I think Octopus Go is now called Flexible, my Go cheap rate was 5p/kWh, now its 16p/kWh, I've seen BG has a cheap rate of 12p/kWh not sure what their day rate is though.

 

Octopus Go is still called Go and has a night time rate of 12p/kWh for four hours. The day rate varies by region and for Yorkshire is 40.23p/kWh. It is now a variable tariff and the rates will change in April in line with changes in the price cap. You need an EV to be eligible. Their other EV tariff is Intelligent Octopus which gives at least 6 hours per night cheap rate at 10p/kWh and the same peak rate as Go. You need either an Ohme charger or a compatible car (Tesla and a few others) for this because Octopus need to be able to control the car charging.

Flexible is Octopus's standard variable tariff. If you have a cheaper overnight rate then this will be Economy 7 version. The Yorkshire flexible rates are 33.01p/kWh for the single rate version or 43.47p peak rate and 18.06p/kWh cheap rate for Economy 7. If you can get Go then this would look like a better option than Economy 7 at these prices.

Octopus Tracker has a rate which changes every day in line with wholesale prices. Today's price of Yorkshire is 24.8p and it has been below the Flexible rate for the whole of 2023 (Octopus Energy latest Tracker prices for Yorkshire). This tariff is capped at £1/kWh and gets the government subsidy if the price goes above 34p/kWh (based on the current price cap). This looks like a good option to me at the moment - you would need to use more than 50% of your electricity during the Go cheap rate before Go was cheaper. Octopus allow you to move tariff without penalty so you can move if the Tracker rates get too high.

Agile has rates which vary every 30 minutes based on wholesale prices. The rate is reduced by the government subsidy. Prices at the moment are higher than the Tracker rates and you'd need to be able to move your consumption in line with the rates in order to make the most out of Agile, so it doesn't look a good option to me at the moment.

 

I suppose I would start by looking at my last month “Go” bill and understanding what my Average price was and what that would be at the new 12p/ 4?p rate

Depends on off peak use but I sispect would still be under the tracker

And of course ‘Go’ is no longer a fixed tariff, so you could swap again when your car goes back

 

Of all the old ToU tariffs only E7, plain Go, and Intelligent survived. Cosy Octopus has joined them. They are all variable tariffs for now, to comply with the EPG requirements, and likely will remain so until 1 July.

There is the BG rate, which is quite low off-peak, but the peak was higher. IO is 10p/kWh off-peak. Of course if ToU doesn't work Tracker is and will likely remain the best Octopus offering for the near term.

 

We are currently finding that Agile is cheaper than Go have a look at the difference, I use the Octopus Compare app which helps

 

Right now Tracker is a better deal than Agile. At the current price point the tracker method generally works out better. You need the cheapest 1/2-hour to be less than 60% of the average + about £34 (/MWh) on the wholesale market for Agile to come out ahead on any given day. With the loss of 4 nuclear reactors we just aren’t getting that in-day variability. That may change going forward, but for the next few weeks it is unlikely to do so regularly.

 

Where will go be after April ? 16p / 42p

 

1-April will be an interesting decision point for Octopus. If the OFGEM price cap drops to ~£3,250 and the EPG rises to £3,000, that is a much smaller difference than we have right now (~£4,300 vs £2,500).

It really depends on how the 'wholesale cost' as determined by OFGEM falls going forwards as compared to where the price cap is. The wholesale portion of the price cap will drop quite a bit from 1-April, as the prices have been falling across the window and the rise in December wasn't that high compared to the starting prices. We are currently at £393.25/MWh on the cap, down from £480 at the peak, but the wholesale side has dropped from near £540 in December to £163 now. Given the rate of decrease on the wholesale side has decelerated and the futures are catching up the absolute value of the MSC is decreasing, it was near £74/MWh in early Jan and is now <£54/MWh. With the change in EPG subsidy point it might make sense to offer a fixed rate Go from 1-April (especially with entry restrictions). This isn't the case now as the loss of subsidy and MSC are ruinous. As long as Go is to be EPG subsidised it would have to rise in concert with the EPG rise.

 

my EV lease runs out in September and thinking about returning to dino juice we have LPG gas central heating and no room on the roof for solar

Huh?

 

Some people have been warning not to rely on cheap rates staying at 5p forever and they've been proven right, as some were considering investing in batteries with 10 year ROI's at 5p.

The more EV's and heat pumps join the crowds, the more night charging and heating, the more likely night time could become the new peak time.

