Why the obsession with intelligent octopus? Why not agile?

[Deleted User 2446]

There seems to be so much focus on octopus intelligent (not just this forum or with Enyaq), and having tried it I just don’t get the reasons why it’s so popular?

To me the benefit of OI is saving money - otherwise standard tariff would do. But it’s still 7.5p off peak/when charging and 29p on peak. Most slots are at night so limited usage of house electric at off peak rates but some is possible.

Whereas octopus agile - for February this year has an average off peak (20hours a day ish) of 12p and peak evening time of 28.9. Average overall is 14p. Minimum rates often lower, sometimes negative. This is before we head into warmer / brighter months, and UK/EU solar picks back up, and gas usage drops bringing this down further.

For us, personally with equal annual house and car usage Agile is far, far cheaper.

Has OI had its day and is now slow to react to falling energy prices driven by the drop in gas prices? Is it just a way of making people think they are getting good value post the energy prices last few years? Does the prices of OI need to drop by 30 to 50%? Am I missing something when Agile is just as easy to take advantage of? (Smart chargers like zappi support it - apps like Tado smart charging support it sort of)

[anglefire]

I have solar and and a storage battery - and my average rate from 4th December to 3rd Feb is 10.69p/kWh, inc VAT

• Rate Consumption Cost
  7.14p/kWh 1747.5 kWh £124.82
  28.48p/kWh 290.3 kWh £82.662
  Total consumption 2037.7kWh @ 10.18p/kWh † £207.48
  Standing Charge 62 days @ 49.83p/day £30.89
  Subtotal of charges before VAT £238.38

[Deleted User 2446]

So if you have battery and solar I can see the apparent benefit... Charging at 7.5p for a high percentage and then using this in the day...

For me, the same dates (1447kWh) cost £248 inclusive of standing charge, which is about 17p/KwH over the coldest / darkest months before the prices started to drop. Obviously more than the 11p/Kwh yours works out to with standing charges included.....

But.. when I looked into battery costs, it generally worked out about costing 5 to 10p /KwH based on installation costs, discharge cycles etc. IE how many KwH you get out before it likely needs replacing. This then, in a sampled way puts yours to 16p to 21p /KwH, before Solar installation costs are included in the mix.

So agile gives a similar cost, arguably cheaper but likely not quite in reality to OI + Solar + Battery, but I haven't had to spend a penny on battery or solar...

Again, it just doesn't add up to me... But it doesn't have to. I just think Agile is a discounted tariff unnecessarily personally, and OI over-rated....

[Woodhead]

Hi Andy

You make a good point

I was on agile for most of last year when prices started crashing and could load shift a lot of the house via a home battery which I charged at the cheapest periods ( not always overnight too). Agile’s strength is the volatility and it should drop further into the spring and summer. But that benefit is also the risk or better described as gambling.

A 40kwh charge at 7.5p IO you know will cost £3.00 guaranteed, any night every night. Agile can vary from £ or negative, to easily £6 if the average price is 15p. Many do not like that volatility, or want to constantly check the daily price and gamble to say if I wait another day might I get a 50p cheaper charge - to what end do you keep waiting?

So IO gives you peace of mind - but on the price, wholesale prices which on the tracker have been solid average of 15p, which is certainly back in the 2021 era. Go launched in 2018 and sat around 5p and about 15p during the day, but was certainly a market leader and probable loss leader. It moved upwards from late 2021.

I think 7.5p off peak is probably fair but the peak is across the day is harsh - yes the price cap is falling to 24p a unit and then probably closer to 20p later in the year - so I think the day rate of 30p needs to change.

I’m with Eon at the moment on their EV tarrif until I get my car next month but I plan on switching to IO.

And don’t forget perspective. 40kwh should be 120miles+, for £3 = <2.5p per mile. My current petrol is 35mpg and for 120 miles is about £20 or 17p per mile.

Charging once a week I will have an electric car bill of less than £150 - how much do you want to gamble and mess around to get that to £75 - £0 with potential plunges?

