% year supply) as the price is high, 4MW x £200 for wind (40% year supply) as it's dragged up by gas and 2MW x £200 (20% year supply) for others as they're dragged up by gas, total = £2,000. It should be 4 x £200 gas, 4 x £60 wind, 2 x £80 others = £1200. Effectively we're paying out 67% more than we should, this could have got people's and businesses' rates down to 20p, rather than 30p.

The tax is irrelevant when an economy is paying ~67% more for energy than it should be, as per market rates. This makes us uncompetitive, which will kill growth and that will massively offset any tax gains etc.
 
I've just taken the plunge with this.

A bit of a no brainer if you have the time to monitor the prices.
Here: http://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/North-East-England
Or put your post code in here: https://octopus.energy/tariffs/
Figures should be the same on both of those.

There is the long thread on HUKD as above and a couple of threads in MSE Energy forum.

Do your research and keep on top of it and it will save you money.

Here is my RAF for £50 free if anyone wants to use it. Obviously you don't have to!

 
Last edited:
Back
Top