Octopus Go Faster

[Glan gluaisne]

I would get a new designer if that's all he came up with.

Sadly, I was the designer!

I designed this house in 2012, knowing that we had to be all-electric, both because there's no mains gas here, and because of the massive health impact from the products of combustion, particularly the harmful particulates from burning wood and coal.

At the time, a heat pump running a heated, insulated, passive slab foundation seemed the best solution. I still believe it is, as the house has a long thermal time constant (generally longer than 24 hours) so is well suited to being heated from the ground floor slab (we have no heating on the first floor, and don't need it at all). This works very well with the E7 tariff, as our monthly electricity bill is £48, and we're currently about £140 in credit (this includes car charging). We also get about £1,000 a year for the electricity we generate and export, so, in reality, we have no energy bill, and make a small profit. It's nice having no running costs for the car or house.

 

[Mr Miserable]

I have UFH in our conservatory. It costs a fortune.

My earlier comment on your design was more about it being a blank sheet of paper.

 

[alflavor]

I think I’d stick with 4 hours and leave times as is. 4 hours fills the car up even when it’s been really cold using more power, and have now gotten into the habit of putting the dishwasher and washing machine on their built in timers. Coming up to my first months bill on Go, really keen to see the details.

 

[vitesse]

I think I’d stick with 4 hours and leave times as is. 4 hours fills the car up even when it’s been really cold using more power, and have now gotten into the habit of putting the dishwasher and washing machine on their built in timers. Coming up to my first months bill on Go, really keen to see the details.

I'm pretty much with you there.

Are you not monitoring your smartmeter?

 

[AB88]

Yes. Just signed up for it 8.30pm to 1.30am. It is the time difference for me as now can persuade the SO to use washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier after 8.30.

On the standard Octopus Go my monthly average per kWh was only 8.7p. Can’t wait to see what December’s bill is like.

Any direct contact details for this? I just phoned them and the lady didn't seem too sure but would "find out" and get back to me...

 

[vitesse]

Any direct contact details for this? I just phoned them and the lady didn't seem too sure but would "find out" and get back to me...

I heard it was only by invitation - I've not heard anything. The speculation is that Octopus is trying to spread the load across a wider time range.

 

[Cwmwd]

only by invitation

That was my understanding too. I wonder if the invites go out to customers located within suspected EV clusters where spreading the load would be beneficial whilst those of us out in the sticks or with "the only EV in the village" (so to speak) might never get invited?

Personally I'm fine with the current Go tariff but choice is never a bad thing.

 

[ACarneiro]

Sadly, I was the designer!

I designed this house in 2012, knowing that we had to be all-electric, both because there's no mains gas here, and because of the massive health impact from the products of combustion, particularly the harmful particulates from burning wood and coal.

At the time, a heat pump running a heated, insulated, passive slab foundation seemed the best solution. I still believe it is, as the house has a long thermal time constant (generally longer than 24 hours) so is well suited to being heated from the ground floor slab (we have no heating on the first floor, and don't need it at all). This works very well with the E7 tariff, as our monthly electricity bill is £48, and we're currently about £140 in credit (this includes car charging). We also get about £1,000 a year for the electricity we generate and export, so, in reality, we have no energy bill, and make a small profit. It's nice having no running costs for the car or house.

Sounds brilliant!
Why not go for ground source? That way you’d avoid the noisy of the fans on the outside unit? Are you heating water from the ASHP as well?

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Sounds brilliant!
Why not go for ground source? That way you’d avoid the noisy of the fans on the outside unit? Are you heating water from the ASHP as well?

We were originally going to have a GSHP, but the cost was astronomical, more than four times the price of an ASHP. The cheapest quote we had for a GSHP was about £8.5k, not including the ground works to bury the collector pipes.

The clincher was when we heard an inverter drive ASHP running. It is, to all intents and purposes, silent. The fan noise cannot be heard more than about three feet away, as it only turns slowly. The compressor makes more noise than the fan, but is a lot quieter than the compressor was on the two GSHP installations we went to look at. I had a friend come around to have a look at the house, who was sceptical about using an ASHP. He and I stood chatting right next to it, and he asked if I could turn it on so he could hear the noise level. He did look a bit surprised when I suggested he have a look at the fan going around, as the thing was already running, and he'd not realised this.

We don't bother to heat the hot water much with the ASHP, as it reduces the efficiency. The ASHP heats a buffer tank to 40°C, and this can pre-heat the incoming cold water, before it's taken up to about 55°C by a ~10 kWh Sunamp thermal battery. The Sunamp gets charged by excess PV generation a lot of the time, but if that's not enough it gets a boost during the E7 off-peak period.

 

[MarkJ]

Four hours is enough, most of the time, to charge the car and Powerwall. Five hours would be better, but not if there was a cost implication. I'm pretty sure a couple of suppliers are offering five hours off peak at 5p although their peak is higher than Octopus (but having a PW this wouldn't really effect me).

It is good to see Octopus innovating. At some point they could offer this on a control panel/app and let you adjust the number of hours and start time month by mont .

