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Energy crisis has tripled my Octopus Go charges

14K views 75 replies 20 participants last post by  rsg444 
#1 ·
Unfortunate timing. I was due to come off my fixed rate Octopus Go at the end of September. The new rates proposed by Octopus are effectively triple the rates I was paying on the old tariff.

Just wondering if anyone else has hit the same cliff edge and worked out how to make the best of a bad situation?
 
#2 ·
Not yet (I have till June before I'm affected) but am planning ahead.

Obviously look at price comparison sites - making sure to use actual consumption for last 12 months rather than their 'estimate'.
Look here (or Google) for other EV-friendly tariffs
(Re)consider batteries : the off-peak prices seem to be staying the same for the time being; it's only the other 20/19 hrs that are shooting up.
 
#6 ·
Wouldn't it be great if we had a reliable way of predicting what may happen in a few weeks, or month's time?

I'm pondering about the wisdom of always looking for the cheapest price for energy, TBH. It seems to me that it's this "race to the bottom" that has caused 29 energy suppliers to go bust here since the start of privatisation, and 7 to go bust so far this year, with probably more to come. I can't help wondering if there is some merit in accepting a slightly higher tariff in return for a lower risk of getting caught out by a supplier failing.

Last time we got caught out, we overpaid by around £800 to the new supplier, that took around 6 months to get most of it back, and I just wrote off the best part of ~£200 that wasn't forthcoming after nearly a year of doing battle over it, as the stress was getting to me. I doubt our situation was unique, either. Perhaps it's worth paying, say, £50 to £100 a year more just to have better supplier security?

It may be fun tracking half hourly changes in pricing, and seeing the big savings that can be had for a few hours, but does that offset the stress caused when it all goes horribly wrong?
 
#7 ·
Wouldn't it be great if we had a reliable way of predicting what may happen in a few weeks, or month's time?

I'm pondering about the wisdom of always looking for the cheapest price for energy, TBH. It seems to me that it's this "race to the bottom" that has caused 29 energy suppliers to go bust here since the start of privatisation, and 7 to go bust so far this year, with probably more to come. I can't help wondering if there is some merit in accepting a slightly higher tariff in return for a lower risk of getting caught out by a supplier failing.

Last time we got caught out, we overpaid by around £800 to the new supplier, that took around 6 months to get most of it back, and I just wrote off the best part of ~£200 that wasn't forthcoming after nearly a year of doing battle over it, as the stress was getting to me. I doubt our situation was unique, either. Perhaps it's worth paying, say, £50 to £100 a year more just to have better supplier security?

It may be fun tracking half hourly changes in pricing, and seeing the big savings that can be had for a few hours, but does that offset the stress caused when it all goes horribly wrong?
Sadly it's never that simple.
There is just no guarantee that paying more will mean your supplier won't go under.

Hopefully Octopus will survive and I'd be sorry to see them fail, given the great prices & service I've had. (I gather your experience wasn't so positive?)
 
#8 ·
So wholesale energy costs have increased a lot.
Do you want your supplier to go bust or do you accept that it's going to cost more ,( give or take contract expiry and timing).
Is this a case of King Canute with all of us powerless to hold back the tide of increasing energy costs?
I guess what we can influence over the long term is the way we consume energy, eg by building better homes, improving the one we have, switching to electric etc.
 
#9 ·
Unfortunate timing. I was due to come off my fixed rate Octopus Go at the end of September. The new rates proposed by Octopus are effectively triple the rates I was paying on the old tariff.
Not sure how you get to "triple" ?

Old Go rates (till July) were I believe 25ppd SC, 5ppu for 4 hours & 13.5ppu for the other 20h (East Midlands rates but nowhere was more than a couple of pence dearer)

AIUI, SC & offpeak rate remain same but peak rates have gone up but not to as much as 39ppu. And of course the trick is to use as high a proportion as possible during the offpeak hours
 
#38 ·
Not sure how you get to "triple" ?

Old Go rates (till July) were I believe 25ppd SC, 5ppu for 4 hours & 13.5ppu for the other 20h (East Midlands rates but nowhere was more than a couple of pence dearer)
I was quoted in the covering email the same rates shown in another post further down:
Daily standing charge 24.1p per day
Unit rate (day) 29.05p/kWh
Unit rate (night) 15.84p/kWh
Just looking at the night rate, to keep it simple, that's 3x the 5p previous rate.

Doing some more web research it is clear, as others have said, the web info is not sufficiently up to date.

Given the wholesale increase is not the fault of Octopus, I am not blaming them or even criticising them. On the contrary, they seem to be well managed and properly hedged for their liabilities. I just wanted to share information to see what others are doing as their renewal occurs. What is Octopus Go 'flexible' - when does it change and where can I see the latest rates when it does change? I cannot find an answer to that. Would it be better to switch to Octopus Agile? I can't see any recent data on how that compares. But maybe others have found the right place to look.
 
