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Octopus Tesla Energy Plan

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I think I have done the math correctly, we receive ~£500 per year for generation on one array, we exported ~500kWh @ 8p we would receive ~£40; we charge the cars on the go tariff @ 5p. I do not think the Tesla plan works for us.
 

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@Neil_dsb my understanding is you keep your generation FIT but opt out of the deemed 50% export when switching to the Octopus Tesla Tariff plan and instead will get paid by Octopus for the electricity actually exported. You probably know this so my apologies if you did.

We have a 3.5Kw PV system that was installed in 2011 and the generation FIT is too good to lose. But I'm willing to opt out of the deemed export and switch to an export payment based on actual units exported in exchange for the far lower electric tariff compared to what our current supplier charges. I am still waiting for the Powerwall to be installed, but am very seriously considering the switch to the Tesla Tariff.
 
thanks for the update i did not know you keep your generation FIT

RTFM

Moving to the Tesla Energy Plan means:

  • Generation Tariff - your payments for energy generation remain the same.
  • Export Tariff - you will be required to opt-out of your 'deemed export' payments. Instead, you will receive 8p/kWh for every kWh actually exported, this is measured by your Smart Meter.
Note: There is no requirement to switch your FiT generation contract to Octopus.

If you have installed solar after 1 April 2019, we will still require a copy of your Microgeneration Certificate Scheme (MCS) certification in order to get you onto the Tesla Energy Plan.
 
Dropping my electric bill from £600 to £200 p.a. seems attractive, but won't pay for the powerwall. (Actually, it is less good since my current deemed export pays £70). Maybe with a cheaper battery it would be a sensible hedge against rising electricity prices.
 
I do not think the Tesla plan works for us.

I cannot see how this works for anyone with a PW and an EV to charge. Our grid export is virtually 0 even with the sun we had in May. If the PW is full, the car is been charged, if both are full than the water is been heated so reducing gas use.

You have to have a massive solar PV array to make the number work. Especially if you are a current 50% assumed export FIT.
 
I cannot see how this works for anyone with a PW and an EV to charge. Our grid export is virtually 0 even with the sun we had in May. If the PW is full, the car is been charged, if both are full than the water is been heated so reducing gas use.

You have to have a massive solar PV array to make the number work. Especially if you are a current 50% assumed export FIT.
We are a high electricity usage household, averaging around 14,000kWh per year of import (very little of which is as a result of needing to charge the Tesla M3). I don't yet have the Powerwall but even if I move to a time of use tariff, I think the higher peak rate charges would more than offset any benefit I can get from charging the Powerwall during the low night rate and depleting it during the high rate period. Doing a very unscientific calculation, I think a single Powerwall will not supply our house for enough hours to avoid the need to still import a substantial amount outside the low rate overnight period. A rate of 8p per kWh, at all times, with no daily standing charge seems attractive to me. I would be happy to be shown where my granted very superficial understanding is flawed. I am still waiting for DNO approval and then the actual Powerwall installation, so I am weighing all options at the moment. Thank you for any advice you can provide.
 
I would be happy to be shown where my granted very superficial understanding is flawed.

Your Powerwall will have a life limited by number of charge cycles, or more simplistically, a limited total amount of energy it can store and discharge over its usable lifespan.

Last time that I looked, a Powerwall warranty was 37.8MWh when time shifting. Lets be generous and said that you got 70MWh over its lifespan. Back of a fag packet numbers, but lets say off peak you averaged charged 5p/kWh and that replaced electricity at 14p/kWh, a saving of 9p/kWh - call it 8p/kWh with losses. So the max saving of the Powerwall over its usable life will be 70000 * 8p = £5600. And thats probably being over generous. How much is your Powerwall costing?

You could achieve many benefits at a fraction of the cost with a smaller battery setup. DNO approval would be simpler if you had aggregate PV and storage < 7.2kW with max 3.6kW export - fasttrack G99. But there are compromises - you would be limited on peak power draw, but you are on powerwall anyway so 3 or 5kW is neither here nor there.

Seriously, the best way of saving on battery storage is to not buy and wait for prices to drop. I've already saved > £2k by putting my decision off 6 years and letting prices drop (oddly not with powerwall, they keep rising it seems). I've just jumped on board at around £3k. I might, with a following wind, break even.

A rate of 8p per kWh, at all times, with no daily standing charge seems attractive to me.

How are you managing that? Going off grid? If so, stop right there, thats a completely different conversation.
 
