Octopus Energy, including Intelligent and go

[Danny_F]

I am not due to get my MY LR until Q4 but made the switch early as with everyone switching there is a delay in things.
I am on GO and have to wait around 6-8 weeks for the smart meter install. Once that happens they will revert back to the quoted fixed rates when I switched and then when I get the car they can switch to IO.
All very pain free but if wanting to switch I would definitely start sooner rather than later to get the ball rolling.
As has been mentioned, can always swap out after if required?

 

[MattM76]

My experience of using Go for a week or so at 40p peak / 7.5p off peak (just switched to Go Faster at 8.25) is that based on the capped variable tariff of 29p, I'm paying between 2 and 10% more using Go right now. We run the dishwasher/tumble drier/washing machine at 1am once a night but sometimes need to use the washing machine during the day (2 kids, lots of school, clubs, etc clothes).

However, when I get the car I would expect that even charging it a few times a week, we'll start seeing savings.

When I get our 13kWh house battery that will be charged at night, I'll see a lot of savings.

Most of us here made the jump when SVR was due to be around 52p in October. Now that is less clear given the rumours circulating about the potential cap of around £2500/year - which would still be a slight increase of where we are now at 29p.

I do wonder if Go will revise their prices down a little if the cap is frozen around 29p but who really knows. My aim is to reduce grid usage during the day as much as possible via solar and batteries.

So you're right to question it. If you only need to charge the car around once a week, and don't have any heavy appliance needs and there is a price fix coming close to 30-35p then perhaps you won't make any significant savings.

 

[robmcm]

My smart meter install for tomorrow just got cancelled as the electrician is sick… next date is 17th of October! Going to be testing the resolve of Octopus honouring prices unless I can get a cancellation (going to be phoning up daily).

 

[MattM76]

My smart meter install for tomorrow just got cancelled as the electrician is sick… next date is 17th of October! Going to be testing the resolve of Octopus honouring prices unless I can get a cancellation (going to be phoning up daily).

Ugh, that's rotten luck. Fingers crossed for a cancellation!

 

[kcrane]

Question for those who already have Intelligent...

Two houses (A and B) and two Teslas (A and B), each house has Intelligent and a charger set to dumb. The Octopus accounts are under separate names.

House A is associated with Tesla A and Intelligent is working. Same for House/Car B.

Here is the scenario: Tesla A visits House B and plugs in at 7pm with delayed charging set to start at 11:30pm. It needs around 4hrs of charging at 7Kw.

What do you think will happen?

My assumption was that it would charge in the 11:30pm to 5:30am window as though it is an unrecognised 'device' on House B's account. It would cost 7.5p a KWh and be charged to House B through the meter.

What has actually happened is that House A's Octopus app has popped up with an Intelligent charging schedule as though it was plugged in at House A, even though it is plugged in at House B.

We will monitor who gets charged for the KWh it uses (if indeed it actually charges). I can't believe it can be other than House B as the power will flow through that meter.

 

[Adopado]

My experience of using Go for a week or so at 40p peak / 7.5p off peak (just switched to Go Faster at 8.25) is that based on the capped variable tariff of 29p, I'm paying between 2 and 10% more using Go right now. We run the dishwasher/tumble drier/washing machine at 1am once a night but sometimes need to use the washing machine during the day (2 kids, lots of school, clubs, etc clothes).

However, when I get the car I would expect that even charging it a few times a week, we'll start seeing savings.

When I get our 13kWh house battery that will be charged at night, I'll see a lot of savings.

Most of us here made the jump when SVR was due to be around 52p in October. Now that is less clear given the rumours circulating about the potential cap of around £2500/year - which would still be a slight increase of where we are now at 29p.

I do wonder if Go will revise their prices down a little if the cap is frozen around 29p but who really knows. My aim is to reduce grid usage during the day as much as possible via solar and batteries.

So you're right to question it. If you only need to charge the car around once a week, and don't have any heavy appliance needs and there is a price fix coming close to 30-35p then perhaps you won't make any significant savings.

It depends on the proportion of energy use on cheap rate versus amount on standard rate. Every situation is different but we use about half our kWhs in the car at cheap rate and half on standard for house. So if Go is 7.5p/40p the averaged rate on the whole bill is 23.75p per kWh… which is better than the previous cap let alone any future price increases.

 

[cryo]

Question for those who already have Intelligent...

