Octopus Energy Free Electricity

[squarepeg77]

I think it will be hard to flatten the curve for electricity usage at dinner time. Although a relatively small amount of battery storage per home (1-4kWh?) would probably cover that peak.

Smart EV charging and smart appliances could help. People probably don’t care when their car charges, or dishwasher runs… so long as it’s finished by morning.

Of course I think those of us that care about this topic already do things to shift some of the usage off peak, or when the sun is shining.

 

[Undecided_2]

I totally agree, that people look at the cost/saving. But that's natural. I'm not particularly wasteful of electricity like perhaps some. Devices aren't left turned on if they're not used... motion sensors are used to turn lights off when no one using them, car is charged overnight etc. etc.

But I go back to my original point, if we want to flatten the peaks we need to look at why people do what they do. Why ovens turn on at ~5pm/6pm, and look at that.

I'd put money on it that all Octopus staff don't work odd shift patterns so that none of them are finishing work in the peak periods. But that's really what's needed, across the entire country. For example if I could work whenever I wanted, and things around me (clubs, friends etc) didn't sway me, I'd be quite happy with breakfast at 10am, lunch at 3pm and Dinner in the evening at 8-9pm But I start work at 9, and so need to eat before then (mainly as I've been awake and am starving).

And even then, there's only so much you can do. We're primarily as humans built around being active during daylight hours, and being asleep at night. Sure we push the fringes of that, but by and large that's where we are biologically.

I totally agree, that people look at the cost/saving. But that's natural. I'm not particularly wasteful of electricity like perhaps some. Devices aren't left turned on if they're not used... motion sensors are used to turn lights off when no one using them, car is charged overnight etc. etc.

But I go back to my original point, if we want to flatten the peaks we need to look at why people do what they do. Why ovens turn on at ~5pm/6pm, and look at that.

I'd put money on it that all Octopus staff don't work odd shift patterns so that none of them are finishing work in the peak periods. But that's really what's needed, across the entire country. For example if I could work whenever I wanted, and things around me (clubs, friends etc) didn't sway me, I'd be quite happy with breakfast at 10am, lunch at 3pm and Dinner in the evening at 8-9pm But I start work at 9, and so need to eat before then (mainly as I've been awake and am starving).

And even then, there's only so much you can do. We're primarily as humans built around being active during daylight hours, and being asleep at night. Sure we push the fringes of that, but by and large that's where we are biologically. I doubt we can persuade a huge chunk of the population to work night shifts, and be nocturnal.

That's what we're pushing against. Anything else is really just asking people to use less, timing has nothing really to do with it.

It would be interesting to understand how much energy is wasted before it arrives at domestic/business properties.

Separately, I read an article on the billions of disposable cups that are made and used each day and then thrown away - even if they are recycled the energy used is substantial. Collection, shipping, recycling, remade into something and then shipped again. It’s little things such as taking a cup made of metal with us to be used and making our own sandwiches rather than buying them will all add up to substantial energy savings when 100s of thousands people do this.

Companies are not incentivised to used recycled materials in their manufacturing, raw materials are still much cheaper. Governments could easily put on taxes on raw materials to make it a no brainier that recycled should be used. Ultimately, companies need to be forced to use more environmentally friendly sources and not focus purely on profits.

 

[Adopado]

It would be interesting to understand how much energy is wasted before it arrives at domestic/business properties.

Here's a link to pdf that will tell you:

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/144711/download

 

[GRiLLA]

Asking people to turn down during their cheap period from 00:00 to 02:00, without offering them an alternative cheap period is simply not going to work. We are already shifting demand to that time, only using power then because we need it.

I feel this trial is pretty stupid, just arbitrarily testing that if we ask will people move their loads, no consideration of how people might do that. Other than proving that it's viable to shift the time we need to cook in an evening what's it proving. Silly trial, Octopus should be doing something better with their time.

 

[Kansalis]

Asking people to turn down during their cheap period from 00:00 to 02:00, without offering them an alternative cheap period is simply not going to work. We are already shifting demand to that time, only using power then because we need it.

I feel this trial is pretty stupid, just arbitrarily testing that if we ask will people move their loads, no consideration of how people might do that. Other than proving that it's viable to shift the time we need to cook in an evening what's it proving. Silly trial, Octopus should be doing something better with their time.

I just searched for this thread to post the same thing, it goes against the whole point of the Turn Down event.

From their email:

Why do I need to Turn Down between 12am and 2am this time?

As we look toward a future of more 'off-peak' overnight energy use (like EV charging, filling up batteries etc), a smaller secondary ‘peak demand’ time could start to emerge in the wee hours: so National Grid are particularly keen to experiment with a Turn Down at this time too.

As you mentioned, without an alternative time window to charge my car, how is this going to be a useful exercise? If they extend my Go Faster by 2 hours at one end of the window, then sure, I'll participate. But I happen to need to charge tonight...

 

[Drew57]

As you mentioned, without an alternative time window to charge my car, how is this going to be a useful exercise? If they extend my Go Faster by 2 hours at one end of the window, then sure, I'll participate. But I happen to need to charge tonight.

I've noticed that the Intelligent Octopus tariff does appear to coordinate with these Turn Down periods (and always gives a much longer cheap rate period than Go/Go Faster).

