Is Octopus Go worth it?

[Shanecb]

Hi all,

I started mentioning this on another thread which is now closed, but I was hoping those in the know would be able to help?

I'm trying to understand if it really is worth changing to Octopus Go from my existing tariff...

Currently with Eon on the following rate (now that my fixed rate has just ended):

Octopus rate would be:

I'm thinking the overnight rate would be great @ 13p cheaper. So say usable battery capacity of 60kwh on the LR...A full charge would be something like £4.50 on the OG tariff and £12.30 on eon (saving £7.80 per charge).

I will probably only charge about 3.5 times a month (all shared out at the cheaper rate) so an overall saving of £27.30 per month by moving to OG.

My question is with the day rate being 15p more expensive per kWh, would I just use up my savings with being charged more in the day?

I know it's all dependent on how much I use in the day, but I think I use about 400 kWh per month. Am I therefore right in thinking that my daytime use of 400kwh per month would therefore be about £60 pm more expensive so would actually be £32.70 more expensive for me to move to Octopus.

Sorry, quite detailed, but hoping someone could check my logic here...

 

[biffo]

Hi all,

I started mentioning this on another thread which is now closed, but I was hoping those in the know would be able to help?

I'm trying to understand if it really is worth changing to Octopus Go from my existing tariff...

Currently with Eon on the following rate (now that my fixed rate has just ended):
View attachment 7996

Octopus rate would be:
View attachment 7998

I'm thinking the overnight rate would be great @ 13p cheaper. So say usable battery capacity of 60kwh on the LR...A full charge would be something like £4.50 on the OG tariff and £12.30 on eon (saving £7.80 per charge).

I will probably only charge about 3.5 times a month (all shared out at the cheaper rate) so an overall saving of £27.30 per month by moving to OG.

My question is with the day rate being 15p more expensive per kWh, would I just use up my savings with being charged more in the day?

I know it's all dependent on how much I use in the day, but I think I use about 400 kWh per month. Am I therefore right in thinking that my daytime use of 400kwh per month would therefore be about £60 pm more expensive so would actually be £32.70 more expensive for me to move to Octopus.

Sorry, quite detailed, but hoping someone could check my logic here...

It seems to work out better if you’re able to do one of the following

• Charge car frequently to take advantage of cheap tariff - but only useful if actual doing enough miles to justify
• Shift your daily usage to being more off peak - such as dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier, water heater, etc.
• Have a storage battery that can be charged on cheap rate to reduce peak rate usage.

If you can’t achieve any of these load shifting options, then your calculations might be correct - I don’t think it would be cheaper for me either just yet, given low mileage and high efficiency white goods combined with a household reluctance to change usage patterns

 

[N2STY]

Google 5p charge anytime with ovo
You need there drive tariff to get it but its free I got iit last month 28p and 20p standing then added 5p charge anytime only down side only works with 4 different charges lucky for me ohme was one of them

 

[Shanecb]

Shame as I have a Zappi, but thank you

 

[Jomarkh]

What sort of daily or weekly mileage do you do!
You say 3.5 times a month, so not even weekly charging, I would say it not worth switching, just find a free EVSE and top it up there

 

[johnnyc]

So…I’ve done a stupid amount of research into this so far.

Basically - if you are able to charge your car during the cheap period - and you can shift your washing machine and dishwasher to the cheap period too, you will defo save money!

My car is arriving soon (hopefully), and based on my usage so far - so no charging, but load-shifting my washing machine and dishwasher usage to the cheap period - as you can see comparing the new go trriff, and the standard variable tariff they are coming out as pretty much the same - so these figures cancel each other out - so I’ll focus on the car charging.

If I add the car charging onto this - say 7kw*4 hours every night being 7.5p x 28kwh - that will work out at £2.10 per night/per charge. If I charged this much at the standard variable it would be 28.29p x 28kwh which would equal £8.03, or a saving of just shy £6 a night compared to the variable. Basically if you can load shift and get a comparable average price/kWh on go compared to the standard variable rate (and if you charged your car for 4 hours every night), you’ll save £2171 (based on 10,000kwh used - but…realistically who will charge their car ever single night and out 28kwh in each night - so if you use roughly 3000kwh to charge the car over the year - rough saving of £650 per year compared to the variable rate tariff.

