Outgoing Octopus

[Stinsy]

It's interesting I was doing come calculations a few days ago for the life time cost per kWh for my pylon tech stack. The money I'd get from time shifting the night to day on the octopus Tariff was about the same. So, doing the time shift is a zero gain evolution for me + it is wearing out all the equipment?

But.... There is also the life time degradation of the stack to consider. So is it worth just going balls out on the transfer and taking the sunshine benefits and storage when I can so that at least the stack is earning real savings on the solar and paying for itself before it degrades based on calendar time rather than cycle time.

What's the next technology we will all be embracing for storage next It would be cool to drop in a shipping container with some sort of redux technology which allows longer term time shiftimg of the solar.

I don’t understand your calculations!

[nowty]

It's interesting I was doing come calculations a few days ago for the life time cost per kWh for my pylon tech stack. The money I'd get from time shifting the night to day on the octopus Tariff was about the same. So, doing the time shift is a zero gain evolution for me + it is wearing out all the equipment?

But.... There is also the life time degradation of the stack to consider. So is it worth just going balls out on the transfer and taking the sunshine benefits and storage when I can so that at least the stack is earning real savings on the solar and paying for itself before it degrades based on calendar time rather than cycle time.

What's the next technology we will all be embracing for storage next It would be cool to drop in a shipping container with some sort of redux technology which allows longer term time shiftimg of the solar.

I think along similar lines,

If there is a Saving Session, then its a no brainer when £2+ / kWh is on offer, its balls out. Other times in winter, I won't go for max cycles because I don't think its worth it. But for example, today I charged up full from the grid even though there was some sun today. Whether I charged from the grid or sun is the same so no extra cycles on the battery and some still got exported direct from the Solar inverters.

In summer I typically don't use any cycles which arguably is a waste as the batteries will still age to some extent, so I suspect I will force export some at night to leave some empty space so my system does not curtail at its max export limit in the daytime.

Its quite exciting as its like a new science and I suspect will bring surprises along the way before I work out a new operating manual which is likely to change with each season.

[Krill]

There are too many variables to put together a truly great manual that covers every households needs. Tariffs, daily use, EV need, hot water tanks. Different days for washing clothing and bedding, whether you are cooking a roast for the family, the weather, the panel orientation expected peak use. It's incredibly complex, just the sort of game I like playing. Then the saving sessions just make it even more fun.

Definitely put together a manual on a per house basis though.

[Yuff]

I’ve only had this equipment just over a year but on a monthly basis it is saving me quite a lot however I have outlaid a fair chunk of cash which I would like to recoup.
I had already got into EVs 3 1/2 years ago so it was just a progression along the electrical route instigated by the company tax savings on EVs.
But I have quite enjoyed making the house more efficient, and cheaper to run, almost to the point of obsessive and SWMBO is totally bored of me wanting to discuss it.
As long as the tumble dryer can go on anytime she doesn’t really care oh and as long as the house is like a sauna
However my position is make as much as I can and invest it back, if the return is there, as none of us know what this idiotic bunch of clowns in charge will do next……and I say that having voted for them and I really can’t see myself voting for them next year.
As stinsy pointed out the other day if TOU changed or IOG changed it would affect my plans dramatically as the off peak schedules really help to minimise our peak use.
I imagine exporting a lot April to September to balance my costs of November to March. Hope to break even, which I know most on here do and lots make a profit. But our system is quite kWh intensive so I think that’s a pretty good result so far.

[John_S]

That's what the thread is about, if you go back to the start you can see what happened and when, but to summarise it took about 7 weeks from start to finish. It could have been a week shorter if my FIT provider had got back to me without further prompting. But it was still pretty painless, the timelines were,

8th Oct - Applied online, there was about 1 week of pre application work getting the re-confirmation from the DNO as I had lost everything and needed a confirmation letter from them before I could apply online to Octopus.

31st Oct - Received email from Octopus about DNO has OK'd the export MPAN and I need to contact my FIT provider to cancel my deemed exports and provide proof.

13th Nov - Received email confirmation back from FIT provider after an email chase up.

