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Standing Charge v Unit Rate
- Thread starter The Baron
- Start date
I think I have it included on the spreadsheet. If it works I'll update all the tariffs and perhaps make it simpler to operate.
ACarneiro
Active Member
I rang EDF about it and they were such a bunch of clueless numpties that it put me right off.
PS: the pedant in me recoils in horror every time I see kWh referred to as “units”.
PS: the pedant in me recoils in horror every time I see kWh referred to as “units”.
The hard part with all these comparisons is that it really does come down to exactly how much power you use, and when each day.
The best I can offer is that for my usage, Agile is way out front. These are my actual costs for power last week, comp[aring across the Smart tariffs from Octopus, EDF and Bulb.
Octopus Go : £26.45
EDF : £26.59
Bulb: £27.98
Octopus Agile: £18.60
It isn't even close for me.
The exact balance of use/time of day matters though. EDF for example has really good evening and weekend rates, but that only matters if you make use of power at those times, and even though the hours are good the rates don't go particularly low at those times and the day rate is quite high, so it isn't so good if you work from home for example and tend to be out in the evenings/weekends.
Octopus Go is good if you will use the very low night rate to the full, but not so good if you don't.
Octopus Agile is great all round with the exception of the the 4-7pm period, so if you are a heavy user during those hours it is probably not for you. We don't use much in that period at all just by following our normal routines. We do cook with electric, usually between 18:15-19:00 and even with that we are still way better off on Agile as you can see from the numbers. We don't need to recharge the car every night but we certainly do take the opportunity to do and hour or so here and there during the week when the rates bottom out (... or occasionally go negative).
So you do need to look deep into the detail to get the best choice which is why I tend to recommend that people with electric vehicles start on the Octopus Go tariff then assess there usage and move to Agile if it works for them.
The best I can offer is that for my usage, Agile is way out front. These are my actual costs for power last week, comp[aring across the Smart tariffs from Octopus, EDF and Bulb.
Octopus Go : £26.45
EDF : £26.59
Bulb: £27.98
Octopus Agile: £18.60
It isn't even close for me.
The exact balance of use/time of day matters though. EDF for example has really good evening and weekend rates, but that only matters if you make use of power at those times, and even though the hours are good the rates don't go particularly low at those times and the day rate is quite high, so it isn't so good if you work from home for example and tend to be out in the evenings/weekends.
Octopus Go is good if you will use the very low night rate to the full, but not so good if you don't.
Octopus Agile is great all round with the exception of the the 4-7pm period, so if you are a heavy user during those hours it is probably not for you. We don't use much in that period at all just by following our normal routines. We do cook with electric, usually between 18:15-19:00 and even with that we are still way better off on Agile as you can see from the numbers. We don't need to recharge the car every night but we certainly do take the opportunity to do and hour or so here and there during the week when the rates bottom out (... or occasionally go negative).
So you do need to look deep into the detail to get the best choice which is why I tend to recommend that people with electric vehicles start on the Octopus Go tariff then assess there usage and move to Agile if it works for them.
No solar, no powerwall and no changes in lifestyle either.
I work mostly from home, so benefit from the lower rates during the day, and we don't start cooking in the evening until after 6pm so we don't use much during 2 out of the 3 peak hours.
Relatively low mileage and so no need to charge fully every night so I can pick and choose when I do charge to take advantage of the cheapest time periods.
SimonT
Member
We are having our smart meter installed next week and have applied for agile.
I think a lot depends on the set up of your house.
We have PV and a powerwall so will quite easily avoid the day time and peak tariffs. Yesterday we generated 20kw and a couple of days ago didn’t use and grid energy from 0830 through to midnight.
On cloudy days we will top up the battery at night so we don’t use any grid during the day.
In the summer we average less than 1kw per day.
This doesn’t include car charging but in 3 months I have only charged once at home as luckily I have free charging at the office.
I think a lot depends on the set up of your house.
We have PV and a powerwall so will quite easily avoid the day time and peak tariffs. Yesterday we generated 20kw and a couple of days ago didn’t use and grid energy from 0830 through to midnight.
On cloudy days we will top up the battery at night so we don’t use any grid during the day.
In the summer we average less than 1kw per day.
This doesn’t include car charging but in 3 months I have only charged once at home as luckily I have free charging at the office.
For those of you who do not personally check and move energy supplier on a regular basis I have been very impressed with a service I use called Utility Tracker ( www.utility-tracker.com ) I have been using them for a number of years now.
If you check out their website you will see they are all about taking the hassle out of dealing with / changing energy suppliers and saving you money.