Two houses (A and B) and two Teslas (A and B), each house has Intelligent and a charger set to dumb. The Octopus accounts are under separate names.

House A is associated with Tesla A and Intelligent is working. Same for House/Car B.

Here is the scenario: Tesla A visits House B and plugs in at 7pm with delayed charging set to start at 11:30pm. It needs around 4hrs of charging at 7Kw.

What do you think will happen?

My assumption was that it would charge in the 11:30pm to 5:30am window as though it is an unrecognised 'device' on House B's account. It would cost 7.5p a KWh and be charged to House B through the meter.

What has actually happened is that House A's Octopus app has popped up with an Intelligent charging schedule as though it was plugged in at House A, even though it is plugged in at House B.

We will monitor who gets charged for the KWh it uses (if indeed it actually charges). I can't believe it can be other than House B as the power will flow through that meter.

Bear in mind that intelligent is tied into the address as well as the car so it's more complicated.

 

[Zakalwe]

Question for those who already have Intelligent...

Two houses (A and B) and two Teslas (A and B), each house has Intelligent and a charger set to dumb. The Octopus accounts are under separate names.

House A is associated with Tesla A and Intelligent is working. Same for House/Car B.

Here is the scenario: Tesla A visits House B and plugs in at 7pm with delayed charging set to start at 11:30pm. It needs around 4hrs of charging at 7Kw.

What do you think will happen?

My assumption was that it would charge in the 11:30pm to 5:30am window as though it is an unrecognised 'device' on House B's account. It would cost 7.5p a KWh and be charged to House B through the meter.

What has actually happened is that House A's Octopus app has popped up with an Intelligent charging schedule as though it was plugged in at House A, even though it is plugged in at House B.

We will monitor who gets charged for the KWh it uses (if indeed it actually charges). I can't believe it can be other than House B as the power will flow through that meter.

Are the houses close to each other? IO normally will not work outside the home address. However if i park on my drive facing the road then the Tesla sees the adrress as a house about about 30 metres away. If I drive onto the driveway and face the garage then the car sees it's location as my actual address.

it might be that there's a similar mis-match? Regardless, I would expect the car to charge as per the setting in the car. Even if it doesn't then the power is still flowing through the meter at House B so it would be charged to that address.

 

[Nicjwin]

Looks like the effective cap on variable is going to be about 35p per KWH For the next year . What do we think Octopus will do With the daytime rate ?

 

[MattM76]

Looks like the effective cap on variable is going to be about 35p per KWH For the next year . What do we think Octopus will do With the daytime rate ?

My guess is nothing. Hasn't the day rate always been a bit above the SRV to encourage the 4 hour window? The 40p was set when SRV was around 29p. The cap increase in October was going to be reviewed by Octopus and several support agents mentioned increases to me. I suspect they will just leave it at around the 40p mark. I can't see them reducing it by 1-2p or increasing it by 2-3p but I am usually wrong.

 

[MattM76]

It depends on the proportion of energy use on cheap rate versus amount on standard rate. Every situation is different but we use about half our kWhs in the car at cheap rate and half on standard for house. So if Go is 7.5p/40p the averaged rate on the whole bill is 23.75p per kWh… which is better than the previous cap let alone any future price increases.

Completely agree. If you charge a car often or have a home battery then Go is a very sensible option that will save you money.

 

[kcrane]

Are the houses close to each other? IO normally will not work outside the home address. However if i park on my drive facing the road then the Tesla sees the adrress as a house about about 30 metres away. If I drive onto the driveway and face the garage then the car sees it's location as my actual address.

it might be that there's a similar mis-match? Regardless, I would expect the car to charge as per the setting in the car. Even if it doesn't then the power is still flowing through the meter at House B so it would be charged to that address.

Good thought but no, the addresses are 80 miles apart

I can report that the car did charge as planned and it looks like it went through House B’s Octopus account as expected.

It would be nice if it turns out that a car Octopus have validated as associated with Intelligent and a property they’ve assigned as Intelligent can work together to set an appropriate charging schedule even if the two don’t normally work together.

 

[Zakalwe]

Good thought but no, the addresses are 80 miles apart

I can report that the car did charge as planned and it looks like it went through House B’s Octopus account as expected.

It would be nice if it turns out that a car Octopus have validated as associated with Intelligent and a property they’ve assigned as Intelligent can work together to set an appropriate charging schedule even if the two don’t normally work together.

