I was with Bulb which was around 17p but switched to Octopus this month in preparation for my solar panel and battery storage system. The octopus tariff is currently their flexible at 17.07p/kWh and a standing charge of 23.63p/day. Its high because Scotland and especially the highlands are always higher costs for electric. As soon as Octopus switch me over to a smart meter then i will be able to either go on their go or agile tariff which means i can store electric in my batteries at just 5.5p/kWh or under agile i can look for the cheapest half hour rates and use those times to minimise my peak hour costs by using the battery storage. I will also be exporting power to the grid from my solar panels .
Hi Bob, I'll bet you can't wait to get that smart meter? What sort of batteries have you got?
You won't always be able to store at 5.5p but using the graphs, you'll be able to make the best of it. Despite my best efforts in January I only managed 14.3p/kWh but in February 10.42p.
You're going to have an interesting time figuiring how this all works and how you can capatilise on having batteries and solar. I've found there is a point about the end of February where I can transition from having the Heat Pump running chep rates all night with little solar input, to having the Heat pump runing all day on solar and a couple of hours at the cheapest rate in the morning.
When you get up and running with Octopus, theres a very interesting forum, which you have to be invited to join, send an email to agile@octopus.energy some of the more interesting things are the home energy management systems. But there's lots more.
Whilst you are waiting for Agile, which can take a few months, try asking them to switch you to the Tracker tariff.( My Mum in Shetland paid 17.37p/kWh in January and 14.45p/kWh and 21.11p a day last month and being a tracker it will go down from that. Last year in July she was paying 8p/kWh) The Tracker beats the standard tariff 17p/kWh 90% of the time and costs nothing to switch from and to.
When you move to Agile, there's also a good app called Octopus Watch which will allow you to see the proposed prices up to 48 hrs ahead which will alow you to see when you want to run energy intensive appliancies like washing machines and tumble driers. It also helps in the winter especially with the best times to charge the EV.
Do you already have an EV?
Chris