Octopus Energy Saving Sessions

[Stranger Dings]

Does anyone know how the Octopus ”Power Hour” energy saving sessions are actually calculated?

I’ve taken part in all of them, but the results just seem totally random.

I’ve had sessions where we’ve switched off as much as we can and gone out, only to be told that we didn’t manage to save anything.

Some sessions, we’ve made very small savings, Including one where virtually everything was switched off and the whole family was in another country.

One session I forgot it was happening despite signing up, only to be told I’d managed to save 93% of my normal usage and be credited with over £16 off!

I’ll continue to sign up for them and don’t really do it expecting to save much as we are already quite energy efficient. It all just seems so random.

 

[OfficialMark_H]

It’s an average of the last 10 days, so if it’s between 5pm and 6pm today and you switch everything off at the consumer unit at 5pm, then add the usage up between 5pm and 6pm for the last 10 days (say 1 Kwh per day = 10Kwh) then you’ll save 1 KWh today, this giving you a credit of £2.25 (the per kWh price changes).

 

[giorgosa]

I think that the comparison is being made with the average of the previous 10 days, for the relevant slots.

So, for example, if 3 days ago it happened you to use the oven in the same half hour slot, then the saving will be higher from another time, that you turned everything off but in the last 10 days you didn't use anything significant in the same slot.
That's why they announce this with less than 24 hour notice (usually) as if you know that it'll happen in 2 days, you'll consume excessively tomorrow....

Quite complicated, huh?

 

[Stranger Dings]

Thanks. I’ll have a look back and see how the heck I managed to get a £16 discount.

 

[ringi]

It also scales your use over the past ten days by your use over the 3hr ending 1hr before the start of the sessions, so if you reduce energy use earlier in the day you get paid less.

 

[NewbieT]

Octopus Energy, including Intelligent and go

I don't have anything showing for the 5th Nov ... it's clearly nothing to do with individual smart meters. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Zilla91]

If you have a home battery you can basically game the calculation by using up loads of electricity in the first 3 hours of the 4 hours before the session starts and then just running off your battery and using nothing from the hour before the session to the end

 

[Pink Duck]

The in-day adjustment is gone under the changed rules for this winter. Is now opt-in by default after initial opt-in. Notifications for sessions can occur later - on the morning or afternoon of the event itself. 12 test events, no on-boarding and can continue beyond March. Expected £2.25/kWh customer saving rate from same £3,000/MWh the providers receive. Plus energy providers are no longer obliged to pay out if they suspect gaming under new warranties.

Doesn’t stop people moving load into peak now in advance of 1st November start of course, if there’s no loss in doing so.

I personally think they should have kept in-day adjustment, as the loading up in peak by gamers isn’t great for low carbon grid.

 

[NewbieT]

Should work as intended now. Incentive in the right place/for the right behaviour. In-day adjustment was nice idea in theory but keep-it-simple is the right answer.

 

[Pink Duck]

Just had Octoplus appear in my Android app and accepted 500 Octopoints for joining (62.5p) after reading T&Cs. Means I can have free energy sessions like the Powerups too (not living in one of their prescribed postcodes) and they can run their own Saving Session events independent of the DFS 12 trial events. Pleasingly the newer ESO DFS specification factors in net import minus export, so exporting more than usual at last means getting some reward.

 

[Pink Duck]

New terms and conditions for OctoPlus including this year’s Saving Sessions are up.

 

[ACarneiro]

Still useless for battery storage owners, which is understandable but still disappointing.

 

[phil4]

Still useless for battery storage owners, which is understandable but still disappointing.

Yeah, totally useless, as I use 100% off peak now. Oh well. At least it'll incentivise that do you use peak times.

 

[thewishy]

I don't have enough battery for a dull winter day, we'll likely be out around teatime, so some room for me to shift.

I think it opens up room for rewarding behaviour changes
- Plug in to IO when the when the wind is blowing. Not necessarily at times of negative pricing, just avoid still nights where gas will be charging your car (I can charge once a week quite happily)
- Force Discharge house batteries during saving sessions. I don't necessarily need to be paid a fortune to do so, but I'm not going to pay to import at 35p in the afternoon and then discharge at 15p.

Not saying any of these are day 1 ideas, but I suspect that they'll find they can influence behaviour (as they have with savings sessions) and bring these ideas up when doing contract negotiations.

 

[ACarneiro]

Mind you, the “Free Electricity” bit is interesting. I wonder how often that’ll happen and at what times.
Batteries would come onto their own then.

 

[Pink Duck]

Indeed, will adjust timed tariff pricing to force PW2 to discharge then recharge setting rate to 0 p/kWh. Can use Backup Reserve to top up during and if car happens to be home then IO Go Bump Charge to get grid use refunded as credit later.

 

[phil4]

Mind you, the “Free Electricity” bit is interesting. I wonder how often that’ll happen and at what times.
Batteries would come onto their own then.

It's already happening, but it only applies to an area over the east of the country, Norfolk etc. It's is mentioned in the T&C's but past that marketing have liberally splashed it all over the place. It won't apply or be available to most. See Octopus Power-ups | Free green electricity in East England postcode list is here: https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Power-up_postcodes_UKPN.pdf

Specifically it's areas "operated by UK Power Networks (currently these are all in South East and East England)."

 

[ACarneiro]

It's already happening, but it only applies to an area over the east of the country, Norfolk etc. It's is mentioned in the T&C's but past that marketing have liberally splashed it all over the place. It won't apply or be available to most. See Octopus Power-ups | Free green electricity in East England postcode list is here: https://octoenergy-production-media.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Power-up_postcodes_UKPN.pdf

Specifically it's areas "operated by UK Power Networks (currently these are all in South East and East England)."

I suspect this may be different as I had to “sign up” for it on the Octopus app.
Probably a nationwide initiative, I should think…

 

[phil4]

I suspect this may be different as I had to “sign up” for it on the Octopus app.
Probably a nationwide initiative, I should think…

I'm not so optimistic thinking that, but it'll be really good if it is.

 

[btc1k]

When electricity pricing is negative, Octopus can buy it and sell it to high use customers (EV owners) for "free" - pocketing the difference.

Seems like good business to me.