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Octopus Agile
- Thread starter darkNstormy
- Start date
ACarneiro
Active Member
I still don’t have a smart meter so technically I haven’t caved yet...You caved!
My charger is a Rolec, and ev.energy is a necessary component of the “smartness” of the Rolec, so I’d expect they get revenue from Rolec and other charger manufacturers that use them. I agree it probably won’t be free for ever, though.
The first of many steps down a very slippery slope...I still don’t have a smart meter so technically I haven’t caved yet...
I've been using the ev.energy app for just over a month and had it fail 2 times, once it didn't start charging early enough but luckily I didn't need the car for much that day, the other time was this weekend when it charged before the plunge pricing
, was hoping to pop my plunge cherry but it wasn't too be
ACarneiro
Active Member
There’s something about the words “plunge cherry” that just made me go Eeeeuuugh!
I too think the ev.energy app is great. The rewards were a nice surprise, but I value the utility of the app more. It’s great to know that you are optimising any cost reduction available from the variable tariff.
I am becoming progressively more concerned about the security risks of using these third-party apps though.
I am becoming progressively more concerned about the security risks of using these third-party apps though.
Interesting. I had great success with the recent plunge (unsure what happened over the daylight savings clock change).I've been using the ev.energy app for just over a month and had it fail 2 times, once it didn't start charging early enough but luckily I didn't need the car for much that day, the other time was this weekend when it charged before the plunge pricing
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Exactly the same is true for all the tariffs that are aimed to encourage everyone to fit smart meters. There is a massive incentive for suppliers to move everyone on to half-hourly variable tariffs, as the risk they have to factor in for all their firm price tariffs is increasing, pretty much in proportion to the range of variability in the wholesale market. As we switch to a greater percentage of renewable energy, we're introducing a significantly higher level of wholesale price variability.
Prior to the introduction of wide scale fluctuating renewables (wind and solar), the electricity market was pretty predictable, and largely driven by a well-understood demand pattern, with readily available generators that could be wound up or down, or turned on in advance, to match both the normal diurnal pattern plus any superimposed known demands (water supply pumps turning on for breaks in much-watched TV shows, for example).
The UK Grid, DNOs and the suppliers needed a way to be able to manage demand, as they could no longer easily manage a lot of generation. Demand management is the sole reason for the introduction of smart metering, this is clear from the original lobbying by the energy industry around 20 years ago, when the scale of the future grid balancing problem was becoming clear. Things have changed since then, in that the high degree of variability in hour to hour wholesale pricing (actually half hour to half hour) has led to energy storage systems being financially viable, even very profitable (the Hornsdale Power Reserve, for example, paid for itself in a year). Right now, we're probably on track to be able to stabilise the grid without resorting to the demand management capability built in to every smart meter.
Although that takes away the reason for the introduction of smart meters, the suppliers have picked up that they can reduce their risk, and so enhance their profit margins, by encouraging consumers to switch. The attractive tariffs, like those from Octopus, are pretty much like any other loss leader launch. They don't make much money right now, but will make it near-impossible for consumers to compare tariffs in future. Those that actually record their energy usage in fine detail (I have several years of records taken every 6 minutes, 24/7) are few and far between, and even with detailed records it's far from easy to compare smart tariffs. So much depends on knowing the exact time of day when total demand is high or low, and how that varies month by month, that, unless smart meter records are made available to price comparison sites (which seems to be unlikely) then I would guess that the majority won't be able to tell which supplier might be best value for them.
IMHO, Go and Agile are both close to loss leader products, that are primarily intended to increase the number of consumers with smart meters. Be interesting to see how things pan out, as I suspect we'll find that the price variability will significantly reduce with time, leading to a situation where we're back to having the grid influenced primarily by predictable demand.
j6Lpi429@3j
Closed
j6Lpi429@3j
Closed
it seems a crazy amount of cables, but I guess we have the consumer unit, the solar cables, a cable out to our charging socket and the cable for our induction hob is there somewhere. I wonder if its worth having the whole lot re-organized in a bigger box?