Here's why. If 1 out of 3 cars in the UK were to be an EV (or 10 millions EV's) and they were to be plugged in and charging at 7kW at the same time, the power required would be equal to the entire installed generation capacity of the UK at 70GW.

We are only few years away from a major energy bottleneck and there's no way we can build up the renewable energy capacity let alone conventional powerplant capacity to match a total transition to EV's unless a very aggressive approach is taken.

 

Well…..when exactly do you think that 1 in 3 cars on the road will be EV?

&

Why does your view differ from the experts at National Grid?

( asking for a friend)

 

my current tariff is 5.5p off-peak and 13.8p peak, off-peak 20.30 to 0130 that is moving to 0030 to 0430 so i have to shift all my heavy usage to later.
So the car is not a problem I just move the deferred charge schedule .
emersion heater is on a timer so will need to change that.
12kw electric shower is a problem who wants to shower in the middle of the night?
tumble dryer is a problem who wants to dry clothes in the middle of the night?
dish washer, washer dryer, cooker,shower will all need to be run at peak rate.
not looking forward to march when my rate changes.

 

Yep, even with 6 hours of IO it's dire compared to Go Faster

 

Well, a “wild guess” of 10 years regarding the potential feasability of ToU tariffs .

&

The grid capacity FUD is based on the spewings of an Investment Banker in his own company’s magazine…….

So the OP, @CHR1SG , was asking the forum for suggestions as to what he might do in the next month or so regarding his tariff, ………… any suggestions?

 

So the OP, @CHR1SG , was asking the forum for suggestions as to what he might do in the next month or so regarding his tariff, ………… any suggestions?

Only he can work that out as we don't know anything about how much electricity he uses. At a guess, if he keeps an EV then Go could be better if he does a lot of EV miles. Otherwise tracker looks the best choice. Either way, things are likely to change and fortunately Octopus don't have exit penalties so it's no big issue if you get it wrong.

 

If wifey used the free charging at work I'd drop IO like a stone and move to tracker but will she use the benefit... 😭

 

What is it with wifeys? Mine exhibits similar behaviour!

 

When I suggested off peak rates would rise and couldn't be relied on previously I got verbally lynched on here !

The direction of travel seems to be 16 - 20p off peak based on tarrifs coming available and talk on here or is this way off ?

Going to get expensive for those of use shifting a lot of load onto off peak hours. About 40% of our usage is off peak currently that is without batteries.

I am glad I went for solar opposed to only batteries which I gave serious consideration to.

 

Currently I believe that all Octopus new/renewing tariffs are variable. If it was the case that they need to rise, then Octopus would do it, they are not held back by contracts. You can see by agile prices that the overnight lull still exists. If anything Greg is pushing to utilise this even more, he has already said that one of the limiting factors to making overnight cheaper is that the grid charge a flat rate for transmission which sets a floor down to where they can put the price. He wants to see regional pricing, so where electric is cheaply produced, consumers can have cheap electric. There also been no prior interest in solar/battery tariffs so I feel this is something they have done under peer pressure and not something they are actively wanting to pursue as they could have done this years ago had they wanted to.

But one thing is for sure, prices will always be increasing all things being equal, other than one off adjustments (we're due one when this current mess sorts itself out). One of the reasons we bought into solar/batteries, but also Ripple. Fixing prices at todays rates in capex so that we can save in reduced charges later as prices keep increasing.

 

They have plans going through in my area for the largest solar farm in Europe (google Botley west solar farm) will it make my bill cheaper? never in a million years even though it is just a mile from my house

 

The other thing to realise about Go is it can be economical to sell electricity below cost, even if you ignore predatory pricing schemes, because some of that load moves out of the peak window.

If your customer used to consume 4kWh between 4-7pm you might be paying 75p/kWh effective retail cost for that, but only selling it at 35p/kWh. (Ignoring energy price cap for now as it's a headache.) So it's costing you ~£1.60 to supply that customer. Let's say they can shift 2kWh of that out of the peak, into say the cheap slot, for instance using their dishwasher overnight. Now you sell them electricity at 12p/kWh. It costs you 20p/kWh, but instead of losing 80p on those units you've lost 16p.

The ultimate end goal is behavioural change so that peak time energy is used only where essential which is really good for renewables.

 

Agile is probably unique currently in offering some lower prices away from peak hours, but not raising normal daily prices. Tracker may be cheaper but it holds no incentive to avoid peak power costs. Economy7, Go all have 40p/kWh daily pricing.

