Intelligent Octopus and Price guarantee

[Bartop]

Does anyone know if intelligent octopus peak rate is subject to the price guarantee cap? thanks

[retsil]

No, it was updated after the guarantee was in place, so the price you see is the price you pay.

[snalbansed]

Guarantee is only for "standard variable rate" plans that companies like British Gas used to use to make massive profits from people who never changed supplier or looked for fixed price plans. Any other plan is not affected by the guarantee, but almost all of us are on one of those currently

[Bartop]

ok so if I understand it anything you use outside the cheap rate is charged at 41.11 p/kwh when the government price guarantee cap is around 34p p/kwh which you would get on a different tariff or another supplier.

Unless I’m missing the point here surely that make a big dent in terms of the savings you get by switching and charging the car overnight at the cheap rate of 7.5 p/kwh?

[snalbansed]

Indeed. So if you can shift the bulk of your electricity use to night time (car, washing, drying, dishwasher), then you can save big. Or if you do so much driving that the car on its own offsets the increased day rates.

But if you only charge your car once a week or so, and need to cook during the day, or have electric heating, then it probably doesn't make sense.

It's a trade-off, and you need to work out if it works for you!

If you have a house battery of course, then that can change the equation substantially, even if you don't charge the car much as you can charge the battery at night and run it down during the day

[Ken3966]

The trouble is that the fire brigade say you should not be running such appliances if you are in bed or out, only when attending as they can and do catch fire.
My wife would be very reluctant to do so preventing load shifting.
It still seems to pay off if you do a reasonable amount of mileage predominantly with home charging.
Even on normal rates it cost about half the amount per mile to run the car than previous diesel Karoq which managed about 40mpg!

[IanEV]

ok so if I understand it anything you use outside the cheap rate is charged at 41.11 p/kwh when the government price guarantee cap is around 34p p/kwh which you would get on a different tariff or another supplier.

Unless I’m missing the point here surely that make a big dent in terms of the savings you get by switching and charging the car overnight at the cheap rate of 7.5 p/kwh?

Car aside we use 10kwh a day on average so per month my maths says the overpayment is (41.11 - 34) x 10 x 30= £21.33

Seems a good deal to me considering the extra you can save charging the car and the appliances that will be running overnight ie freezer / fridge etc…

[DazF05]

My average price per KW is 21.35p
I have moved a lot of my usage to the night rate and do 25k a year in the car (most of which is charged at home but not all of it)

So it works out really well for me

[Ken3966]

It’s 7.5p now off peak and about 38.5p peak where I live.
If you car needs a significant amount of charging there is a good chance you will get extra hours at off peak rate next morning if your car can charge later. I set my car to be ready by 10:00. You know of these the evening before and can do extra washes etc.

[snalbansed]

How do you know? Is it just by the charging plan proposed in the app?

Is all usage in that extended time at 7.5p - they aren't working out what the car is using (the way OVO do it)?