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
And with that post I’ve been swayed again to stay with my E7 meter
The issue at the moment seems to be that Agile is really the only popular smart meter tariff, and it's being marketed largely on the attractiveness of the plunge pricing periods. The fact that the price often increases a great deal during the peak late afternoon/early evening period doesn't get anywhere near as much publicity as the occasional negative pricing events.
Overall, for us, Agile is still more expensive than E7, although not by that much anymore. There was a clear divide about 6 months ago, with Agile being ~£100/year more expensive than E7, with the increase in the E7 tariffs that differential has dropped to around £30/year.
Be very interesting to see what happens, especially as one or two of the smaller suppliers seem to have realised that they can move into the, perhaps niche, market segment that gives a good deal to those who use more than 50% of their total overnight, like green.energy. For us they are coming out on top for E7 at the moment, as roughly 56% of our total electricity usage is during the E7 period, and we really need that 7 hours cheap rate slot, 4 hours from a tariff like Go doesn't work well.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Realistically, the only way to sort this would be to take out the existing cabinet around everything, replace the consumer unit, and then try to plan the layout to be able to fit in the much larger smart meter. The supplier would probably try and push to have the new meter located in an outside cabinet, as even smart meters still need to be manually read (it's a legal requirement, related to accuracy, safety etc) and outdoor mounted meters make life easier for them.
One complication is that you're going to have to deal with at least three different people, as the incoming cable and fuse is the property of the DNO, so only they can move it, the meter is the property of your supplier and the installation on the consumer side of the meter is your property, so any competent person can sort it. There may also be an issue with moving the FIT meter, but IIRC all that might be needed is a notification, unless the meter forms a part of something like a "rent a roof" PV system, when it may well belong to that company.
Electricity wholesale cost has always been variable.
Demand has always been variable.
Consumer pricing systems are limited by the granularity of the meter data.
Smart meters both increase granularity of data and allow granular pricing.
I don't see Go or Agile as a loss leader at all. I see them as being something that recognizes the huge impact of EVs on electricity demand and provides a competitive product as they shift the market.
Given that smart charging is a relatively simple thing to do, I'm not sure that the supply-side will be able to handle production variability at lower cost.
j6Lpi429@3j
Closed
Yes indeed, this is my fear. I also don't have a location right next to this which would be ideal for a Powerwall. Part of me would like to go to the trouble of having both a powerwall and the mart meter/FIT meter etc all repositioned outside the house...although practically thats impossible because its a listed building...oh the chaos.
Plus Ideally we would have a solar roof on our garage, but then that would have to tie-in (presumably with a second inverter) to our existing ground-mount (driveway) solar...
Its all so horribly complicated compared to people who have a conventional non-listed house with a big roof and the electricity meter somewhere sensible
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
The UK demand has traditionally been very predictable, and worth remembering that our system is very different to that in the USA. The UK grid covers the whole of the UK, all in one time zone, with demand management systems in place for all big industrial/commercial installations. Demand has, if anything, become less variable here in recent years, as industrial usage has dropped, with the decline in heavy industry, and domestic demand has both dropped and had lower variability, due to both changes in appliance demand and changes in things like TV viewing (here the water supply pumps used to cause a big freq dip during commercial breaks).
The big issue here, unlike the USA, is that we have up to about 40% or so of our generation coming from wind and solar at times, and this can just disappear at times. We don't have a lot of always-on nuclear now, have no oil fired generation at all, and so rely very much on rapid start gas generation to fill in the peaks, together with pumped storage. Battery storage is now coming online at many wind and solar farms, to cover the peaks, too.
ACarneiro
Active Member
This is my setup (you can see the Tesla Energy Gateway is not exactly small, and neither are the Powerwalls).
You’re gonna need a bigger kitchen
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