I have just signed up to an offer to get a Homely set up on my heat pump for free via an offer to switch to Tomato for electric and let Homely control my heating for the next 3 months and use the ivie app. They also want to know about EV's, home batteries, PV etc.

Anyone interested it is here

The costs seem reasonable for me compared to what I have been paying on Octopus Agile but it seems, to me, a strange way they work a price out. They have allowed for car charging but they want mileage per month and have allowed 400kWh for 1000 miles so it may not be as cheap as I think if I don't use that much.it is charged at 7p per kWh They have allow about £2 a day for the heat pump and all they asked was type of house and number of bedrooms. These two are fixed costs, subject to a fair use policy.

Any other electric is not a set amount but it is charged at the price cap, and they do give an amount they expect it to be for the DD, I think that is based on our smart meter data. if heating and charging are on fixed costs then 24p doesn't seem to bad, especially for me as I am on Agile at the moment and winter isn't a great time for Agile costs.

Posted by: @johnnyb

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it seems, to me, a strange way they work a price out

That observation is valid, but it's what I would expect from a new Electricity Supplier attempting to offer Time-of-Use Tariffs.

Let's remember that Octopus has forged ahead of others and learned a great deal about how to frame ToU Tariffs.
Some have been successful, whilst others were quickly altered (or withdrawn) when the parameters didn't produce the anticipated outcomes.

Over the years I have submitted responses to consultations and surveys from Ofgem, BEIS, DESNZ and Energy Suppliers, imploring them to accelerate the implementation of ToU Tariffs.

Some Suppliers have failed to do so because it isn't (yet) a licence requirement put on them by the Regulator,
... others have felt the risks were too great,
... and some haven't yet got their in-house billing system software to the position where it could support ToU operations.

But whenever they issue their first ToU Tariffs, they will inevitably face the same steep learning curve which Octopus, and now Tomato, have addressed.

The more feedback a Supplier receives from its ToU customers, the quicker they will learn how to adapt their in-house modelling software.
So, @johnnyb  I hope you won't hold back from emailing Tomato and provide them with information on what you do with the tariff !

It will take them years to refine that mathematical model such that the risks to the company are acceptably low.
That's because consumers change their energy consumption patterns as they adapt to the price-points being offered.
So the Suppliers are left trying to work out the ToU formulae whilst the data they receive is itself changing.

Posted by: @transparent

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  I hope you won't hold back from emailing Tomato and provide them with information on what you do with the tariff !

The offer for the trial is a very specific offering and not a TOU tariff.  I am interested to find out if Tomato are as easy to live with as Octopus as the prices seems a little cheaper at the moment. If all goes well I will stay with them at the end of the trial as a lot of their tariffs seem very similar to Octopus.  I assume that is why they are part of the trial.

I am happy to feed back where it is useful.  Saying that I don't feed back very often as there are so many requests for feedback now-a-days that I ignore everything unless I have something really positive or fairly negative to say to them.

@johnnyb good luck with the switch and I also look forward to hearing what Tomato are like.

@editor I'll try to remember to post an update. It is all being handled by ivie/Chameleon Technology and I'm not sure I'll have any contact with Tomato until the end of the trial, March.

The person at Chameleon has been quick to respond to my emails and answer my questions so they have been good, but I think they still have spaces on the trial and are trying to get more people to sign up, they had added a £100 Amazon voucher if it was signed today, in time to start it on 1st Jan.

Posted by: @johnnyb

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they had added a £100 Amazon voucher if it was signed today, in time to start it on 1st Jan

Bit of a red flag in my book. OK, £100 off, but only if you sign today... 

@cathoderay normally yes, but if homework has been done then I'd go for it. I got money off for my ASHP installation because I agreed to have it done around the same time of year. The installers simply had less work and wanted to keep their teams busy.

Posted by: @el_presidente

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The installers simply had less work and wanted to keep their teams busy.

Fair point. Still a red flag, but there might be reasons why you can put it away.

I'll find out if it should have been a red flag, but it was an offer for signing up in December and I inquired about it with only 2 days left before the 20th December cut off date, early cut off because of the Christmas break and the need to install the Homely before the 1st Jan.  I didn't feel pushed and they were very helpful so hopefully all goes well.

Good morning all,

Quick question for those with homely installed. I note that the app provides an option to select the 'comfort' temp variation from your selected indoor temperature but this specifies what you allow the system to overshoot by (so, if you select a variation of 2 degrees C and your set temp is 20, it should stick between the 20 - 22 range).

We have ours set at 20 but quite often it will dip below this to 19.5, particularly over the last couple of days when it has been very cold.  Do others experience similar dips and therefore if you want the minimum indoor temp to be 20, in effect you have to set it at 20.5?

@benson  I think your theory is correct , but you have to consider the outside weather and what it might be doing , so when colder temps prolong the days so will the house need warming up to compenasate.

Myself , I have increased everything in the last few days by at least one degree.

@benson We have Homely control and yes, you are correct; their idea is that whatever temperature you have requested will be regarded as the required minimum and any deviation will be higher.

Now, as to the lower than set temperature you have experienced, I too have the same thing just in the last couple of days and in my case, it is I think, due to the installer’s settings on the Daikin MMI. Homely reports that the flow temperature is set between 35 - 45 degrees C whereas in this cold weather, the upper limit is a little low. Most rooms are fine but the living room where the node is sited is 0.5 degrees low. I am unable to fathom out the MMI installer settings to adjust these limits partly due to my sight and may wait for the annual service and request the attending engineer to adjust it for me. I have no problems accessing the ‘Tables’ it is just that the manual leaves me short on guidance to adjust them! All the time OAT is positive, the pump copes quite happily - but there again, we are requesting 22.5 degrees C so dropping to 22 when the OAT is minus isn’t the end of the world. Regards, Toodles.