Octopus Energy - Sharing my Prices and thoughts - January 2023 onwards…

[zAndy1]

Is that 23p / kwh at all times? I currently have a fixed rate with BG at 18p / kwh which ends on July 31st thus year. I'd go for a rate at 23p / kwh at all times as a replacement. I don't do enough miles to make a go / economy 7 type set up worthwhile.

As mentioned the rate does vary each day but it's been hovering around 23p/kWh for a while now. You can see the prices for each day this month here
Octopus Energy latest Tracker prices for Yorkshire (for the Yorkshire area). Obviously if the price does increase significantly you can just jump ship to the variable or go tariffs but I think the tracker one definitely works out the cheapest for me overall at the moment

 

[tsedge]

Currently a six month waiting list to get on tracker, octopus are taking 50 customers a day, apparently.
It does have the potential to go really high but hasn't for a while

Presumably you are tied in for a fixed period and can't just surf the low prices and hop off when they go up.

Edit: no you can exit any time. Max rate is capped at 100p/kWh for Electricity and 30p/kWh for Gas. Government subsidies are paid on the tracker too.

Octopus Tracker Tariff FAQs

Tracker provides a direct pass-through of wholesale costs for both electricity and gas. Find the answers to all your Tracker-based questions.

octopus.energy

 

[Cocijo]

The way I look at my Intellgent tariff is that for 25% of the day I get electricity for 10p and for 75% it’s 41p. I know what my 75% high cost usage is and also what my 25% cheap rate usage is.
Using around 350 KwHr a month cheap rate costs £35. Using around 240 KwHr a month peak costs £98. So around £133/month plus standing charges.
590 KwHr a month at say 23p = £136/month. This is based on charging one car for 15k miles a year.
So not much in it for me anyway, if my maths is correct.

 

[Jomarkh]

The tracker potentially moves around and has no cap I believe. Also is it true that it doesn't get the govt subsidy (which is unlikely to apply after March anyway isn't it?). I'm on their gas tracker and currently paying about 6.2p per unit.

I'm maybe wishfully thinking that given how wholesale fuel prices are on their way down, and how the majors have been shown up to be making humungous profits, we might not see a rise and maybe will see even a small drop when the next price cap announcement happens.

Tracker does have a cap £1 for electric and 30p for gas

 

[smokie]

Presume those caps will change in April or whenever the next fix is.

Presumably you are tied in for a fixed period and can't just surf the low prices and hop off when they go up.

Edit: no you can exit any time. Max rate is capped at 100p/kWh for Electricity and 30p/kWh for Gas. Government subsidies are paid on the tracker too.

Octopus Tracker Tariff FAQs

Tracker provides a direct pass-through of wholesale costs for both electricity and gas. Find the answers to all your Tracker-based questions.

octopus.energy

I believe you have to be on a smart tariff for a month before changing.

 

[N2STY]

I use the new OVO 10p kWh charging anytime and the rest of the house is under 34pkwh 37p standing no exit fee

 

[Cocijo]

I use the new OVO 10p kWh charging anytime and the rest of the house is under 34pkwh 37p standing no exit fee

How does that work? You can charge anytime for 10p?

 

[N2STY]

How does that work? You can charge anytime for 10p?

Yes 24|7 handy for me as I work lots of nights so off-peak tariffs are a bit useless to me

 

[Cocijo]

Yes 24|7 handy for me as I work lots of nights so off-peak tariffs are a bit useless to me

That’s really good.

Yes 24|7 handy for me as I work lots of nights so off-peak tariffs are a bit useless to me

Silly question - how does it differentiate that you are charging and not using for other items?

 

[N2STY]

That’s really good.

It's was better b4 Jan it was 5p

Silly question - how does it differentiate that you are charging and not using for other items?

Take the reading from the smart charger

 

[Cocijo]

If they can supply a car charge at 10p why can’t they do the whole lot at that price? Why is car charging so special it’s using the same electricity?

 

[N2STY]

If they can supply a car charge at 10p why can’t they do the whole lot at that price? Why is car charging so special it’s using the same electricity?

It's to do with UK carbon net zero or something like that

 

[Paul V Smith]

Hello everyone,
I appreciate there’s a lot of chat on electricity prices. I thought that I would quickly share mine.

I’ve been with Octopus for a while now and my current rates are:
Standing charge; 25p/day
00.30-04.30hrs: 5p/KwHr
04.30-0030: 13.72p/KwHr
So in todays environment I’ve had a pretty brilliant deal running my EV‘s and powering my house.

I have a PodPoint charger and Octopus currently don’t cover this model for their Intelligent Octopus tariff, so it looks like my only option with Octopus is the variable Octopus GO (all residential Octopus tariffs going forward are variable I believe)

The new proposed rates are:
Standing charge; 47.59p/day
00.30-04.30hrs: 12p/KwHr
04.30-0030: 41.64p/KwHr

So for me the cost of home car charging (I only really charge during off-peak times) has increased approximately 250% and the cost of peak electricity 300%.
these prices will start in January 2023 if I go ahead.

