Earlier this year I decided to take a risk and move from the Price Capped electricity tariff to the Octopus Agile one. It’s aimed at those with solar panels, batteries or who charge an EV, but anyone can sign up for it. With this tariff you pay the “wholesale” rate, which is set at 30 minute intervals.

This usually means that it’s more expensive than the price cap between 4pm and 7pm, but cheaper outside those hours.

At a previous house we had a Economy 7 meter which we had an Economy 7 tariff for, and after 24 months I worked out that we’d need to have more than 25% of our electricity usage during the 7 hour window, and whilst we had the dishwasher on overnight and the washing machine finishing for us when we got up, we were about breakeven compared to a normal tariff.

Using an app called Octopus Compare along with the Octopus API I was able to see that I could be better off on Agile.

In our house the heavy electricity use appliances are, the shower, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the tumble dryer, the iron, the induction hob, the oven and the toasters. It tends to only be the hob and oven which is in use between 4 and 7, and there are days when we might be using those later. The dishwasher again is put on over night, and the washing machine and tumble dryer (if we aren’t using the washing line) run during the morning which is a great perk of working from home. Showers are 7am or after 8pm. The ironing usually piles up as we ignore it, but would be done in a panic before school, or on the weekend.

Now because we pay a price based on the wholesale rate, there are times when the unit price can be negative. Usually it’s on very windy days which gives a great incentive to get through that ironing pile.

There are times during the year when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t out. To avoid huge charges Octopus currently limit the price to £1/kWh, and it’s recently reached that peak. It’s only been for a few hours, and the increase in price for those days, has been cancelled out by the savings during the strong winds.

So far it’s paid off, and I think I’ve seen the worst, but it’s because I can make an effort at demand shifting that we’ve kept our prices below the current price cap.