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Octopus are paying you to use electricity 5th April
- Thread starter exlatccatsa
- Start date
Is it worth considering switching to Agile if I only charge the car with it? I've always thought Go would be more consistent, but looking at recent graphs Agile has been consistently cheaper over the same periods of time, and lately - as above - actually negative.
It is normally slightly cheaper but the grid utilisation is down significantly at the moment so the prices are lower on average. I would say an average is around 9p/kWh over a 24 hour period with a bad day being 11p/kWh. In April a bad day has been 8p/kWh average.
The answer depends heavily on what you use during the 4-7pm period.
If you are a light user in that time period then yes, Agile will often work out cheaper for you, but if you are heavy user in that slot then no, Agile is probably not the best choice for you.
MrBadger
Badger out
Remember, this is a whole thread about saving around 18p on regular units, or 10p from Octopus 4 hour Go tarrif or 5p from having solar PV. It is very occasional points in time (which people like to heavily publicise) that are generally unpredictable more than a day or so in advance and at present going through an unusual set of circumstances (reduced industrial daytime use, high levels of peak Solar PV [a phenonium this cooler time of year rather than hotter summer months which peak PV hates] and decent offshore wind) that would not be expecting to see as a matter of routine. It does not dwell on the additional 10p or more additional cost that occurs at some other times, like when many may be cooking in the evening.
At the end of the day, highlight prices are for catching ones attention, what is important is one own personal usage patterns over several years. The lower average daytime rates may suit some, but if you want a guaranteed 4 hour at 5p kWh charge window (other fixed tarrifs also available) that you can rely on day in day out rather than hoping to get the occasional bit of headline plunge pricing but otherwise averaging above the 5p Go rate, then Agile is probably not for you.
Thankfully Octopus has a good exit strategy if you get it wrong. It also may allow seasonal switches between tarrifs - the last few weeks, my daytime pricing has been around 0p for significant periods of the day, but 5 months of the year, Agile 8p vs 13p Go swings it very much to Agile, but suspect it works out at no more than £50 for that period so not really worth bothering about especially if you end up on a worse tarrif when rejoining.
Part of the answer may lie in here Octopus Agile - Energy Stats UK but you need to ignore this years extraordinary data and go back over a few years prior. You may or may not have your own usage data.
imho
At the end of the day, highlight prices are for catching ones attention, what is important is one own personal usage patterns over several years. The lower average daytime rates may suit some, but if you want a guaranteed 4 hour at 5p kWh charge window (other fixed tarrifs also available) that you can rely on day in day out rather than hoping to get the occasional bit of headline plunge pricing but otherwise averaging above the 5p Go rate, then Agile is probably not for you.
Thankfully Octopus has a good exit strategy if you get it wrong. It also may allow seasonal switches between tarrifs - the last few weeks, my daytime pricing has been around 0p for significant periods of the day, but 5 months of the year, Agile 8p vs 13p Go swings it very much to Agile, but suspect it works out at no more than £50 for that period so not really worth bothering about especially if you end up on a worse tarrif when rejoining.
Part of the answer may lie in here Octopus Agile - Energy Stats UK but you need to ignore this years extraordinary data and go back over a few years prior. You may or may not have your own usage data.
imho
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I'd add '... and that you make full use of most days...'
If you can fully utilize those 4 hours it does tend to keep the balance in favour of 'Go' over Agile.
... but if you are not needing to recharge the car most evenings for 4 hours then the higher day rate on Go for the other 20 hours makes it a less economic choice, especially compared to say EDF with their 9pm-7am week days and all weekend 'night' rate.
It is all in the details though, small differences in usage profiles make each of the competing tariffs better for some than for others...
Certainly don't be swayed by the Agile negative pricing, even on the best of days it doesn't amount to a significant saving, it is the ability to get your costs down for all the other days that makes the difference, if you have the right usage profile.
The electrical connection is only used to charge the car. It is a second physical electrical connection with only the car charger connected to it, so to answer your question - there is no usage between 4-7pm unless I decided to charge the car
What's swaying me more towards Agile vs Go (what I'm currently on) is that if I want to pre-condition the car in the morning before I set off for work, and to warm the battery, etc, then it looks like Agile is consistently cheaper during this period than Go is (peak rate). I'm not currently driving to work but I anticipate it won't be a long time before I am again.
MrBadger
Badger out
How long do you expect to precondition for? 15 mins (or less) at 7kW will probably cover the majority of cases so under 2kWh, which is 12p between ~14p/unit on Go and 8p on Agile. Remember, you would have potentially just saved around 3p/unit on Go 4 hour window, so an average overnight charge of 4kWh will wipe out the preconditioning saving.
What I have been doing the last few weekends when the prices are in the negative is to try and consume as much power as possible...now this is not as easy as it seems when a powerwall is involved in the process!
My current methodology is to set the powerwall to backup energy only..though by 11am today it was full from the sun anyway. Next is to throw on the washing machine, tumble dryer, start cooking via electric oven, boost the Eddi to heat up the water and finally start charging the car!
With all these factors built in (and of course taking into account the car is normally fully charged due to not moving much these days) the best day I’ve had so far is 5th April where after consuming 23.297 kWh my bill for that day was.... £-0.09
So not really much of a saving but it does take into account the standard daily charge of around 21p. So maybe a 30p saving all together.
My aim today is to try and get the standard daily charge consumed, this means targeting the peak times between 13:30 and 15:30 to charge the car etc.
Btw I have created an App that incorporates using the Agile Tariff to charge the car at optimal times. It’s almost ready for beta testing. Once ready I’ll create a new post here.
My current methodology is to set the powerwall to backup energy only..though by 11am today it was full from the sun anyway. Next is to throw on the washing machine, tumble dryer, start cooking via electric oven, boost the Eddi to heat up the water and finally start charging the car!
With all these factors built in (and of course taking into account the car is normally fully charged due to not moving much these days) the best day I’ve had so far is 5th April where after consuming 23.297 kWh my bill for that day was.... £-0.09
So not really much of a saving but it does take into account the standard daily charge of around 21p. So maybe a 30p saving all together.
My aim today is to try and get the standard daily charge consumed, this means targeting the peak times between 13:30 and 15:30 to charge the car etc.
Btw I have created an App that incorporates using the Agile Tariff to charge the car at optimal times. It’s almost ready for beta testing. Once ready I’ll create a new post here.
I don't know really. I would presume the car would decide how long to precondition for based on the temperature etc? IME of the BMW i3, it seemed to start drawing power a good hour or so before the departure time, though I could be mistaken (I stopped it doing that pretty quickly).
MrBadger
Badger out
A 15/20 minute or so manual pre condition will get you out of most holes - our biggest issue is door handles freezing shut, biggest concern is windows sticking on entry. We do that as needed and we are only on 10A every few days (otherwise none), so worth remembering that if car is not plugged in, or on low current feed, that it will happily take power from the battery. Not a problem unless you are marginal for that days needs - otherwise it just gets replenished at next charge. I've not used the 'be ready to leave at' functionality - I trust looking out of window more than Teslas approach to not wasting energy and making sure car is ready when needed.
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