With that in mind, the Octopus Agile tariff has really piqued my interest in time of use tariffs using Smart Meters.
Whilst you could grab bits and pieces of historical data from Octopus about ‘Agile’ it was a bit limited. ie it didn’t show all DNO areas and wasn’t complete back to Feb 2018.
So i’ve written a few scripts and pulled all the data in to one place.
All 30 minute data from all 14 DNOs going to back to the first day of the Agile tariff (Feb 19th 2018).
The data also updates at 5pm each day after Octopus have released their next day’s figures.
I’ve then layered Grafana graphs on top so you can visualise the data yourself on my new website.
Plus, there is a Google Spreadsheet with all the historical data on.
I would be interested in people’s thoughts on the project.
What could be done better?
What else would people like to see in terms of graphs?
Is this stuff useful?
I’m hoping to expand the project into their GO tariff as well as their new Agile Export figures too.
Most interesting to me is to see the period over which the rates are ‘extortionate’ (not really, just very high). It seems to be from 1530 to 1830 each day. So one thing that would be interesting is to see whether that also holds true at other times of the year. e.g. winter.
If it does, or nearly so, then it opens the possibility of an interesting strategy. In our house, all the demand during that peak period is essentially from the kitchen. So a batttery-backup that was able to meet the kitchen load might be interesting - perhaps a UPS?
The whole premise of the tariff is that 4pm to 7pm peak pricing which they base on usage and wholesale prices. Thus, they pass the cost on to you.
The data is in half hour periods, is 16:00 on the chart is 16:00 to 16:30, 16:30 is 16:30 to 17:00 etc.
But with solar and/or battery as well as tailored household usage i’m sure you could avoid that period.
The 4pm to 7pm is a daily peak throughout the season on every day. You can see from the year long graph the minimum, average and maximum price each day.
Interesting, overnight last night Agile had a low of 3.11p per unit. It was no higher than 6p from midnight through to 6am, then 7p through the most of today.
I think alongside a small battery to get you over the 4pm to 7pm (20p to 23p per unit today) period if solar can’t cover it, this could be a decent option for many people?
It’s interesting. We’re on an E7 tariff and it’s clear the dip in the half-hour prices pretty much matches the E7 period. The 7p through most of the day is cheaper than our tariff but then we don’t pay it since we have PV.
Our problem with the 1600-1700 period is that that’s when we cook dinner most days and we’re an all-electric household. So it’s a fairly inflexible demand. Definitely too high a power for our solar to provide, and would demand too great a lifestyle change to timeshift or otherwise alter the consumption.
I’d have thought there was an opportunity for somebody to peak-shave that demand period with some kind of storage mechanism, but I suppose it would be competing against people just spinning up CCGT units or even diesel generators, which must be fairly cheap.
I’ve added a simple single page showing what the Go tariff looks like in graph form as well as the current “out of the 5p four hour slot” pricing across the UK.
Thanks for the link to your website. This is really useful as I was talking to Octopus energy at the Fully Charged Show and I was anticipating having to travel through data to work out what the tariff was like historically. If I switch I’ll use your referral code.
New Website Update - Octopus Outgoing / Export tariff historical and current data.
This data is just what those Solar PV owners have been waiting for.
Discussion points and my notes/thoughts for Octopus Outgoing Export Tariffs
Their fixed 5.5p per kWh fixed outgoing is a 2.2% increase over current Feed in Tariff (FIT) based 5.38p.
These Outgoing tariffs only replace the ‘export’ element of the FIT. Your generation payments will still come from your registered FIT supplier.
Both Fixed and Agile Outgoing are “actual” export rather than “deemed” 50% as per FIT.
You are likely better to stay put on deemed 50% if your export less than 50% of what you generate. ie, if you have immersion diversion, EV or other high daytime usage.
If you export more than 50% of what you generate the maths suggest you’d be better off on an ‘actual’ export tariff. The could well be the case with larger Solar installs.
Octopus add credit to your bill each day for your exports. Assuming you spend more on “inbound” energy than you earn on “outbound” they’ll aim to set direct debits at a level consistent with the estimated annual net amount. If you’re in credit you can withdraw at will online. (From Octopus CEO)
In comparison current FIT payments are usually every 3 months.
You need to be on an Octopus import tariff to have one of their export tariffs.
It will be very interesting to see the Agile Outgoing price through the winter months. The outgoing tariffs only started on 19th May 2019, so we have little historical data to analyse.
Whilst its easy to claim 11p per unit and above between 4pm and 7pm during the summer because of late sunset times, its going to be impossible through the winter months with 4pm sunsets.
Moving to Octopus requires a 12 month commitment for FIT payments. This is across the board, you can only move FIT supplier once a year.
But this does not apply to ‘export’ supplier. You can move when you want. Plus, you can freely move between Fixed and Agile Outgoing / Export plans once with Octopus.
So maybe there is opportunity to crunch the numbers to see if Fixed or Agile are better suited at different times of the year?
Will the Octopus Fixed Outgoing tariff increase with inflation as per the current FIT rewards?
The FAQ says there is nothing stopping you charging a battery using Solar during the day for free then selling back that energy between 4pm and 7pm for 11p+.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m using Grafana functionality to display, so i’m bound by what they provide unfortunately. I definitely don’t have the expertise to create my own graph code.
Here’s how to pan and/or zoom a Grafana graph. HTH.
To zoom out, use ctrl-z or tz
To bring up the keyboard shortcut list use shift-?
If you type gh (Go to Home dashboard) on the Half hour pricing for the last 7 days dashboard (you can “go home” on any of the graphs, I picked this one at random) then click on the time window button (in this instance it’s labeled last 6 hours) you get a screen similar to this:
Several time window presets are available, as is the ability to pan the graph forward,
as well as backward, along the timeline.
Select a graph to dsiplay by clicking on its name. (left side of window)
(In this instance, the list of graph names is scrollable)
After the graph appears, you can pan it by clicking on the magnifying glass icon.
The time window button and label will change their appearance and look similar to this:
Clicking the “arrows” at the left and right ends of the time window button will pan the graph.
Interesting update for those with older installations.
I asked Octopus the following:
"Another question about Outgoing tariffs. There are two FIT export tariffs dependant on install date.
April 2010 to 30 July 2012: 3.82p
On or after 1 August 2012: 5.38p
Can pre-July 2012 installs join Outgoing? Do they get 5.5p per kWh / Agile pricing?"
Their reply was:
Ok, those are the FiT rates you’ve quoted there. Outgoing has just the two rates. You can switch to Outgoing (either 5.5 or Agile version) irrespective of which FiT rate you have. Hope that helps - but do drop us a DM / message if you have any questions & we can go through everything.
Unfortunately I’ve been told by Octopus there isn’t the coverage in my area for a smart meter. No idea what the timeline is for the roll out? Not holding my breath though.
The Octopus GO tariff is very attractive - 5p per kWh between 00:30am and 04:30am.
That’s great for EV charging and if you’re thinking of investing in a battery.
And clearly it requires a smart meter to be fitted.
Be warned however - smart meters are not available for 3 phase supplies - a minority of domestic users maybe but also micro businesses (up to 10 employees).
I’ve complained to OFGEM and am awaiting their response.
Will post any update when I hear from them.
I’m on the waiting list for the SMETS2 smart meter before I can move to Agile. So in the meantime i’m on one of their basic/standard tariffs. Yep, its slightly more expensive in the short term.
But the £50 joining credit more than covers that whilst I wait for the Smart Meter install.
CEO Greg Jackson provided an update on meter rollouts.