Right onto your tariff - firstly - if you’ve just finished your fixed tariff with Eon, I don’t understand how you’ll get those rates, as you would have been switched to their standard variable rate which should be at least 28p/kWh & probably a higher daily rate after April 1st, and it will be going up again in October.

But anyways, let’s look at that tariff you've got the image for (even if I don’t think that’s the tariff you’re on).

Basically you’ll need to either charge your car more often, or shift enough usage to the cheap hours to make it financially viable - if you’re using 400kwh per month it works out at roughly £80 spent for your usage (not including your standing charge) or your car charge which would add roughly half of that if your putting 210kwh in (so total £120).

If you didn’t shift anything and just charged the car at the cheap rate which would be maybe 210kwh - that would cost £15.75 - then your day usage of 400kwh would equal £142. So in total £158.39.


With the higher daily charge to, you’d be adding about 7 quid on top of that as well.

So, with those figures, it’ll be best for you to stay where you are.

BUT….if you can shift your washing machine, tumble drier, dishwasher to the cheap rates, you will bring that down - and I’d say they would be similar to those rates. BUT…I think the rates you have there are the standard variable rates from prior to April 1 and they have gone up to closer to 28p/kWh and 50p standing charge per day - which means that GO would be cheaper going forward.

So the graph below is the last month of my usage (including load shifting of white goods) which shows even without charging I’m actually saving a tiny bit by being on octopus go with my usage - it really is worth your while to go through your smart meter data to see where you use the most electric and to see if you can load shift it.

 

[Shanecb]

What sort of daily or weekly mileage do you do!
You say 3.5 times a month, so not even weekly charging, I would say it not worth switching, just find a free EVSE and top it up there

I'm probably only doing about 700 miles a month, which is why I figured with about 200 miles range on average, I would only need 3.5 charges overall a month (I would just plug it in once every couple of days I suspect)

 

[Shanecb]

So…I’ve done a stupid amount of research into this so far.

Basically - if you are able to charge your car during the cheap period - and you can shift your washing machine and dishwasher to the cheap period too, you will defo save money!

My car is arriving soon (hopefully), and based on my usage so far - so no charging, but load-shifting my washing machine and dishwasher usage to the cheap period - as you can see comparing the new go tarrif, and the standard variable tariff they are coming out as pretty much the same - so these figures cancel each other out - so I’ll focus on the car charging.

If I add the car charging onto this - say 7kw*4 hours every night being 7.5p x 28kwh - that will work out at £2.10 per night/per charge. If I charged this much at the standard variable it would be 28.29p x 28kwh which would equal £8.03, or a saving of just shy £6 a night compared to the variable. Basically if you can load shift and get a comparable average price/kWh on go compared to the standard variable rate (and if you charged your car for 4 hours every night), you’ll save £2171 (based on 10,000kwh used - but…realistically who will charge their car ever single night and out 28kwh in each night - so if you use roughly 3000kwh to charge the car over the year - rough saving of £650 per year compared to the variable rate tarrif.

Right onto your tariff - firstly - if you’ve just finished your fixed tarrif with Eon, I don’t understand how you’ll get those rates, as you would have been switched to their standard variable rate which should be at least 28p/kWh & probably a higher daily rate after April 1st, and it will be going up again in October.

But anyways, let’s look at that tarrif you've got the image for (even if I don’t think that’s the tariff you’re on).

Basically you’ll need to either charge your car more often, or shift enough usage to the cheap hours to make it financially viable - if you’re using 400kwh per month it works out at roughly £80 spent for your usage (not including your standing charge) or your car charge which would add roughly half of that if your putting 210kwh in (so total £120).

If you didn’t shift anything and just charged the car at the cheap rate which would be maybe 210kwh - that would cost £15.75 - then your day usage of 400kwh would equal £142. So in total £158.39.


