Octopus energy

Stu · Oct 22, 2024

Omega said:
I don't think you can power the house with Leaf though... It will require modifications that may invalidate some warranties...

With the Indira and Quasar Chademo kits you definitely can - they're V2H, so exactly what it's designed to do.
Very expensive to install though. I believe they're setup so that you can't put it back into the grid too - so effectively, you cut yourself off from the grid when you're using.

AlBrew · Oct 22, 2024

Agentgonzo said:
We have solar panels and a battery. I run a home assistant server that gets the forecast for agile (variable) electricity rates a day in advance and so intelligently schedules charging the battery at the cheapest rates overnight. This evening is going to fill the battery at 6p/kWh.

Even if you don't run home assistant, there are internet services that can do this for you for a couple of pounds a month and control your battery.

Even with the days getting shorter at the moment, my electricity bill is negative (I make money) for an average day.

Ditto, have you had to go down the Node Red route for the automations?

AlBrew · Oct 22, 2024

Omega said:
Cool! I am calling Octopus on Monday to find out about this tariff - I charge Tesla PowerWall at night for 15 p/kWh (nice to see that the battery is quite smart - it checks the weather and charges full battery when the forecast is very cloudy weather, but does a bit if the forecast is good sunny day). My tariff looks rubbish when compared to yours

I now have second thoughts - when is such a low price? Probably when the generation is the highest like very sunny day. Well, I need to dump the energy when it is sunny and if the export tariff is not great then I might be losing more than I gain. My Tesla Powerwall 2 is about 15 kWh, while my usage is 15-22 kWh/day, plus the lowest power generation is about 1-2 kWh in winter days, but rarely falls below 5 kWh (last December was very cloudy though, I think I generated 143 kWh in that month. My conclusion is that similar December would cost me circa £70 in energy now

The standard Octopus export tarrif is 15ppkWh at any time of the day, this can be combined with the Go or Intellegent Go tariff as follows:

22ppkWh peak (5:30am-11:30pm)
7ppkWh off peak (11:30pm-5:30am)
Export @ 15ppkWh 24/7

So if you're lucky enough to have solar and batteries and you still load shift into the off peak period you can:

Cover all peak usage with batteries/solar (nothing consumed at 22ppkWh)
Export most of the solar
Charge the batteries at off peak and sell it all during peak
Have fun messing around optimising all of the above

A smart meter is key to most of this, as is the additional personal setup metering that comes with the solar and battery setup.

The fluctuations in our energy usage, as a nation not just domestic consumers, mean there are not insignificant savings to be had by smoothing the whole thing out as has been said before. Smart meters help with this. Fear mongering around smart meters doesn't.

Agentgonzo · Oct 22, 2024

AlBrew said:
Ditto, have you had to go down the Node Red route for the automations?

No. I never really looked into node red. It seemed like a visualisation for automations (and a klunky one at that) so never really bothered.

There is also predbat, but that looks like a complex install.

So i just created a few basic automations to charge/not charge as I saw fit and that does the job:
* A manual "charge right now" option
* A charge of the cost of electricity falls below <my input parameter>
* A simple calculation using the octopus and solcast add-ons to go "current battery charge - expected use in next day (8kwh) + expected charge tomorrow" in kWh to decide how much extra charge needed to meet 90% battery by 4pm, then set that as the charge time in the octopus integration to charge during the cheapest windows for that time

For me, that's "fun tinkering".

AlBrew · Oct 22, 2024

Agentgonzo said:
No. I never really looked into node red. It seemed like a visualisation for automations (and a klunky one at that) so never really bothered.

There is also predbat, but that looks like a complex install.

So i just created a few basic automations to charge/not charge as I saw fit and that does the job:
* A manual "charge right now" option
* A charge of the cost of electricity falls below <my input parameter>
* A simple calculation using the octopus and solcast add-ons to go "current battery charge - expected use in next day (8kwh) + expected charge tomorrow" in kWh to decide how much extra charge needed to meet 90% battery by 4pm, then set that as the charge time in the octopus integration to charge during the cheapest windows for that time

For me, that's "fun tinkering".

I setup a simple one to disable battery Export when the Tesla API indicated car charging.

Tried to get a node red flow setup in conjunction with home assistant to estimate the house usage * hours remaining to off peak / current remaining battery capacity to give me an optimum time to start discharge to fully depleate the batteries by 11:30pm ready to start charging again at off peak. Went to pot when I had a fault on one of the batteries however. That's fixed now but I was looking at predbat as a possibly simpler way.

Sorry Chippy, I realise this has strayed a little from dodgy wiring! I'll start a new "How's your batteries doing" thread when I have an update.

Omega · Oct 23, 2024

AlBrew said:
The standard Octopus export tarrif is 15ppkWh at any time of the day, this can be combined with the Go or Intellegent Go tariff as follows:

22ppkWh peak (5:30am-11:30pm)
7ppkWh off peak (11:30pm-5:30am)
Export @ 15ppkWh 24/7

So if you're lucky enough to have solar and batteries and you still load shift into the off peak period you can:

Cover all peak usage with batteries/solar (nothing consumed at 22ppkWh)
Export most of the solar
Charge the batteries at off peak and sell it all during peak
Have fun messing around optimising all of the above

A smart meter is key to most of this, as is the additional personal setup metering that comes with the solar and battery setup.

The fluctuations in our energy usage, as a nation not just domestic consumers, mean there are not insignificant savings to be had by smoothing the whole thing out as has been said before. Smart meters help with this. Fear mongering around smart meters doesn't.