 

There seems to be a fanatical belief on here gas is heading for 4 - 6p kwh even with government support ending. If this is the case why are all these new electric tarrifs so high ? A lot of our power generation still comes from gas so if prices are back to normal as claimed surely electric prices should be falling?

And why is the off peak rates being floated 16 - 20p. I am on 34p / 7p with go currently.

I factored in the current sort of pricing for a few years on the solar / batteries. But it seems that electric costs are going to be substantially higher than that. Certainly this year.

My go deal runs out in July. I may end up switching to ,Agile sooner though if I have a lot of solar export and I am covering all my usage. Agile peak rate is not really above the 36p anyway so no brainer if you have solar and batteries.

If every prices are in freefall surely this will be reflected in dramatically lower rates even with government support ending? We are not seeing this currently.

 

There seems to be a fanatical belief on here gas is heading for 4 - 6p kwh even with government support ending. If this is the case why are all these new electric tarrifs so high ?

Rates from April will be high because government forced energy retailers to buy long contracts which were sold on the assumption of sticky, high gas prices. LNG supply has been better for Europe than expected. Combined with a milder winter and the expectation of more LNG ports and tankers coming online, it looks like prices will return, well not to "normal" but they will not be quite as insane as before.

You can see what the long term futures prices are for example here:

Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures Pricing

Contracts are for physical delivery through the transfer of rights in respect of Natural Gas at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) Virtual Trading Point, operated by Gasunie Transport Services (GTS). Delivery is made equally each hour throughout the delivery period from 06:00 (CET) on the first...

www.theice.com

Gas for delivery in Winter '23 is looking at about 60EUR/MWh. Rough maths is that gas was normally around 25EUR/MWh for the winter heating season so you could approximately double gas prices to get the expectation for this year. Similarly for electricity, though it is more complicated due to mix of renewables, nuclear, coal plus grid stability services etc.

Of course, there are risk factors... Gas could get more expensive if Russia cuts off all supply through Ukraine and Turkey. A colder winter this year would increase demand. We will also be competing with China coming out of lockdown. Despite these risks futures contracts are not insanely priced which does suggest a cooling of the market's expectations, and the traders know a whole lot more about this than anyone else.

 

Gas is already 6.2p today on the Octo-tracker, no fanaticism needed.

I don't recall any actual prediction of 4p, but I can see someone making the argument that if the North Sea stays reliable and Freeport gets back on stream then prices might head down from where they are.

On the leccy rates, a mistake I sometimes make is to forget that I'm on an old, cheap Go Faster deal - as of today I'm on 5.5p/24p and will be until August but I refer to that as if it's something a new customer could get. Maybe others do the same?

 

I am on the gas tracker so aware what it currently with gas storage full of Russian gas, a mild winter and low demand from China over winter due to COVID etc

The electricity tracker and new deals don't seem to reflect a big drop.in energy pricing though.

It's being suggested that prices are going to fall very substantiality this year it seems even with government support ending.

 

According to the octo tracker web page there is an approx 6 month waiting list

 

I think it has always said that. If you ring up they'll put you straight on it.

 

Is this rumour then can you still call up and switch ? Or are people told this when they call ?

Seems strange octopus is a big player with millions of customers. 50 a day 1500 a month is a tiny number. Why stop people switching online as well. Takes no man power surely ?

 

I would guess that everyone switching away from Octopus's hedged rates (even with gov't subsidy) costs them money, as they've bought contracts for x MWh and would be selling less if people buy effectively "spot" gas now.

 

My Ovtopus Go tariff ends soon, I have been offered Intelligent Octopus, but the peak rate is rather high! 40p/kW.
are there any better deals? I do not have solar or batteries.

 

All depends on what your usage profile looks like. If you are IO eligible then it will always beat the current Go, might beat E7 (depends if the extra hour at 16ish vs 40 works for you); however, it might not beat Tracker (if you can get it). That is a single price each day, currently hovering in the mid 20s. Agile will not likely be a big winner until we get the nukes back online and/or solar and wind pick up broadly (we have regional wind and solar is just beginning to make a play again).

 

Has Kia been removed from Intelligent Octopus? The website still lists them, but I can’t see them when I try and sign up on the app. Which is unfortunate, because my Go Faster ended today: Plan A was the electricity tracker, only to be told on the phone that I’d have to join the queue and wait up to 6 months; Plan B was IO with our e-Niro…

 

Worrying they are no rationing the good tarrifs. Not much use market prices being lower if the suppliers so t let you acces them.

This is problem with government intervention and subsidies in markets always creates a mess and makes things worse.