Basically what I did was a manual review of the best tariff out there... I then moved myself on to the tariff myself... And then I signed up to Utility Tracker. Utility Tracker then monitor all the tariffs for you on a regular basis (I'm not 100% sure, maybe each quarter?) and they calculate whether it is better for you to stay or move (taking into account any cancellation/exit fees etc.) If they assess they can save you £150 then they move you and then they start charging you £6 a month for the monitoring they do. So, once they have made the first £150 saving (and only once this has been achieved), you effectively pay £72 per year to have someone take all the hassle out of monitoring your tariffs and doing all the admin to move you to the new tariff... They literally do it all, and once done, send you your new log on details to the new supplier.
To my mind this is a no-brainer for anyone that does not already review and change tariffs several times a year! If you are really pro-active and do this yourself, then there is no need to use them.... but for everyone else it is a great service!
They are also pretty easy and quick to communicate with - I spoke to them recently about my soon-to-be-increasing electricity usage when the Tesla arrives (next week I hope!!)
A couple of things of interest:
1. They did not rate Octopus highly... I just mentioned Octopus in passing, so I did not drill down into why they felt that it was not a good choice (I think it may have been customer service... maybe Octopus are growing too fast for their current infrastructure?)
2. They do not yet have a great deal of exposure to households with EVs - I am not actually sure how big of an issue this is as really they are monitoring your overall usage. But I can see how if your smart meters can tell them when you use your electricity then this could be valuable info for their assessment
3. They told me that the comparison sites like uSwitch compare your rate to standard tariffs so the savings they show are often much bigger than you will actually achieve (as hopefully none of you are on a Standard Tariff!)
4. They consider both Standing Charge as well as the KwH rate in their assessment
I would encourage you to check them out and give them a try... If you do, PM me, as they apparently credit me £15 three months after you join.
Interestingly, for me, they have said the tariff I am on with SSE is still the best. I pay 38.36p per day Standing Charge and 12.67p per kWh (it is called uSwitch 1 Year Fixed) But I have incredibly high usage (11,500 kWh per annum even before adding the EV) So for me it is more important that my normal day-time rates are better than the EV rates as I expect to need only around an additional 2,000 kWh for the Tesla.
Anyway, as I said, please check them out (whether you drop my name or not!)
Good luck!
If you check out their website you will see they are all about taking the hassle out of dealing with / changing energy suppliers and saving you money.
Basically what I did was a manual review of the best tariff out there... I then moved myself on to the tariff myself... And then I signed up to Utility Tracker. Utility Tracker then monitor all the tariffs for you on a regular basis (I'm not 100% sure, maybe each quarter?) and they calculate whether it is better for you to stay or move (taking into account any cancellation/exit fees etc.) If they assess they can save you £150 then they move you and then they start charging you £6 a month for the monitoring they do. So, once they have made the first £150 saving (and only once this has been achieved), you effectively pay £72 per year to have someone take all the hassle out of monitoring your tariffs and doing all the admin to move you to the new tariff... They literally do it all, and once done, send you your new log on details to the new supplier.
To my mind this is a no-brainer for anyone that does not already review and change tariffs several times a year! If you are really pro-active and do this yourself, then there is no need to use them.... but for everyone else it is a great service!
They are also pretty easy and quick to communicate with - I spoke to them recently about my soon-to-be-increasing electricity usage when the Tesla arrives (next week I hope!!)
A couple of things of interest:
1. They did not rate Octopus highly... I just mentioned Octopus in passing, so I did not drill down into why they felt that it was not a good choice (I think it may have been customer service... maybe Octopus are growing too fast for their current infrastructure?)
2. They do not yet have a great deal of exposure to households with EVs - I am not actually sure how big of an issue this is as really they are monitoring your overall usage. But I can see how if your smart meters can tell them when you use your electricity then this could be valuable info for their assessment
3. They told me that the comparison sites like uSwitch compare your rate to standard tariffs so the savings they show are often much bigger than you will actually achieve (as hopefully none of you are on a Standard Tariff!)
4. They consider both Standing Charge as well as the KwH rate in their assessment
I would encourage you to check them out and give them a try... If you do, PM me, as they apparently credit me £15 three months after you join.
Interestingly, for me, they have said the tariff I am on with SSE is still the best. I pay 38.36p per day Standing Charge and 12.67p per kWh (it is called uSwitch 1 Year Fixed) But I have incredibly high usage (11,500 kWh per annum even before adding the EV) So for me it is more important that my normal day-time rates are better than the EV rates as I expect to need only around an additional 2,000 kWh for the Tesla.
Anyway, as I said, please check them out (whether you drop my name or not!)
Good luck!
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