#13 ·
At the moment I'm confused too!
I'm on Octopus Go until mid November.
Those are the rates that they quoted for me after then.
On their website they're quoting 24.25p/kWh normal and 5p/kWh cheap rate (00:30 to 04:30)
They've also allowed me to change my tariff to the above rates with effect from midnight.
 
#14 ·
One problem I've found today is that a lot of the published rates are way out. Not sure why, but I was a bit surprised to find that British Gas seemed to offer the best deal for us, if our supplier was to go bust (seems possible, perhaps even probable) according to their published tariff, and I really do not believe that's the case at all. I don't think that tariffs are being updated, especially by some of the sites that get data from many suppliers and make it available for comparison. I am pretty sure that some suppliers have just stopped updating prices, as they are no longer accepting new customers.
 
#15 ·
Well I am buggered I think……read our leccy and gas meters today as requested and blow me down the gas meter is reading exactly the same as last months reading! Bit disconcerting as we have started using the boiler for hot water and heating two weeks ago (we literally use almost no gas during the summer)…….I fear our meter is busted……here we go, I expect they will want to charge us a guesstimate now.
 
#19 ·
It looks like flat rate electricity prices are heading for 25-28p/kWh and gas to around 8p/kWh based on rates I’m seeing across the board for my area just now. Seems likely we are going to see a winter of real hardship for the less well off. How families on UC or pensioners stick on the state pension will cope is beyond me.

With electricity at those sorts of rates I’m looking at an annual bill of approx. £5k now. Even if I successfully manage to transfer to Neon Reef (my cheapest option when I tried to switch recently) my fuel costs increase by 50%, and presumably they are at significant risk of folding too before very long unless they have successfully hedged against the wholesale rates currently being seen in the energy markets.
 
#23 ·
Even if I successfully manage to transfer to Neon Reef
Neon Reef are a sister company to Utility Point, sharing the same dodgy directors. I’ve read elsewhere that Utility Point were shadily transferring accounts to Neon Reef before their demise, but I don’t know how true that is.

something posted in another thread suggested that a fixed term tariff could be increased beyond the price cap, whereas a standard variable tariff was limited by that cap.
If you are referring to my post on that other thread Jeremy, please allow me to clarify.

The SVR tariffs are indeed subject to the price cap because they are the default tariff which a client is moved onto once any fixed price deal has ended. New fixed rates tariffs are not subject to the price cap because a customer chooses to sign up to one of those.

If you are already on a fixed price tariff then it cannot be increased until the term has ended but the supplier can offer a new fixed price tariff which is above the price cap.

Hope that helps.
 
#20 ·
Neon Reef are definitely on what I would call the "at risk" register, it seems. Several sources are suggesting they may be the next small supplier to fail, so it may be worth sitting tight.

Having a fixed rate tariff, for a defined term, seems not to be any sort of reliable hedge against being hit with higher prices, even if your supplier remains in business, according to someone else on this forum, which seems odd to me. I thought the whole point of a fixed term deal was to remove the risk of the price going up, as long as the supplier stayed in business.
 
#30 · (Edited)
Unlike other energy companies, Octopus does not impose a fee (usually £30) to switch tariffs. It is hard to know which way to go to stay ahead of the current dramatic increase in prices, but Octopus appear to have acted very fairly.
Let's hope the influx of Avro customers does not affect us adversely...
Look on the bright side, none of us has had to queue for fuel over the last few days :)
 
#32 ·
I just wonder how long the present price cap can last. Ofgem published its review from 1 October on 6 August, During July the price wobbled around 90p a Therm (approx 30 kWh) going over 100p on 25th July. Their crystal ball could not have foreseen a rise to 228 p today, That is over 100% rise in 2 months, and no apparent hesitation in the market but continual upward trend every day. I have taken the price from the BBC web site on gas futures, no reference to the settlement date but even the best hedged businesses are going to have to come to terms with these prices at some point? Greg at Octopus has said they are well hedged, given that the business is owned by a big investment house they must have access to good advice but if the price of gas continues to rise or stabilise at say 250p that is over 8p a kWh wholesale…. 10 to 12p retail?

Insulate Britain can give up their protest, the market will have done their job for them.

And I made the mistake of looking up the revised price for Go on Monday last week and found that I actually renewed my contract that was due to end in January at 15.59p the day before it went up by 8p. Lucky me and my new heat pump!
 
#34 ·
But probably impossible. There aren’t enough jack up boats to install the stuff, and the Far East is racing to install offshore wind. Even coal burning Australia is getting into offshore wind. We have up yo 20 GW ready to go now but for a nimby in Norfolk holding up about 5 GW because of traffic in his village needed to install the on shore cable! Hope he doesn’t have any petrol!
 