Octopus Go is for owners of electric cars - I just checked with Octopus. So, unfortunately, it won’t work for me
It looks like Flux is the best in my case as I export almost 4 times more energy than I buy from the grid, so export tariff matters most to me, it works out more money vs Agile even if I get lots of free electricity

Omega · Oct 23, 2024

I have an interesting observation - my energy use is falling as we get to colder times. Yes, there is less sun, but I also don’t run air conditioners during the night and don’t heat above ground folding swimming pool. As a result, it looks like I can stay whole day discharging my battery and, if the day was cloudy, I charge back 100% during the night or it soaks in solar energy. So, I am nearly always buy at the lowest price or nothing at all
Two more months to the darkest day and then things will start brighten up again

Stu · Oct 23, 2024

AlBrew said:
The standard Octopus export tarrif is 15ppkWh at any time of the day, this can be combined with the Go or Intellegent Go tariff as follows:

22ppkWh peak (5:30am-11:30pm)
7ppkWh off peak (11:30pm-5:30am)
Export @ 15ppkWh 24/7

So if you're lucky enough to have solar and batteries and you still load shift into the off peak period you can:

Cover all peak usage with batteries/solar (nothing consumed at 22ppkWh)
Export most of the solar
Charge the batteries at off peak and sell it all during peak
Have fun messing around optimising all of the above

A smart meter is key to most of this, as is the additional personal setup metering that comes with the solar and battery setup.

The fluctuations in our energy usage, as a nation not just domestic consumers, mean there are not insignificant savings to be had by smoothing the whole thing out as has been said before. Smart meters help with this. Fear mongering around smart meters doesn't.

I've always wondered. This is considerably more than my FIT. Which feeds into Octopus.
Could I opt out of FIT?

AlBrew · Oct 23, 2024

Stu said:
I've always wondered. This is considerably more than my FIT. Which feeds into Octopus.
Could I opt out of FIT?

Not sure, your FIT pays you for generation and export is either "deemed" or metered, if it's the old deemed (3.5ppkWh when I had it) you may be able to get a proper export tarrif if you have a smart meter. Worth speaking to Octopus.

Leon103 · Oct 23, 2024

Omega said:
Octopus Go is for owners of electric cars - I just checked with Octopus. So, unfortunately, it won’t work for me
It looks like Flux is the best in my case as I export almost 4 times more energy than I buy from the grid, so export tariff matters most to me, it works out more money vs Agile even if I get lots of free electricity

Just tell them you have a electric car, they don't check

AlBrew · Oct 23, 2024

Leon103 said:
Just tell them you have a electric car, they don't check

It's true, they don't check, or didn't. Tell them you have a Cybertruck on order if they ask, should be about 2030 before you have to prove it

Brew_DD2 · Oct 23, 2024

I've certainly never been asked to prove it. Not sure what difference it would make to them anyway. If you don't have one it's a more expensive tariff during the day, and very few other activities overnight would make it a worthwhile tariff.

Omega · Oct 29, 2024

They “check” it by asking to connect the car. And try pushing to Intelligent Octopus Go and this requires changing the smart meter. Well, I don’t mind changing the existing smart meter to a smarter version

Brew_DD2 · Oct 29, 2024

Omega said:
They “check” it by asking to connect the car. And try pushing to Intelligent Octopus Go and this requires changing the smart meter. Well, I don’t mind changing the existing smart meter to a smarter version

Neither of those things has happened to me. If anything I've been pushing them to make my car/charger compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go.

Omega · Oct 29, 2024

Brew_DD2 said:
Neither of those things has happened to me. If anything I've been pushing them to make my car/charger compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go.

I spoke to Octopus - they asked me to apply again and said I don’t need to replace the meter either. They suspect this happened because I chose Intelligent Go Export, and they don’t have this tariff in the UK…

Omega · Oct 29, 2024

An update - Intelligent Octopus Go is asking car registration... And there are a few awkward questions

Brew_DD2 · Oct 30, 2024

Omega said:
An update - Intelligent Octopus Go is asking car registration... And there are a few awkward questions
View attachment 105283
View attachment 105284

They need to know that stuff for the Intelligent one for compatibility reasons. Standard Octopus Go doesn't need to know any of that.

Kerby · Oct 30, 2024

Omega said:
An update - Intelligent Octopus Go is asking car registration... And there are a few awkward questions
View attachment 105283
View attachment 105284

They’re the questions that I was asked. They wouldn’t complete the switch until they had confirmed a quick test charge of the car too.

Kerby · Oct 30, 2024

Brew_DD2 said:
They need to know that stuff for the Intelligent one for compatibility reasons. Standard Octopus Go doesn't need to know any of that.

Just clocked your reply. Ignore me Omega, I’m on intelligent (oh the irony)

Omega · Nov 23, 2024

Thank you, everyone - I got to Octopus Go tariff

There will be free energy on Sunday, I guess I will miss it as I don't want to mess with my Tesla setup or getting up early

On Sunday, the early bird gets the Free Electricity: start your Sunday the right way. A cosy brew, a hearty fry-up, and a DOUBLE DOSE of free power!

Use more power on Sunday 24 November: 7-9am
During that time, you'll only pay for the electricity you'd normally use at this time. Any extra you use will be completely free! See our FAQs for more info.

You don't need to opt in, or do anything else: just get ready to power up.
Heads up: 1-2 weeks after the event you'll be able to check your Free Electricity credits on your Octoplus dashboard!

I'm on Intelligent Octopus Go, how does this work with my EV charging?
Your Intelligent schedules always charge you at the best times for the grid, and Saturday night is full of spare, green power, so if you want to make sure you charge during the free time on Sunday, it's best to bump charge.
Share on social tagging #FreeElectricity to show us how you're switching on this Sunday and making the most of the green energy surplus.

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