With the higher daily charge to, you’d be adding about 7 quid on top of that as well.

So, with those figures, it’ll be best for you to stay where you are.

BUT….if you can shift your washing machine, tumble drier, dishwasher to the cheap rates, you will bring that down - and I’d say they would be similar to those rates. BUT…I think the rates you have there are the standard variable rates from prior to April 1 and they have gone up to closer to 28p/kWh and 50p standing charge per day - which means that GO would be cheaper going forward.

So the graph below is the last month of my usage (including load shifting of white goods) which shows even without charging I’m actually saving a tiny bit by being on octopus go with my usage - it really is worth your while to go through your smart meter data to see where you use the most electric and to see if you can load shift it.

Thank you so much for this John. I'm going to have a proper look into this tomorrow at a more coherent hour, to do your response the justice it deserves!

 

[Ozzie1989]

There's already been several posts about this in the general section as it's not specific to the ZS, however to save you looking here's what I calculated for my personal circumstances.

I use approx. 5974kwh electric per year, excluding car charging.

If I switch to Go from a price capped variable tariff I would need to charge my MG for 6 hours per week to break even on the increased day time rate (this doesn't include moving other appliances to the cheap time).

Therefore, if your electric usage is similar to mine without charging, and you do at least 150 miles a week, you should benefit from Go in the long run.

Table below in case you're interested:

Variable	Pence		GO	Pence
Gas Rate	7.43		Gas Rate	7.43
Gas SC	27.22		Gas SC	27.22
Elec Rate	28.29		Elec Rate	35.04
Elec SC	47.88		Elec SC	47.88
			EV hours	7.50
Per Year Gas £	929.14		Per Year Gas £	929.14
Per Year Electric £	1864.81		Per Year Electric £	2268.05
Total £	2793.94		Total £	3197.19
EV 10 hours a week	970.91		EV 10 hours per week	257.40
Overall Total £	3764.85		Overall Total £	3454.59
EV 6 hours a week	582.49		EV 6 hours per week	154.43
Overall Total £	3376.43		Overall Total £	3351.61

 

[johnnyc]

There's already been several posts about this in the general section as it's not specific to the ZS, however to save you looking here's what I calculated for my personal circumstances.

I use approx. 5974kwh electric per year, excluding car charging.

If I switch to Go from a price capped variable tariff I would need to charge my MG for 6 hours per week to break even on the increased day time rate (this doesn't include moving other appliances to the cheap time).

Therefore, if your electric usage is similar to mine without charging, and you do at least 150 miles a week, you should benefit from Go in the long run.

Table below in case you're interested:

Variable	Pence		GO	Pence
Gas Rate	7.43		Gas Rate	7.43
Gas SC	27.22		Gas SC	27.22
Elec Rate	28.29		Elec Rate	35.04
Elec SC	47.88		Elec SC	47.88
			EV hours	7.50
Per Year Gas £	929.14		Per Year Gas £	929.14
Per Year Electric £	1864.81		Per Year Electric £	2268.05
Total £	2793.94		Total £	3197.19
EV 10 hours a week	970.91		EV 10 hours per week	257.40
Overall Total £	3764.85		Overall Total £	3454.59
EV 6 hours a week	582.49		EV 6 hours per week	154.43
Overall Total £	3376.43		Overall Total £	3351.61

I’d agree with all points here - if you can shift your usage of white goods as well, the savings will be even greater - so - for example - I am able to shift my washing machine and dishwasher to the cheap time. These use about 1.4kwh on the eco setting…i do a load of both each night - so:

365 cycles * 1.4kwh (*2 for both appliances) = 1022 kWh.

1022 kWh * 28p (variable tariff) = £286.16
1022kwh * 7.5p (go cheap rate) = £76.65

So a nearly £200 saving on just switching the time you do your washing in comparison to the standard variable rate.