It might be worth giving the IO team a call- they are very knowledgeable. It is, after all, a beta program and I would expect that this is a great example of an issue that they will need to be aware of.

 

[robmcm]

Ugh, that's rotten luck. Fingers crossed for a cancellation!

Phoned up and the lady had just got of a call cancelling someone on Monday so I got that. This is like the EDD rollercoaster all over again, need to find a way to check for a hidden appointment ID in the source code

 

[Adopado]

Completely agree. If you charge a car often or have a home battery then Go is a very sensible option that will save you money.

Just to be extra picky (!) ... it's not frequency of charging, it's the total kWh used ... not quite the same thing. With a 4 hour window available you can't charge the entire car battery in one go so anyone on Go is best to charge frequently in small amounts to maintain their preferred SOC. If you don't heat your house or water with electricity it's quite easy to make the numbers work in your favour. For anyone with a home battery (we don't) it would be very easy indeed to benefit.

 

[robmcm]

Just to be extra picky (!) ... it's not frequency of charging, it's the total kWh used ... not quite the same thing. With a 4 hour window available you can't charge the entire car battery in one go so anyone on Go is best to charge frequently in small amounts to maintain their preferred SOC. If you don't heat your house or water with electricity it's quite easy to make the numbers work in your favour. For anyone with a home battery (we don't) it would be very easy indeed to benefit.

I don’t drive much but planning to use the under floor heating before the 6:30 go faster cutoff. Perhaps heat the coffee machine and do some washing/drying in the night. If it doesn’t make sense I’ll drop back to the variable.

 

[Darreno]

With the new price cap announced (£2,500) at around 35-36p per kwh, Go, Go Faster and IO are still by some way the best tariffs to be on.

Below excludes load shifting appliances to off peak so the saving will be great on the fixed tariffs. And its based on 8.25p for 5 hours. IO would be even better saving.

Your numbers will vary.

 

[Jason71]

With the new price cap announced (£2,500) at around 35-36p per kwh, Go, Go Faster and IO are still by some way the best tariffs to be on.

Below excludes load shifting appliances to off peak so the saving will be great on the fixed tariffs. And its based on 8.25p for 5 hours. IO would be even better saving.

Your numbers will vary.

View attachment 850247

With the underlying cost of energy going up and price fixed rates not qualifying for subsidy surely Go and any other variable fixed rates are likely to end up being useless in the near future?
based on the previous price cap predications the day rate will end up being £1+ per kwh by April so even if the night is still 7.5p somehow what would be the point?

 

[Darreno]

With the underlying cost of energy going up and price fixed rates not qualifying for subsidy surely Go and any other variable fixed rates are likely to end up being useless in the near future?
based on the previous price cap predications the day rate will end up being £1+ per kwh by April so even if the night is still 7.5p somehow what would be the point?

The announced price freeze today is at about 35p until 2024. The variable will not go above 35p until 2024. April prediction will not apply to households.

To note, Go is a fixed. The 40/7.5 or 8.25 is fixed for 12 months.

Also to add, NOW THIS IS WILD! According to Martin Lewis below, anyone currently on a fixed tariff will also have a 30% reduction to their tariff. That would imply the Go 40p will become 28p, making it cheaper than even the new frozen variable at 35p. This is huge news for anyone currently fixed.

If true, anyone on Go now will end up on 28/7.5 or 8.25 instead of 40/7.5 or 8.25.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1567867158201339904

 

[robmcm]

The announced price freeze today is at about 35p until 2024. The variable will not go above 35p until 2024. April prediction will not apply to households.

To note, Go is a fixed. The 40/7.5 or 8.25 is fixed for 12 months.

Also to add, NOW THIS IS WILD! According to Martin Lewis below, anyone currently on a fixed tariff will also have a 30% reduction to their tariff. That would imply the Go 40p will become 28p, making it cheaper than even the new frozen variable at 35p. This is huge news for anyone currently fixed.

If true, anyone on Go now will end up on 28/7.5 or 8.25 instead of 40/7.5 or 8.25.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1567867158201339904

That’s huge news for fixed tariff’s if true, presume it’s aimed at people fixing on rates above the old October variable. Would feel a bit guilty if they applied it to the Go tariff I haven’t even been able to sign up to yet