Energy costs - Octopus Tracker

[AF62]

This is a ‘heads up’ and NOT a recommendation (do your own research and make your own decision!) about a gas and electricity tariff that Octopus have been operating for a while.

https://octopus.energy/smart/tracker/

It is a tariff that follows the wholesale price of gas and electricity so varies day to day, and you only know *after* the event what the price was - as I said make your own decision!

However there is a price cap of 30p per kWh for gas and 100p for electricity, so you don’t expose yourself to unlimited risk.

You don’t need a smart meter to be on this tariff. If you are then they take the daily readings and apply it to the daily price. If you are on a dumb meter then they spread the usage across the period using industry consumption data, e.g. a cold day is allocated more consumption, and it’s a not straight average across the days. With a dumb meter they also require you to read the meter at least once a month, but you can do it as frequently as you want.

Also at any time you don’t like what is happening you can swap back onto the normal flexible government capped tariff - although obviously you can’t flit backwards and forwards day to day or week to week.

You can see the historical daily prices here, by selecting your region (there are regional variations the same as normal tariffs) and the November 2022 v1 rates - http://mysmartenergy.uk/

As you will see, both gas and electricity are running significantly below the capped rates, yesterday for me gas was at 6.11p not 10.3p and electricity 25.22p not 35.06p.

I have been on the gas tracker since last May and only for a few days has it exceeded the government capped price (I am not using it for electricity as I have their EV tariff).

Will this continue, who knows! As before this isn’t a recommendation, just a ‘heads up’ in case you were not aware such a tariff existed to make your own decision!

[mutantpoodle]

am surprised that you have done so well
I was on the tracker last summer for 3 months
and in no month were the costs averaged to be lesss than regular tarif

might be much better now that actual energy prices have fallen and tarif is increased

[AF62]

am surprised that you have done so well
I was on the tracker last summer for 3 months
and in no month were the costs averaged to be lesss than regular tarif

might be much better now that actual energy prices have fallen and tarif is increased

Yes, last summer before the government cap increased the price savings were marginal.

However since the gas cap increased to 10.3p the difference has become significant, with at times the price I have been paying as low as 3.5p and frequently around 5p.

[mutantpoodle]

again well done
I guess I just must have selected the 2 or 3 worst months to get on it...and I gave up too soon!

[bluedonkey]

Contacted them and they replied:

"Tracker tariff prices are based on the wholesale price of energy which can change significantly on a day to day basis

Market spikes can send Tracker prices rise up to 100p/kWh for electricity or 30p/kWh for gas - which is 3 TIMES more than our customers are currently paying on a Flexible Octopus tariff

This tariff is best suited to customers who can shift large amounts of their energy use to avoid these expensive peaks."

[AF62]

Contacted them and they replied:

"Tracker tariff prices are based on the wholesale price of energy which can change significantly on a day to day basis

Market spikes can send Tracker prices rise up to 100p/kWh for electricity or 30p/kWh for gas - which is 3 TIMES more than our customers are currently paying on a Flexible Octopus tariff

This tariff is best suited to customers who can shift large amounts of their energy use to avoid these expensive peaks."

Yes the price is dependent on the wholesale price, and although prices can (and do) vary, but my experience over the last year is that price moves are fairly gradual.

As you will see from the charts here (http://mysmartenergy.uk/Tracker/London) gas prices have varied between 6p and 7p and electricity between 21p and 28p over the last three weeks.

Could prices spike up to 30p and 100p overnight - sure it’s possible if something earth shaking happened somewhere in the world - Putin invades Germany…

Is it likely to happen, well if it did then I probably have bigger worries than the price of gas and electricity!

But even so, if it did and looked like staying that way then a quick call to Octopus would put me back on the flexible tariff.

The last comment from Octopus after shifting use was incorrect, and I would suggest they are confusing Tracker with their Agile tariff where the price shifts on an hour by hour basis, but the prices are published in advance so if you can see a price spike coming you can avoid turning the oven on - and Agile does move massively in price - http://mysmartenergy.uk/Prices/London

So is Tracker for everyone - no it certainly isn’t. If you want certainty about what you are paying then it isn’t at all.

However if you want to ‘play the markets’ and gamble that it will deliver a better price than the standard Flexible tariff then it might be - and that’s why I mentioned it on this forum as for people used to investing and taking the odd risk then they might be interested in it.

[bluedonkey]

Octopus also said:

"As you can imagine, we have had a lot of interest in this tariff. Since it is still in its Beta stage, we are still trialling a few of our customers at a time. For this reason, there is currently a wait list."