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We are a high electricity usage household, averaging around 14,000kWh per year of import (very little of which is as a result of needing to charge the Tesla M3). I don't yet have the Powerwall but even if I move to a time of use tariff, I think the higher peak rate charges would more than offset any benefit I can get from charging the Powerwall during the low night rate and depleting it during the high rate period. Doing a very unscientific calculation, I think a single Powerwall will not supply our house for enough hours to avoid the need to still import a substantial amount outside the low rate overnight period. A rate of 8p per kWh, at all times, with no daily standing charge seems attractive to me. I would be happy to be shown where my granted very superficial understanding is flawed. I am still waiting for DNO approval and then the actual Powerwall installation, so I am weighing all options at the moment. Thank you for any advice you can provide.
Yes we are in the same boat, we can charge the PW @ night in the winter and it does not last the day, then we move onto the 15p + standing daily charge, trying to fit both cars and a PW into a 4 hrs off-peak charge is tight we pull ~80+ amps if the hot tub kicks in we are very near to the 100Amp fuse
 
Your Powerwall will have a life limited by number of charge cycles, or more simplistically, a limited total amount of energy it can store and discharge over its usable lifespan.

Last time that I looked, a Powerwall warranty was 37.8MWh when time shifting. Lets be generous and said that you got 70MWh over its lifespan. Back of a fag packet numbers, but lets say off peak you averaged charged 5p/kWh and that replaced electricity at 14p/kWh, a saving of 9p/kWh - call it 8p/kWh with losses. So the max saving of the Powerwall over its usable life will be 70000 * 8p = £5600. And thats probably being over generous. How much is your Powerwall costing?

You could achieve many benefits at a fraction of the cost with a smaller battery setup. DNO approval would be simpler if you had aggregate PV and storage < 7.2kW with max 3.6kW export - fasttrack G99. But there are compromises - you would be limited on peak power draw, but you are on powerwall anyway so 3 or 5kW is neither here nor there.

Seriously, the best way of saving on battery storage is to not buy and wait for prices to drop. I've already saved > £2k by putting my decision off 6 years and letting prices drop (oddly not with powerwall, they keep rising it seems). I've just jumped on board at around £3k. I might, with a following wind, break even.



How are you managing that? Going off grid? If so, stop right there, thats a completely different conversation.

Thanks for this - I appreciate all information so that I know what I am getting into. On the warranty, I have confirmation that the 10 year, 80% retention applies to the PW when used in connection with the Tesla Energy Plan. I have assumed that in 10 years (likely well before that) there will be superior options available so at the end of warranty it is going to get replaced almost certainly. I recognise there are less costly battery options if I was willing to forgo convenience and simplicity as a novice user. I have no illusion that on a purely economic analysis the Tesla PW will pay for itself over its useful life. However, having made the decision to buy one I am trying to figure out as of now what electric supply plan I should sign up for.

BTW, whilst it still doesn't make the purchase a shrewd economic decision, Tesla is throwing in a free TWC and Octopus is giving me a £500 account credit toward my electric bills upon the installation of the Powerwall. It did not seal the deal, but does take some of the sting away.
 
You guys all need to move to Agile. It is a no brainer. The only hours you have to cover with the PW are 16.00 - 19.00. Obviously you can still cover much of the night as well depending on your use. If you dont mind importing from thre grid you can use the cheap rates for 21 hours and export during the 16.00 - 19.00 time slot at increased rates using the Agile Outgoing tariff. The 8p Tesla rate is US really as they make money off you using a Agile type system and you totally lose control as they operate your app!
 
@VanillaAir_UK you are evidently knowledgeable about this stuff, but I find it difficult to understand your posts because I’m unfamiliar with some of the things you refer to.

I’m new to EVs and certainly no eco-warrior, but the shift has made me contemplate domestic renewables. My investigations suggest that they aren’t financially viable at this time. True?

What should I read to understand?
 
You guys all need to move to Agile. It is a no brainer. The only hours you have to cover with the PW are 16.00 - 19.00. Obviously you can still cover much of the night as well depending on your use. If you dont mind importing from thre grid you can use the cheap rates for 21 hours and export during the 16.00 - 19.00 time slot at increased rates using the Agile Outgoing tariff. The 8p Tesla rate is US really as they make money off you using a Agile type system and you totally lose control as they operate your app!
I am not sure Agile is a 'No brainer',

Yes I get the fact with the Tesla Plan they will make money by dumping/exporting during the late afternoon evening, but checking the Agile figures from last year (night rates of 15p - 5p), over the entire year vs the Tesla plan @ 8p all year around, all day, without a standing charge, appears ok,

I also get May 2020 was a super sunny month with a very low demand for electric and they were paying you to use electric, balance that with Feb the wettest month in history.

BTW Tesla already control the app for Time Based Control - you can not set a charge, without whether adaptation its a bit hit and miss in the UK, eg its raining today and the PW did not charge, so I am importing all day. Some days it charges to 100% and its sunny all day, so i dump electric into the hot tub, do loads of cooking/washing or cars....

happy to learn and stand corrected
 
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@VanillaAir_UK you are evidently knowledgeable about this stuff, but I find it difficult to understand your posts because I’m unfamiliar with some of the things you refer to.

I’m new to EVs and certainly no eco-warrior, but the shift has made me contemplate domestic renewables. My investigations suggest that they aren’t financially viable at this time. True?

What should I read to understand?