Tonight my car will be charging at the cheap rate at 21.30-22.00, 22.30-23.00, 23.30-00.00 but then again at 03.30-04.00, avoiding the 00.00-02.00 Turn down period. I will 'gain' one hour outside of the 23.30-05.30 window but am OK to 'lose' two hours from midnight (personal choice - I can take all seven hours at the low rate if I want).

Intelligent Octopus is a very clever tariff and I'm happy to forgo 1 hour of the guaranteed 6 to assist energy reduction. Most nights when I charge the car with IO, I get at least seven hours at the low rate if needed, frequently starting at 21.30 and sometimes finishing at 07.30 or even 8am.

 

[Kansalis]

By a stroke of luck, it looks like my car will be done charging just before midnight, so I may accidentally participate after all!

 

[Simavon]

They still haven't fixed our smart meter's clock, so to participate we had to turn down from 21:15 onwards. Apparently this issue has now been "escalated".

 

[MrBadger]

I'm not sure what Octopus is using for their sums but apparently with "Event 7 Tuesday 29th March, 09:00-11:00: You turned down your consumption by 15%, but just missed the target."

Hmmm, by my visuals (ie turning things down and looking out of the window at the sun), my own data logs and Octopus' smart meter, we consumed 0kWh for each of the 4 x 30 minute periods between 9am and 11am. So achieving 0kWh energy consumption only resulted in a 15% 'turn down'!

I'm wondering if someone has their times wrong...

Period fully covered by solar, just as my eyes told me.

They also recon I didn't register for the following days event either but pretty sure that I did. So maybe they are looking at someone else's data.

Good just I was not in it for the money!

 

[NewbieT]

Are they doing this manually? I haven’t had my email and 2p credit from 17 March (or any event thereafter).

It’s not about the money. If you’re doing an experiment your data needs to be right.

 

[phil4]

I'm not sure what Octopus is using for their sums but apparently with "Event 7 Tuesday 29th March, 09:00-11:00: You turned down your consumption by 15%, but just missed the target."

They also recon I didn't register for the following days event either but pretty sure that I did. So maybe they are looking at someone else's data.

Good just I was not in it for the money!

It wasn't just me then? I had a turn down on 29th between 9-11. I need to reduce my usage from 2.13kWh by 0.85kWh, so by my calcs I needed to use 1.28kWh, or keep my usage below 640W on avg for the 2 hours.

So I set the IHD to instant and went round turning things off until it was around 500W. Then worked the morning in the living room watching the IHD, ensuring it stayed low. I thought I had it in the bag... but not, apparently I reduced it by 37%, not the required 40% and so just missed the target.

Using the API to look at my usage then , I did indeed keep my usage nice and low... 0.891kWh used... so nicely below the 1.28kWH required.

As you say, I think they are either a) using someone elses numbers, or more likely b) on the 29th, forgotten about the clock change, and are running stats an hour before/behind.

I'd bother to complain, but the pennies it is, it's not worth my time.

 

[phil4]

Just to add, same problem on the 30/3 challenge, needed to use 1.64kWh, used 0.891kWh but apparently missed the target. I think they're using numbers which are an hour behind. (Because on that if I did it an 8-10 it was still under, but 10-12 I was over).

Or of course they could have used someone elses readings, or just made the numbers up.

 

[TM88]

@VanillaAir_UK What would your usage be if working on GMT?
I believe they are still working on GMT and not BST. If this is the case, I'm more concerned about how my off peak Go rate is worked out.

 

[dakaix]

@VanillaAir_UK What would your usage be if working on GMT?
I believe they are still working on GMT and not BST. If this is the case, I'm more concerned about how my off peak Go rate is worked out.

Octopus always uses local time, and therefore moves according to daylight savings (and so is on BST now). They are not using zulu time (i.e. UTC).

What happens to the off-peak period during daylight savings?​

Number one and most important: no matter what your IHD says, your off-peak period stays between 00:30 and 04:30.

Source: FAQs about Octopus Go, the tariff just for EV drivers
.

 

[MrBadger]

Anyone recognise this?

Discounts for cutting peak-time electricity use too low, energy firms say

Two UK energy firms say a plan to offer discounts on bills could fail if people are not offered more.

www.bbc.co.uk

Octopus Energy, which trialled National Grid ESO's proposals with 100,000 of its customers, told the BBC it would be "wrong to set a price before finding out what works for people".

 

[NewbieT]

Named the “Demand Flexibility Service” National Grid ESO have said coming next month.

Suppliers had to bid for how much they’d turn down. Bids closed Monday. Octopus must have taken some insight from the trial data so let’s hope they put in a good bid.

EBR Article 18 Demand Flexibility Terms and Conditions | ESO

In accordance with the requirements of EBR Article 18, National Grid ESO is holding a consultation on terms and conditions for a new Demand Flexibi

www.nationalgrideso.com

I do remember some various spurious average calculations in the trial. I hope they keep it simple to something like..use less than 0.5kW per hour at peak times, calculated for each hour. That would be nice.

 

[Avendit]

I saw in the news today there was potential to offer £10 per peak back to an end user for enough reduction! Sign me and my battery up for that one, thanks!