Octopus Agile Peak Rate

[Drew57]

Someone on the Octopus forum (not staff) suggested it was something to do with nuclear power being under-utilised (by choice), or something?

Current UK energy mix...

 

[Medved_77]

Current UK energy mix...

Do we need to start lobbying Ireland to do their bit to ensure we get cheaper electricity?

 

[NewbieT]

If I’m reading this right Drax might be offline? Heysham 1 too.

Take off a few big plants for maintenance and that will probably do it.

Planned Unavailability Of Generation Units (B1510) | BMRS

 

[MrBadger]

Someone on the Octopus forum (not staff) suggested it was something to do with nuclear power being under-utilised (by choice), or something?

If you have a large curtailed/offline power sources, such as nuclear, it may at times be difficult to curtail enough other sources to give room to to bring the plant back up to capacity/online and sustain its output. Easier to wait until guaranteed headroom to sustain the ramping up than juggle lots of other sources. So you end up with a non ideal mix of sources for a period of time which might explain the high carbon intensity that we are seeing at the moment.

Looks like it should start dropping off again from tomorrow. You certainly want to put off charging your car much of today until tomorrow if you can. Carbon Intensity

 

[Mr Miserable]

It certainly looks like nuclear aren't pulling their weight at the moment.
Tomorrows forecast prices seem to be a lot cheaper though.

 

[Gatsojon]

It certainly looks like nuclear aren't pulling their weight at the moment.
Tomorrows forecast prices seem to be a lot cheaper though.

Quite right - nuclear are having a mare, though some at the request of the grid.

 

[ringi]

That Sizewell B shutdown must be costing the grid a lot.

 

[Durzel]

For a simpleton like me, why would the grid desire nuclear plants to shutdown? Excess of energy?

Can't they just pay us to use it?

 

[bungle_78]

For a simpleton like me, why would the grid desire nuclear plants to shutdown? Excess of energy?

Can't they just pay us to use it?

Knowing nothing about this does there come a point where Gas storage is at capacity and to avoid shutting down rigs and pipelines the grid use more gas than other sources?

 

[ringi]

There is a limit to how low the output of a nuclear plant can go, and they can't change their output quickly, hence a need to always have some gas plants running.

 

[Medved_77]

Agile rates have been pretty high for a few weeks now, comparing to when I joined in April anyway. I wasn't sure if Agile or Go was currently the better plan to be on so did some maths with the help of Octopus Comparison.

YMMV of course however for my usage, just looking at September, I'm still saving 15% on Agile compared to Go:

Only the 10th, 14th and 15th of this month would it have been cheaper to be on the Go tariff. So for me, no need to switch just yet, but I will be keeping an eye on it.

 

[stigmeister]

There is a limit to how low the output of a nuclear plant can go, and they can't change their output quickly, hence a need to always have some gas plants running.

My understanding was there are a couple of Nuclear reactors offline at the moment. With some uncertainty on at least one on whether it's cost effective to bring back online after it's summer shutdown.

Can't remember for the life of me which one though...

 

[NewbieT]

It looks likely to improve from Wednesday. I’m holding out for a possible Winter switch to ‘Go’ but just not driving enough to do it yet. Now if only the API wake-up could get fixed...

 

[gangzoom]

With Bulb putting up prices by 10% I just had another look at Agile. I was shocked to see rates are MORE expensive than E7 rates for pretty much all day at present and there is a morning 'peak' too which currently is within our E7 rates.

Octopus E7 rates though now are cheaper than Bulb, just so I might switch E7 suppliers.

Is it correct that if you have a smart meter you cannot go back on E7?? Our usage is currently split 96% E7 and 4% day, so E7 really works well for us.