Standing Charge v Unit Rate

[The Baron]

Hi All

I'm about to change energy suppliers and have been looking at the Octopus and EDF tarrifs.

Is it better off going for a lower standing day charge than a lower unit rate?

Example
Avro 14.7p standing charge and 13.9p unit rate all day/night

Octopus Go 25p standing charge 14.63p and 5p from 1230am to 430am.

Cheers

 

[j1mgg]

This will all depend on how much, and when you use electricity.

 

[Roy W.]

Hi All

I'm about to change energy suppliers and have been looking at the Octopus and EDF tarrifs.

Is it better off going for a lower standing day charge than a lower unit rate?

Example
Avro 14.7p standing charge and 13.9p unit rate all day/night

Octopus Go 25p standing charge 14.63p and 5p from 1230am to 430am.

Cheers

You really need to do a few sums to see how it works out for you.

Certainly for me, the standing charge is fairly insignificant compared to the amount of electricity I use. Having said that, when I swapped to Octopus the standing charge was already cheaper than my previous supplier.

As an example, 5p more a day in standing charge equates to £18.25 a year.

 

[seadog]

If you EV charge regularly at home Octopus will work out fair bit cheaper provided you charge at the discounted rate.

 

[seadog]

For example, we currently use approx 10 units per day for our home use so our costs would be (figures rounded to nearest pence)
15p + £1.39 = £1.54
25p + £1.46 = £1.71

If you add an average of another 10 units per day for EV charging
£1.54 + £1.39 = £2.93
£1.71 + £0.50 = £2.21

Just depends on how much electric you use for home and how much you will use to charge your EV. Octopus currently 17p more expensive, if you add in EV charging they would be 72p cheaper or around 25%.

 

[philgods]

Agree Octopus is the way to go for the majority at the moment. The question then becomes Go versus Agile. Most newbies (me included) seem to start on Go, and then use the data it provides for more detailed comparisons at a later date.

Would advising moving on this soon - the whole transition takes at least a couple of months if you also need a new meter installation. Sometimes longer.

EDIT: Be careful.....you too will turn into a Kilowatt geek within a few weeks

 

[Mr Miserable]

It gets even more complicated with Octopus Go Faster which I haven't really got a handle on yet. @Roy W. ?

 

[philgods]

I just emailed them last week about moving to the Go Faster tariff/trial. No response as yet.

 

[Durzel]

The standing charge is immaterial compared to the cost of electricity. To use your EDF vs Octopus example, you're saving the additional money you spend on the standing charge per day in 1 kWh of energy usage during off peak.

 

[Roy W.]

It gets even more complicated with Octopus Go Faster which I haven't really got a handle on yet. @Roy W. ?

Octopus GO Faster is a new trial tariff to test the effects on the grid of staggering the start times of EV charging. On the standard GO tariff everyone is starting to charge their cars at 0030, so there is a big jump in demand at that time. GO Faster aims to spread the load over time by offering more options for the start time.

With GO Faster you first choose a price and duration. The current three options are:

3 Hours cheap rate at 4.5p per unit
4 Hours cheap rate at 5p per unit (this is the same as the standard GO rate)
5 Hours cheap rate at 5.5p per unit

Then you can choose your start time, from the following options:

2030, 2130, 2230, 2330, 0030, 0130, 0230, and 0330.

The caveat here is that your off-peak window must finish by 0630, so for example, if you want 5 hours, the latest start time is 0130.

In the longer term the trial may extend to include more variable time of use tariffs, more like Octopus Agile, but only for people who have the necessary smart chargers.

I chose the 5 hour slot starting at 2030, as this fits our usage better for things like washing and drying. In the 5 hour window I can add 50% charge to my Model 3 LR AWD.

Currently the GO Faster tariff is by invitation only, and only to those already on the GO tariff. If you feel like you want to give it a try, I suggest that you email Octopus and ask if there are any spaces available.

 

[The Baron]

Cheers all for the replies much appreciated.
For some reason I had it my head that the cheaper standing charge but work out cheaper but it appears that isn't the case.

Also don't have smart meter fitted as yet so that's another thing to sort.

 

[philgods]

They will sort it for you - Octopus initially move you to a 'holding' tariff whilst this gets done. The wait can get a little frustrating as they seem very busy at the moment.

 

[LukeUK]

There are only 365 days in the year. Conversely, you probably use around 3000 - 4000 kWh, before considering EV charging.

So, in simple terms, the standing charge is 10 times less important than the cost per kWh.

It's worth spending a few minutes in a spreadsheet to explore how the costs work out. You can also work out cost per mile based on Wh/mile (something like 250-300), etc.

 

[MrBadger]

Imagine trying to explain Type A and Type B units...

 

[Mark_T]

Hi All

I'm about to change energy suppliers and have been looking at the Octopus and EDF tarrifs.

Is it better off going for a lower standing day charge than a lower unit rate?

Example
Avro 14.7p standing charge and 13.9p unit rate all day/night

Octopus Go 25p standing charge 14.63p and 5p from 1230am to 430am.

Cheers

As long as you are using even a few kWh to recharge the car during the cheap Go period it is an easy win there for Octopus.

Every 1 kWh you use overnight offsets the 'saving' in the day rate of roughly 12kWh so it isn't hard to make the number work in the favour of Octopus.

Comparing against EDF though is a bit more complicated.

I routinely compare Octopus Agile against Octopus Go, EDF and Bulb smart tariffs.

If you are using a lot of power overnight regularly to recharge the car then Go will win against EDF and Bulb, but if you do not recharge most nights then EDF can have the edge. It isn't a lot better but their extended low rate periods in the evening and weekends does make a difference if you don't fully utilise the night rate on Go.

Agile beats them all though as long as you do not use a lot of power in the 4-7pm period...

 

[audigex]

You can calculate the tradeoff: If you charge once per month from 10% to 90%, that's 60 kWh

So saving 1p per kWh would be 60p/month of savings. If the standing charge is <2p more expensive, you will be better off. If the standing charge is >2p more expensive, you will be worse off

If you charge twice per month, the break-even point is 4kWh. In general, with an EV, you want the lowest possible unit rate unless it bumps the standing charge massively

In fact, in general you want the lowest possible unit rate anyway... the above calculation assumes that you're only looking for your EV, but if you include your whole home then you probably need to save more than 10p in standing charge before you'd accept a 1p increase in unit rate in exchange

 

[Mr Miserable]

There are only 365 days in the year. .

I've just done a count and I come up with 366.

 

[LukeUK]

I've just done a count and I come up with 366.

D'oh, okay, I should have added 'usually'!

 

[gidster99]

I have also looked into this quite a lot... And it really depends on your other electricity usage...

Someone who normally uses (say) 6,000 KwH of electricity a year, and who would use 3,000 additional KwH a year through charging their EV may well benefit a lot more than someone who uses (say) 12,000 KwH before the EV, and whose limited miles mean the EV would only add, say, 2,000 KwH per year... Whilst you may be getting a great EV charging overnight rate, from what I have seen, the normal (ie everything other than the middle of the night rate) is more expensive.

So all that is a long way of saying know what your usage is right now, and what it will move to with the EV and then do your maths!

 

[Mr Miserable]

I don't know whether this will work, but here goes....
I did a spreadsheet in October to give me a rough idea of the figures involved.
Hopefully I can share it here
Just input your tariff and estimated usage in the orange shaded area.
if it works, I'll update the available tariffs.