What gets a little trickier is our savings will be bigger as we never really used the eco setting before and there was more power usage - so our change will probably result in a figure closer to £250. I’ve got these figures after doing a bit of research ie I bought a smart plug with energy monitoring so I could see what each appliance was using energy wise per load in different modes. Took a bit of time, but eventually I found it!

 

[billybonfire3]

I worked it out very similar to the above Johnny one. And came up with similar answer, but also, I'm not with them yet, I seem to remember it saying you are fixed on octopus go for 12 months and if this is true and it goes up massively again in October then you'll be fixed for 6 months past October on a much better rate.

 

[Lovemyev]

I have been looking hard at trying to shift as much of our usage into the 6 hour cheaper rate tariff we have.
I know a lot will depend on individual usage cases, but shifting usage has to be a priority for us anyway.
We have a fairly modern gas boiler that we us to heat our domestic hot water.
We have a storage hot water cylinder that has a electric emersion heater element installed.
This is never used, because heating the hot water was always more cost effective using gas.
But now after the huge price increase in the price of gas, I have decided to install a timer control to the emersion heater and it now we heat the water on the cheap rate off peak tariff.
Our washing machine is also fitted with a delay timer control, so that is being used on the off peak rate also.
Our EV gets charged in the small hours also.
It’s very important to try take full advantage of that off peak rate and slide as much of these high usage items as you can.
One point to consider here !.
When sliding high demand items into that window, that you consider what demands you are placing on your main cut out fuse.
We only have a 60 Amp fuse protecting our incoming suppy.
Quick “Man Maths” tells me that charging the car and heating the water alone is getting a bit close ( 45 Amps ) to the safe working limit of that fuse.
Running the washing machine also is to close for comfort !.
I have now contacted our DNO to ask for a main protection fuse upgrade to either 80 or 100 Amps.
Just something to consider, when sliding a lot of your usage to the off peak rate.

 

[johnnyc]

I worked it out very similar to the above Johnny one. And came up with similar answer, but also, I'm not with them yet, I seem to remember it saying you are fixed on octopus go for 12 months and if this is true and it goes up massively again in October then you'll be fixed for 6 months past October on a much better rate.

So your price will be fixed for 12 months, but if you wanted to, you could leave penalty free.

I’d imagine that in October if (when) the price cap goes up again, the go rates will go up too as they did in April.

I’m happy with the switch I made, and so far (even without charging a car) I’m paying a comparable amount to the variable now by load shifting - when the car arrives I’ll be saving ALOT!

 

[johnnyc]

I have been looking hard at trying to shift as much of our usage into the 6 hour cheaper rate tariff we have.
I know a lot will depend on individual usage cases, but shifting usage has to be a priority for us anyway.
We have a fairly modern gas boiler that we us to heat our domestic hot water.
We have a storage hot water cylinder that has a electric emersion heater element installed.
This is never used, because heating the hot water was always more cost effective using gas.
But now after the huge price increase in the price of gas, I have decided to install a timer control to the emersion heater and it now we heat the water on the cheap rate off peak tariff.
Our washing machine is also fitted with a delay timer control, so that is being used on the off peak rate also.
Our EV gets charged in the small hours also.
It’s very important to try take full advantage of that off peak rate and slide as much of these high usage items as you can.
One point to consider here !.
When sliding high demand items into that window, that you consider what demands you are placing on your main cut out fuse.
We only have a 60 Amp fuse protecting our incoming suppy.
Quick “Man Maths” tells me that charging the car and heating the water alone is getting a bit close ( 45 Amps ) to the safe working limit of that fuse.
Running the washing machine also is to close for comfort !.
I have now contacted our DNO to ask for a main protection fuse upgrade to either 80 or 100 Amps.
Just something to consider, when sliding a lot of your usage to the off peak rate.

With the installation of our charger we were required by DNO to upgrade the fuse - they turned up put in a new 80 amp fuse and were away. No charge - all done in about 10 mins.

I mentioned they we were possibly looking at battery storage and they said we may need to upgrade to 100, but would have to probably upgrade the rails to 25 mmm from the 16mm they are now - so a decent bit of work - but not out if the question which is good!