#41 ·
If I may summarise my position and knowledge. Late yesterday I changed my tariff to 'Octopus Go September 2021 v2', 5 p/kWh night (4h), 24.25 p/kWh peak. I was formerly approx 13 p/kWh peak. I kind of did this in a bit of a befuddled state but it seems I got lucky. At the time, this tariff was available on their website and I was able to move to it. It no longer seems to be available.
I called Octopus this afternoon and, after a recording told me that they were 'well hedged', got through to a person much quicker than expected. He initially began by confirming the rates I quoted above (#10) were their best new rates. I asked him to check what I was on and he then confirmed that I had moved to the new tariff, with the rates as above and was on them for a year (here's hoping they do have a good hedge). So basically, I've accepted higher rates than I'm now on for 1½ months in exchange for 10½ months on a much cheaper than I was set to get.
So my 'knowledge' (please do check and verify) is that Go is no longer available. Had I done nothing, I'd have gone to the rates in post #10.
 
#42 ·
I think it's becoming clear that getting hold of the actual tariff rates from suppliers now is getting to be a bit challenging. It seems that some are not updating their own tariffs on their websites, and many of the sites that collect tariff information from many suppliers, to make it easier to compare, are now giving inaccurate prices.

I've been keeping a running spreadsheet of Economy 7 tariffs for a few years now, and update it every few months, using data directly from suppliers (mainly because I've found the comparison sites to often fail to give the best deal). Over the past few days I've really struggled to get hold of accurate tariff data, even when I've gone through the quote process. This morning, for example, I obtained three quotes, and all three gave tariff prices that didn't match those published on their sites for this region. I can only assume that things are changing too rapidly for them to keep up.
 
#46 · (Edited)
When I checked this morning they only offered me two 24m contracts at around 18p off peak, 28p day which means my bill will increase from £35/month to about £90.

I'm hoping that the rates will have dropped by January after the connection to France has been repaired and the wind turbines earn their keep.
 
#59 ·
There could be hope that electricity prices will start to fall starting next year. 1) There is a move to rejoin the European electricity market which we left post Brexit at the beginning of the year, 2) The renewable energy sector, wind power, looks as though it might get a huge boost from the leasing of Scottish waters. And the new cfd auctions which the industry and government agree needs to change, will be not be caped on the limit of wind farms permitted, 3) the Norwegian interconnector is now in service.

I don’t understand why leaving the European electricity market made a difference but it did because our buying goes through 2 processes not just one…. New wind power may seem a long way off and as pressurized states intermittency is a problem but the fertiliser industry and hydrogen industry are happy to live with that for the cheap power they will get. So building over capacity is not an expensive waste particularly as we will also be sharing more power going out of the UK over more interconnectors to help with intermittency in Europe. And just 1 GW from Norway will help to remove the pinch points in our grid, time difference in consumption and their over capacity in the spring when the snow melts will help next year. In addition 3 GW of new offshore wind farms will join the grid, 1.5 GW in the next 2 months and 1.5 GW next Spring. The French interconnectors will be back on line too.

As for the last few days wind has been producing around 10 GW reducing gas generation to between 3 and 9 GW. The element of expensive gas powered electricity production is around 25% so that combined wholesale electricity price should fall?

And whilst new wind has taken six years or so to come on stream, new technology might reduce that. The 3 Dogger Bank wind farms, A, B and Sofia have broken ground and despite 2 different owners are working collaboratively to save money and time. Using big turbines 290 will produce almost 4 GW and should come on line during 2024/5. Sea Green which is largely being built without a cfd will bring 1.1 GW to the grid in 2023. And there is so much waiting in the wings for the Scottish and English auctions now taking place.

What has amazed me is that the industry has got fascinating new tools to get on with the work now it is no longer in the experimental phase. Unmanned boats ply the seas to map the seabed and help plan the layout of wind farms. Planes fly in formation to carry out ornitholigical and mammal surveys to get results in a much shorter and inexpensive way. Fewer larger turbines save time and money in construction and floating planned for Scottish waters can be built in quiet waters and towed en-masse into location in good weather. I do think that the present price hike for electricity will be fairly short lived. The strike price for new wind is likely to be at or below 4p a kWh.
 
#60 ·
As for the last few days wind has been producing around 10 GW reducing gas generation to between 3 and 9 GW. The element of expensive gas powered electricity production is around 25% so that combined wholesale electricity price should fall?
I don't think Octopus have noticed that yet ! Although no longer on Agile, I still check their prices occasionally and from now till 8:30pm they're all at 34.997ppl !
 
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