Yachtsman
Member
Thanks to all of you that responded to my request, much appreciated. I thought if fair to accept the first offer so thank you again Stuart, now signed up.
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Octopus Go - renewal?
- Thread starter Dougall1248
- Start date
Had a good look at energy suppliers today. Surprisingly whilst the octopus go tariffs seem like a no brainer, if you’re a heavy energy household the cost of charging your car is a small percentage of the overall outlay. I’ve found dual fuel can be comparable overall with out the restrictions on charging times
Might be worth someone starting a general electricity providers thread. As you say it depends on the balance of car charging vs household use. Octopus is a great match for us but there will be a range of usage patterns that bring other suppliers into the mix.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
We're not heavy users at all, but I can't get either Go or Agile to come out better than a standard E7 tariff for us yet, although the price gap was closing . The devil's in the detail of the exact times each day you have usage that cannot be time shifted, in our case overnight charging our floor slab with heat.
I believe I know a way to swing the price gap in favour of Octopus by about £50.00
Yachtsman
Member
Im not a heavy user either however octopus standard go rates are a few pence/kwh lower than my current ovo deal, so I win overall.
I just need to manage the charging time in advance of going on a long trip.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
For us it's the house heating that is the main issue with Go. 4 hours isn't long enough for the system to put enough heat into the slab to last through the following day. Agile is better, but still not yet quite as cheap overall as Economy 7. There have been a few occasions where I've needed more than the 4 hours that Go allows for charging, too, as 4 hours at 7 kW is maybe half the charge the car needs if we've come home from a long trip the day before (we've an aged relative that we may need to visit at short notice, so I try and keep the car charged enough for that trip).
I found that electricity from Octopus on Agile tariff and gas from SO Energy when their respective referral credits were taken into account (£50 +£40) worked out best for me.
LukeUK
Member
We use oil for heating, so no dual fuel discounts, and not being dual fuel, we are restricted from some EV tariffs, including Scottish Power, which is why I left and moved to Octopus.
Having monitored our usage on the Octopus website, our family usage does peak just when you don't want it to on Agile (which is the whole point of Agile, I know), so we'll be avoiding that for now.
Whilst we can change some of our habits, my wife and kids do typically arrive home at 18:00, which sees our demand increase, and that's unlikely to change.
Having monitored our usage on the Octopus website, our family usage does peak just when you don't want it to on Agile (which is the whole point of Agile, I know), so we'll be avoiding that for now.
Whilst we can change some of our habits, my wife and kids do typically arrive home at 18:00, which sees our demand increase, and that's unlikely to change.
I’ve been on Octopus Go for almost a year. In the winter months I usually charge the cars using off-peak if solar is a bit lacking.
I’d be interested to know how other Go users charge during the 00:30-04:30 window and then warm the car for a later departure.
I can boost from my Zappi twice to cover two periods but that won’t warm the car.
Setting a charge/departure time for say 07:00 will almost certainly prevent an earlier charge from taking place.
my best guess would be to only set a short precondition timer in the car for the two days I need and properly charge off-peak on any of the other 5 days.
As a retired old git, I’m only dragged out of bed early twice a week, to do my share of the community paper round. The car is garaged and I coût put the HVAC on via the app when I get up, so it’s not the end of the world.
I’d be interested to know how other Go users charge during the 00:30-04:30 window and then warm the car for a later departure.
I can boost from my Zappi twice to cover two periods but that won’t warm the car.
Setting a charge/departure time for say 07:00 will almost certainly prevent an earlier charge from taking place.
my best guess would be to only set a short precondition timer in the car for the two days I need and properly charge off-peak on any of the other 5 days.
As a retired old git, I’m only dragged out of bed early twice a week, to do my share of the community paper round. The car is garaged and I coût put the HVAC on via the app when I get up, so it’s not the end of the world.
akenham
M3 LR AWD+ 2020
I just have the car start charging at 00:30 and hit the "climate on" button 10-15 mins before I leave. I've yet to see really cold weather but I've had good results with bumping the charge level before leaving too - since my 7kW charger can't keep up with full bore cabin heater and preconditioning (6+7.5kW I think) I seem to end up with more % in the battery but there's little in it (arguably just set charge level a little higher or accept "loss").
Price-wise: we're rural (no gas, oil) so Octopus Go works for us - a few pence cheaper than other suppliers at normal times. I run our Dishwasher and washing machine timed to start at the low rate. Octopus graphs seem to show a lot of my usage in the right range, the rest I can't shift and would cost far more on agile.
Thanks @akenham i think that what I’ll end up doing. I only need a short burst as it’s only a 3 mile, 20 minute trip out. I often just used the seat heaters in when I had my Ioniq last winter.
The precondition will come out of the Powerwalls anyway at that time in the morning.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
I'm surprised. What are E7 rates these days then?
Using GO for 7 hours (4xoffpeak + 3xpeak) would work out at about 8.7p/kw where I live . Last time I checked I could not find an E7 rate that could match that even before you take into account the cheaper day rate on Go and doing all of the car charging during the 4 hours off peak?
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
We're paying 8.373p/kWh off-peak, 12.846p/kWh peak. The tariffs seems to vary quite a bit from one area to another, I think. Having said that, I'm expecting our tariff to go up soon (anytime now) and having looked around over the weekend the best I can find from another supplier (Symbio) is 8.725p/kWh and 15.224p/kWh.
Mind you, we were told that we couldn't have a smart meter at the time our E7 meter was fitted, which was January 2019. The meter fitter checked, and there was no signal here, and we weren't close enough to any other house with a smart meter to allow the fallback mesh connection system to work.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
There's probably not much in it. In fact if you don't need the whole 7 hours all year round Go is probably cheaper but its kind of irrelevant if you can't have a smart meter anyway. My signal was marginal and I live in a town in England. I get the impression you live somewhere a little more remote.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Yes, a rural area, and our place is at the bottom of a deep valley. Nice being next to a stream, in peace and quiet, but we have to put up with no terrestrial TV, no FM or DAB radio (LW Radio 4 only . . .) and no mobile signal. We're all (well, 11 of us down here) keeping our fingers crossed that we get a grant to enable us to get faster fibre broadband. One plus point from this plague is that with more working from home the shortcomings of a pretty slow connection have become more apparent for some, and it seems likely some in our group will qualify under the Gigabit Voucher Scheme, which will bring the price down for all of us.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
Have you checked to see if anyone has a really old TV generating an EMP?
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