Whilst 12p is a big increase it’s still relatively extremely cheap to charge the car if I stick off-peak.
The biggest financial increase will be the household electricity costs (about 50% of my annual electricity consumption is used to run the household and most of this is not off-peak)

Slightly off-topic but - Personally I am lucky that I can use my gas and electricity (keeping a close eye on costs) and whilst concerned about the increased costs, not worry overly about paying the bills (I do try and manage my Monthly payments in advance to try to preempt the increases).
I am really concerned that many will for example be afraid to turn on their household appliances or gas central heating for fear of the excessive costs that this might incur.
For example if I were to run my 30KwHr boiler for 6hrs/day (a lot of people are at home during the day more than ever) at the current rates that would cost around £30/day or £900/Month! Electric heating using say 20KwHr (using my latest Octopus rates) would be around £50/day £1500/month - crazy costs.
Luckily there are options of just heating one area and cutting the temperature a little on the thermostat/rooms etc.

Anyway, I thought that I would share my experience And thoughts.

Stay warm.

If you were to consider buying solar panels/battery. I can financially recommend considering. As I own an EV and the rumble of electric tariffs going up early last year, I decided to invest in 11 solar panels & a 10kWh house battery being fitted in April 2022. Doing number crunching this month I have saved around £2000 to date against what my Octopus Go Faster electric yearly bill should have been, and that includes charging my EV. I have also saved around £1500-£1800 in fuel cost owning a EV, therefore I have saved in total around £3500-£3800. So I seriously would consider investing in Solar & battery. In the winter I charge my home battery & car over night on Octopuses cheap 8.5p rate up to 5 hours.

My 10kWh battery charged at the cheap rare at night in the winter runs my house power all day. During the summer the solar runs the house and charges the battery to 10kWh, so I never use the grid and when its really sunny, I often charge the car for free during the day, if home.

 

[Cocijo]

If you were to consider buying solar panels/battery. I can financially recommend considering. As I own an EV and the rumble of electric tariffs going up early last year, I decided to invest in 11 solar panels & a 10kWh house battery being fitted in April 2022. Doing number crunching this month I have saved around £2000 to date against what my Octopus Go Faster electric yearly bill should have been, and that includes charging my EV. I have also saved around £1500-£1800 in fuel cost owning a EV, therefore I have saved in total around £3500-£3800. So I seriously would consider investing in Solar & battery. In the winter I charge my home battery & car over night on Octopuses cheap 8.5p rate up to 5 hours.

Thanks. What is the opportunity cost and how quickly do you expect to break even?

 

[Paul V Smith]

Thanks. What is the opportunity cost and how quickly do you expect to break even?

It will take about 2 1/2 years to pay for the panels and if electric tariffs stay similar, another 2 1/2 years to pay off the battery cost. Before the big electric increase, I was looking at 7 1/2 years.

Thanks. What is the opportunity cost and how quickly do you expect to break even?

Cost £11500. Which included fitting.

 

[Cocijo]

Thanks. Can you recommend the equipment?

 

[BrianthatiscalledBrian]

I use the new OVO 10p kWh charging anytime and the rest of the house is under 34pkwh 37p standing no exit fee

That's interesting, i was with OVO for years then in Jan/Feb asked about their EV tariff (as advertised on their website), they said this was an error and don't do an EV rate. I swapped to Octopus on this basis. Our 1 week old MG4 now gets its 12p/kWh charge from Octopus.

 

[Paul V Smith]

Thanks. Can you recommend the equipment?

I did 12 months research into installing panels and a battery. I found many various makes, but if you went online to research what panels and batteries are best that would give you good advice, once you start getting quotes. I got 8 quotes, with detailed make of panels etc, so I used my research info against what they were offering, before deciding, I used SWS NW Limited | Mechanical & Electrical Maintenance company in the end and couldn’t fault them. The Lux-batteries batteries they fitted were more expensive as they struggled to get those as per the quote, but didn't charge me anymore. I have had them 11 months and no issues at all, but you can remote in yourself to see how the well they are doing. The company can also do this if theres an issue and reset things. An Image example enclosed showing you what sone of the app shows. It shows you the battery staus, what kWh the solar are generating, hiw much consumption you have used etc. i use this every day. You can control to not charge the house battery or use the battery at night and only charge the EV, using the cheap grid rate, that way the solar will charge the house battery during the day.

 

[Paul V Smith]

That's interesting, i was with OVO for years then in Jan/Feb asked about their EV tariff (as advertised on their website), they said this was an error and don't do an EV rate. I swapped to Octopus on this basis. Our 1 week old MG4 now gets its 12p/kWh charge from Octopus.

I started Octopus about 18months ago, it was only 5p kWh then. I only pay 8.5p now, but know its going up to 12p, when my current Tariff runs out. Its still cheap @12p cheaper than charging away from the house. My ID3 cost me about 1.5p a mile when it was @5p, now with my MG4 its about 2.5p a mile so @12p per kWh it will be around 3.5p per mile. Can’t complain at that, I still save £1500-1800 a year on fuel with my old ICE.

 

[Paul V Smith]

I did 12 months research into installing panels and a battery. I found many various makes, but if you went online to research what panels and batteries are best that would give you good advice, once you start getting quotes. I got 8 quotes, with detailed make of panels etc, so I used my research info against what they were offering, before deciding, I used SWS NW Limited | Mechanical & Electrical Maintenance company in the end and couldn’t fault them. The Lux-batteries batteries they fitted were more expensive as they struggled to get those as per the quote, but didn't charge me anymore. I have had them 11 months and no issues at all, but you can remote in yourself to see how the well they are doing. The company can also do this if theres an issue and reset things. An Image example enclosed showing you what sone of the app shows. It shows you the battery staus, what kWh the solar are generating, hiw much consumption you have used etc. i use this every day. You can control to not charge the house battery or use the battery at night and only charge the EV, using the cheap grid rate, that way the solar will charge the house battery during the day.