[Deleted User 2446]

I think you make a good point on the gamble but its more educated guess... Certainly the gamble risk is reduced when on agile as you can switch to OI within minutes via the app should it all go badly again! I also dont check the prices that often but because we have a fairly consistent usage of the car its easy.. Zappi is set to add a certain KwH each night by 6AM (which it does at the cheapest 'slots'), and also to charge if the price is below Xp/KwH.. currently set at 10p I think. I check this 10p value every few weeks I guess and adjust based on recent prices. This way keeps the car about 60% charged each morning and gives 40% headroom for cheap charging.

It sounds like I entered all of this when the prices on Go / OI are higher and are now taking time to come down. Certainly if the day price comes down to 20/15p again then the gap to agile is smaller assuming it has already done some of its drop and it may mean the stability / ease of OI is more valuable than the increasingly small saving it may offer. Equally all of this makes the solar/battery argument worse as the gap narrows as the 5p to 10p battery costs (if accurate) is fixed at the time of installation.

I personally think Agile will still drop more and be more volatile with highly negative rates this year. Especially as more wind is being built off-shore, more solar, cheaper gas, and the move to EVs is slowing where supply may start to outstrip demand more and more.

On the pricing per mile, agreed it adds up but is not substantially different. But remember that with Agile all home usage is at the same prices so if you can avoid the evening peak couple of hours (which we do without thinking), then everything is also at the similar to tracker rates rather than the 29p plus.

[Dad]

I top up my batteries with IO overnight at 7.5p and have never needed any peak rate electric since getting the batteries. Also the sun is topping them up too. Our battery storage is 12Kw.

I guess it’s all about individual circumstances.

I’m hoping for a drop in the overnight IO rate from April but just being greedy!

[Dorsetandy]

I’m on IO and charge 2 EVs, have no battery or solar, and put 200-300kWh into the EVs each month. With a little bit of domestic consumption transferred to the overnight rate our average cost is 15.4 kWh. I have a Sync EV charger and not sure whether this is compatible with Agile - I suspect not. Hopefully the day rate for IO will reduce in April.

The biggest energy saving for me - thanks to a post on this forum - was to switch my gas to Octopus Tracker.

[Aragorn]

It largely just comes down to how much your charging, vs your household consumption.

If your house consumption is high or your driving use is low, then Agile may well be better.

You can only do the maths for your own specific use cases. The Octopus Compare app will pull your usage from the Octopus API and let you compare tariffs.

Agile is also quite variable. Its quite good just now, but even a few months ago was much worse.

[Dav00]

I use Octpus

There seems to be so much focus on octopus intelligent (not just this forum or with Enyaq), and having tried it I just don’t get the reasons why it’s so popular?

Currentlly with Octopus but with Go.
I'm totally against the mix of nudging, micromanagement and demand control they have with Intelligent and Agile.

[HampshireEV]

This has turned into a really interesting & informative thread, thanks ..

We fitted solar pv & 6kwh battery 12 months ago, then bought the Enyaq. Our then energy supplier EDF had closed its EV tariffs to new subscribers so we switched to Octopus:

Started on the standard tariff, switched to Go but realised that although off-peak was cheapish, the export rate was only about 4p. So switched to Flux, which offered adequate cheap rate overnight charging but much higher export (up to 32p), which was great in the summer months. But hopeless when we started to hit the lower solar hours, so investigated Intelligent Go - which gives us the 6 hours fixed cheap rate (~7p) overnight, PLUS cheap rate smart charging sessions whenever the car is plugged in, irrespective of time of day or night. And the linked export tariff gives us 15p/kwh. So all in all this is the best balance for us and we are unlikely to switch again when summer comes around; we are already starting to see better solar generation.

It's the uncertainty of Agile which puts us off, although everyone has a different attitude to risk/reward, but obviously it suits lots of people. Great to have the choice, and hopefully Octopus will keep it up!!