21st Nov - Octopus confirm they have received my FIT provider confirmation.

22nd Nov - Octopus asks me for an opening Export Meter reading with photo from my smart meter.

23rd Nov - Confirmation from Octopus its all up and running, it actually started from the beginning of the 22nd which was fantastic as it meant that there were 5 working days before the second saving session which is the minimum number of readings for the baseline calculation to be valid with an export MPAN.

I am almost 7 weeks on from the 8th October stage and have heard nothing from Octopus, except an acknowledgement. I have now sent an email asking them to advise of progress.

John

[Andy]

As stinsy pointed out the other day if TOU changed or IOG changed it would affect my plans dramatically as the off peak schedules really help to minimise our peak use.

Well, this just happened to me. I'm in dispute with UW who didn't even give me any warning so I was running 14kW during expensive periods. I had a smart meter that was dumb with Economy 10 loaded on it. For some reason it got a sniff of signal for the first time since installed in 2017. Its put a cheap period for 8 hours from 2330. The only problem is my battery pack isn't big enough to get me beyond about 1900-2000 and so I'm paying quite a bit extra every day. Before I was covering my load 100% from cheap leccy or sunshine. I'm up to £3600 saved since Feb but I've ground to a halt with this change. Its frustrating how the payback period can change so much depending on tariffs available.

The hope is that my smart meter which is showing good signal now is in fact connected and I can move to Octopus and then change from FIT export to and export tariff on Intelligent Octopus as others have done. I'll probably need another 4x US5000 to get me through. The prices are improving quite a bit since I purchased mine.

[John_S]

Having chased Octopus they advised me that they were waiting for E.On to approve the switch and asked if I could nudge them.

It took me three days to get hold of someone who understood what needed doing and E.On acted on the nudge this morning and have approved the switch. It looks like both parties are going to be sensible and do the switch effective the date of my December generation meter reading to E.On. At this time of year a day or so makes minimal difference, especially for export.

[Andy]

Having been thinking a lot about this in anticipation of Octopus connecting to my smart meter. I think I can get to zero energy bill or very close on intelligent octopus combined with the export. It sounds too good to be true. So in order to make it as profitable for Octopus going forward I was thinking I'll save the solar in the battery during the day time to offload as much as possible between 1600 & 1900. I would very much like the Intelligent Octopus combined with 15p export to live on. It might be worth others who can control the hours of export to do the same? My little project to have a generator charger will help to be able to pump more charge into the batteries in the wee hours. I've started working on my wife to get 2 more US5000. She wants to go on a holiday instead as she's fed up with spending to save.

[Fintray]

Having been thinking a lot about this in anticipation of Octopus connecting to my smart meter. I think I can get to zero energy bill or very close on intelligent octopus combined with the export. It sounds too good to be true. So in order to make it as profitable for Octopus going forward I was thinking I'll save the solar in the battery during the day time to offload as much as possible between 1600 & 1900. I would very much like the Intelligent Octopus combined with 15p export to live on. It might be worth others who can control the hours of export to do the same? My little project to have a generator charger will help to be able to pump more charge into the batteries in the wee hours. I've started working on my wife to get 2 more US5000. She wants to go on a holiday instead as she's fed up with spending to save.

Andy, it is likely that you will be able to get to a zero energy bill or very close. I've just looked back at my import this year (6464.3kWh) and my export (8102kWh), so export at 15pkWh = £1215.30 and import at 7.5pkWh = £484.82. Although I have not been on Intelligent Octopus for the whole year and not all my import would have been at 7.5p even on Intelligent as I don't have enough battery storage (Yet!) but it gives you a potential figure for what should be possible.

[nowty]

Andy, your idea of dispatching as much as possible between 16:00 and 19:00 just to be nice to Octopus will reduce your benefit as you will lose a fair bit in the charge and discharge transfer through the battery. Better to just let the excess solar export as its generated on fixed Outgoing at 15p, then import and use during the night time on 7.5p.

I am hoping to halve my leccy bill but the way its going with the saving sessions I might end up clearing it.