I've been into 'renewable' energy since my early teens (a long time ago) having visited a couple of large scale hydro schemes - I wanted to be a civil engineer so bridges and dams were my thing. But alas, things went in a different direction. Then 20 or so years ago, I started at looking at worth while schemes for the home, but for various reasons, such as getting my calculator out a crunching my own numbers, I put it off until about 7 years ago when I got into PV, thanks to the FiT scheme. After having a poor experience from a high profile PV installer (who could only come up with a 2.6kW installation for my roof) I designed and specified my own PV install, getting an installer to check the system and OK'ing it for 4kW, the max FiT option at the time before being financially penalised for going 'too big'.

The rest is 6-1/2 years hands on experience over many different seasons and weather conditions and dealing daily (I wrote my own data logging software that reports to a global PV comparison site) with real numbers and behaviour rather than relying on wishful thinking or manufacturers/sales numbers. With those numbers, I have also been able to model and/or understand different scenarios and follow industry changes, such as changes in battery prices and technologies and use everything to come up with expected benefits, or not. I was also fortunate to work in an environment that crossed into sustainability in various ways - my area was air quality.

As for financial viability, everyone's circumstances are different and scale and location brings real benefits in cost effectiveness. But for the vast majority of users, now that the FiT scheme has closed for new installations, you really need to be looking at the other benefits of microgeneration and storage than just financial payback. It is easy to overlook the simple maths, that a unit that will have a energy capacity of x units over its usable life is at maximum only going to save x * kWh saving. And that number is often far less than people expect. Also bear in mind that there are often limitations imposed by external factors (location, physical space, DNO permissions etc) that may have a bearing on financial viability and that there is often a capacity sweet spot that needs to be determined otherwise you risk spending on something that brings little benefit, or spend more than you need.

As for reading, there are a number of renewable and self build forums around. Always worth a read but not necessarily worth joining. I use to regularly frequent (not any more) a website run by Navitron (they sold mostly renewable systems and the forum largely attracted DIYers) as the advice was often from people with very much hands on experience. It didn't take long to work out what pieces related to my circumstances - grid vs off-grid being the obvious one, quick bodge vs by the book or some extraordinary system (with unobtainable numbers) being some others.
 
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You get £1 per kWh?!

They would have got paid FiT on the generation plus export deemed to be 50% of generation.

So @Neil_dsb got their FiT payment based upon 5119kWh and export based upon 2559kWh export.

So say one got paid 15p FiT and 5p deemed export, that would equate to ~ £767 + £127 = ~ £894

However by giving up deemed export and going actual export @ 8p, the £127 drops to £46 because actual export was 580kWh.

So one would have to make up the lost £81 on savings through import (of 9526kWh) and standing charge reductions - to make it back, a 1p/kWh reduction would more than offset it on those figures, but it may need significantly more of a saving for someone with lesser import.
 
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They would have got paid FiT on the generation plus export deemed to be 50% of generation.

So @Neil_dsb got their FiT payment based upon 5119kWh and export based upon 2559kWh export.

So say one got paid 15p FiT and 5p deemed export, that would equate to ~ £767 + £127 = ~ £894

However by giving up deemed export and going actual export @ 8p, the £127 drops to £46 because actual export was 580kWh.

So one would have to make up the lost £81 on savings through import (of 9526kWh) and standing charge reductions - to make it back, a 1p/kWh reduction would more than offset it on those figures, but it may need significantly more of a saving for someone with lesser import.
Thanks for the very detailed explanation!
 
You guys all need to move to Agile. It is a no brainer.

Its not at all.

I do agree in recent months with the very odd situation of lock down + sun + wind Agile has had alot of plunge pricing, but you need to look at the overall energy use for year + the benefits/losses of going to a smart meter.

Our electricity usage was massive in November/December last year, and looking at Octopus Agile rate from than even excluding the 4-7pm 'peak', the overall average cost of electricity was the same/higher than the 8p per kWh am paying with E7, which I used to charge the PW overnight to full to avoid any day time electricity usage.

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When it comes to this summer I've been amazed at how little grid electricity we have used overall thanks to the PW+solar, May was under 1kWh a day, even this month with all the rain its going to be barely 2kWh a day average. That translates to a stupidly low electricity bill, yes Agile I think would have been cheaper, but saving 50% on £3 worth of electricity is hardly anything to get excited about.

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The final point is about if I want a smart meter installed, am still undecided, I like E7, its predictable, easy to plan around, and if I get a smart meter I loss the choice of been on E7. We all known how electricity companies can change their tariffs with little warning, what if I switch to Agile and Octopus whacks up prices?? I'll than be stuck not been able to move back to E7 and having to pay what ever the going rate is.
 
The final point is about if I want a smart meter installed, am still undecided, I like E7, its predictable, easy to plan around, and if I get a smart meter I loss the choice of been on E7. We all known how electricity companies can change their tariffs with little warning, what if I switch to Agile and Octopus whacks up prices?? I'll than be stuck not been able to move back to E7 and having to pay what ever the going rate is.
I’m confused by this. Can you no longer have E7 with a smart meter?

Before I moved to Octopus last August I’d been with OVO on E7 for a couple of years with smart meters.