 

[MrBadger]

How long after getting smart meter installed does data start showing on IHD? We had smart meter installed Tuesday - he said 20 mins electricity, 30 mins gas, then historical from following day. At first IHD had toggle between elec and gas, but, as engineer suggested, no readings. I looked again later in the day, and we had cumulative gas but not instant. However, we had totally lost the ability to toggle electricity.

Spoke to Octopus who were very dismissive, and just said, up to two weeks. Didn't even suggest why we had lost electricity toggle.

Both meters are L&G. Would be good to find instructions, but images of our model do not reflect the electricity one. I can get gas reading by pressing A button as it says on the front of the meter. But if I hit A on electricity meter, the screen just goes to X's as if its just rebooted. No instructions on that even on the front. Wonder if electricity meter has a fault. But Octopus are not interested until several weeks.

 

[vitesse]

How long after getting smart meter installed does data start showing on IHD? We had smart meter installed Tuesday - he said 20 mins electricity, 30 mins gas, then historical from following day. At first IHD had toggle between elec and gas, but, as engineer suggested, no readings. I looked again later in the day, and we had cumulative gas but not instant. However, we had totally lost the ability to toggle electricity.

Spoke to Octopus who were very dismissive, and just said, up to two weeks. Didn't even suggest why we had lost electricity toggle.

Both meters are L&G. Would be good to find instructions, but images of our model do not reflect the electricity one. I can get gas reading by pressing A button as it says on the front of the meter. But if I hit A on electricity meter, the screen just goes to X's as if its just rebooted. No instructions on that even on the front. Wonder if electricity meter has a fault. But Octopus are not interested until several weeks.

I'd be politely persistent - sounds like the individual you are dealing with is not up to scratch. Are you corresonding via email or n the phone?

 

[slonger]

I got my electric meter swapped on the 19th November still not managed to get any readings on the ihd only the demo figures all I get from octopus is they have hit a roadblock and are working on it. The interim tariff I am on is higher than my previous tariff so could with sorting asap.

 

[MidhurstNigel]

can't get a SMETS2 fitted until January , which probably won't work anyway where I live. sigh

The Smets2 meter I had fitted a couple of months ago by a contractor working for Octopus could (if I understood the sparks correctly) be connected to the house wi-fi if the usual smart meter GSM(?) connection didn't work. So, you may be OK provided that your house wi-fi is up to scratch

 

[mikemillar]

You've probably worked this out by now but if anyone else is puzzling over this, the answer is that you have to press and hold the B button for 5 seconds and then press the A button, while holding in the B button.....so simple that educated people like us wouldn't possibly need instructions would we...Grrrrrr! I unearthed a Landis+Gyr instruction mannual and that didn't say anything either.

 

[mikemillar]

By the way, is the Go Faster tariff on general release yet? I can't get an online quote.

 

[Roy W.]

By the way, is the Go Faster tariff on general release yet? I can't get an online quote.

AFAIK it’s still invitation only. They seem to add a small batch of people to it every few weeks.

It is an experimental tariff, so could even be discontinued once they have the data they require.

 

[x-rm]

could you share more information on your heating system Jeremy? I build sustainable homes and I’ve not come across an electric system yet that I can make work effectively and responsively? Plenty of good wet systems including air source but no good electric ones yet. This has to be the future, good electric heating systems from clean energy. Building regs will kill off gas for new homes soon enough.

Hiya, we built new a few years ago and are off grid for gas so had to go electric, but wet-electric if that makes sense, we have an air source heat pump which generates the heat from the outside air from anything down to -23 degrees centigrade. This in turn heats a storage tank inside that feeds the underfloor heating pipes, which we leave running day and night - it costs a lot more to heat up from cold than it does to leave it running all the time and is so much more comfortable to live with (we reduce it down 1 degree at night for more sleep oriented temperatures - with a stat in every room of the house for personal choice of temperature). The system is backed up by solar and mechanical heat recovery so will run on a single phase even tho' the house is 470sqm. It is still not that cheap to run with the recent increase in electricity prices (we had a 1 year 8p/kWh deal that ran for years because they forgot to terminate it until recently) but a lot cheaper than the oil fired boiler it replaced. They managed to lose our smart meter when they moved the incoming supply cable, but now our energy company are offering out-of-hours discounts (like the Octopus tariffs from what I am reading) so have a new Smart meter being installed next week to hopefully be able to take advantage of those.
I am considering a ground based 2nd solar install and maybe a Powerwall as we expect to be running two BEV's in the very near future - I know overall it will work out more to pay now but I like the self sufficiency angle plus we are on overhead cables so prone to weather related outages when we need power the most.
I hope that helps, and also, Mr M, if you are reading this, I can't sack the designer for mine 'cos I designed it myself

 

[NickC84]

Is the EV.Energy app with Octopus Go really as easy as set up and leave and you get the full 4 hours?

 

[Lupe]

I have fulled switched now but not seeing the Go tariff available? I have a smart reader but doesn’t even seem to be an option. An I missing something?