I’m also looking at something to control the immersion on my hot water tank - I’ve got a Simple on off switch, but would like to automate it (possibly app based too), so I’ve been looking at time switches and fingerbots, but not found the perfect thing yet…any suggestions?

 

[Gomev]

If it helps at all, I have attached a very simple spreadsheet to work out the annual costs so that anyone can compare suppliers/tariffs easily.
It won't work out how much electricity your washing machine uses etc. etc. etc. and you will need to know or estimate your annual usage in kWh for daytime and off peak usage. (usually available on your bill if you don't know already) If comparing a tariff that doesn't have a cheap rate just enter zero in the appropriate boxes.

Just enter information in the green boxes as indicated and it will do the totals for you. Play with the numbers to find a break even point if needed.

As I said it is a very simplistic calculation for comparison purposes but can clarify things. I used it when I moved to Go to help me.

 

[Lovemyev]

With the installation of our charger we were required by DNO to upgrade the fuse - they turned up put in a new 80 amp fuse and were away. No charge - all done in about 10 mins.

I mentioned they we were possibly looking at battery storage and they said we may need to upgrade to 100, but would have to probably upgrade the rails to 25 mmm from the 16mm they are now - so a decent bit of work - but not out if the question which is good!

I’m also looking at something to control the immersion on my hot water tank - I’ve got a Simple on off switch, but would like to automate it (possibly app based too), so I’ve been looking at time switches and fingerbots, but not found the perfect thing yet…any suggestions?

I considered an App based switching option, but decided to keep it as simple as possible.
I switched out the single gang switch plate for a single plate mechanical timer.
A British made unit from Tool Station for about £12.
I will try and find the link.

Greenbrook 24 Hour Mechanical Socket Box Timer 16A Resistive 2A Inductive | Toolstation

• 96 On/Off settings • On/Off/Timed switch • Fits a 25mm deep back box • 230V AC resistive load • Conforms to IEC 60730-1 IEC 60730-2-7 & KEMA

www.toolstation.com

 

[Whiskery]

My fixed deal with SSE was coming to an end this month, so (even though I don't have the EV yet) I plumped with Octopus Go. The daytime rate is marginally above what I would have paid with a fresh SSE tariff but the standing charge is lower with Octopus. For me, it was a no brainer.
We'll time all our washing machine/dryer and dishwasher routines to after midnight.
I do have to have my meters replaced (they are SMETS1) but OG are handling that.
Over email, they have been extremely helpful and answered all my questions promptly.

 

[Shanecb]

Massive thank you to @johnnyc, @Ozzie1989 & @Gomev as your collective info has convinced me to switch. Here's the spreadsheet for me which shows a saving if I do nothing to my routine, but charge the car overnight. Dishwasher will just go on timer and washing machine overnight might take a bit more convincing...

BTW...Johnnyc you were right. I was looking at pre-april prices.

 

[johnnyc]

Massive thank you to @johnnyc, @Ozzie1989 & @Gomev as your collective info has convinced me to switch. Here's the spreadsheet for me which shows a saving if I do nothing to my routine, but charge the car overnight. Dishwasher will just go on timer and washing machine overnight might take a bit more convincing...

View attachment 8016

Great news! Dishwasher is easy overnight - and you get into a routine with the washing machine too - means you can get it out onto the line first thing and is dry by the evening!

If you switch both, you’ll probably be a bit closer to your daytime rate now can so even more savings!!

I thought you were looking at pre April - means you’ll defo be Saving!!

Welcome to the club!

 

[Ozzie1989]

Massive thank you to @johnnyc, @Ozzie1989 & @Gomev as your collective info has convinced me to switch. Here's the spreadsheet for me which shows a saving if I do nothing to my routine, but charge the car overnight. Dishwasher will just go on timer and washing machine overnight might take a bit more convincing...

View attachment 8016
BTW...Johnnyc you were right. I was looking at pre-april prices.

You're very welcome and that's the nicer side of forums like this, sharing the knowledge and experiences to benefit others