Time of Use (TOU) tariffs and how to compare your prices with other suppliers - discussion

It does feel as if the country has invested too little in infrastructure, and that generation capacity has been allowed without a requirement to either boost the inter-connects, or require storage capacity for low generation days. . 

I agree @EverythingNeedsAUserName - However the lack of “reverse power” capability at our Grid Supply Points now provides the opportunity to develop mass-distributed storage technology in a major offensive against the ravages of Global Warming.

This is going to require some effort to communicate the situation to our MPs and Ofgem so that the forthcoming Time Of Use tariffs are available to the public in such a way as to permit a preference for renewable sources.

Very few ordinary members of the public, like you & I, are even aware of the possibilities.

I am very fortunate in having an MP who is an enthusiast of micro-generation. That’s because it’s in the hands of his constituents... as opposed to some amorphous international company wanting to erect large wind-turbines on farmland for the benefit of their shareholders.

@Transparent Apologies if I sounds abrupt or confrontational, that is not the intention. I am not the best written communicator and the tone can be misunderstood 🙂, oh and I can ramble on!

I totally agree re the cost only principal behind the V2G business model but I feel the connection between wholesale price and CO2 though coincidental in most respect is there.
As an unintentional effect (though sold as a benefit) the Kaluza managed V2G does not charge the EV during the most expensive (and normally dirtiest) electricity, it also supports the grid during peak times by generating, therefore reducing the need to generate more electricity from dirty sources. 
 

There is no doubt that V2G, domestic PV etc  will not solve all the issues the grid faces for the future but it could assist. With increased renewables comes the problem of intermittent supply, grid scale energy storage is required in huge amounts to be able to realise net zero.  There should never be a situation where any renewable source of energy has to stop generating. I do believe more domestic generation and storage can help and should be encouraged. I don’t believe it should be a way for people to make significant amounts of money through the likes of FIT payments. The grid needs to adapt and encourage the uptake of local generation in a way that achieves net zero to be realised sooner. 
 

In my ideal world that would mean compulsory smart meters to all consumers and centralised data available for grid management. 
 

One of the biggest issues I see in the near future with mass transition to EV’s and heat pump adoption is a lack of management and control of these consumers of power. It seems that some form of standard is required rapidly to be able to reduce demand when required (not 20 competing and not compatible software platforms). 

There is currently nothing to stop anyone having a car charger installed on their own house that can consume 7+ kW whenever they feel like doing. If 40 million EV’s all plug in at 5pm while cooking dinner and boil the kettle whilst the heat pump is heating the house… you get the picture. Policy needs fixing now before it takes 20 years and is much more costly to remedy.

When net zero is achieved there will be no more spinning coal or gas plants to plug the gap in supply, instead V2G (or V2H), home battery storage etc can support domestic use at a domestic level. 

I also fee that the consumer / domestic customer market is at this stage not going to be able to dictate energy generation mix, it just doesn’t seem feasible. What is available is net zero tariffs (with some variability of how green these really are). 
Time of use tariffs are nothing new, economy 7 has been around for decades. With current smart meters half hourly consumption metering and charging is possible. The likes of Octopus Agile which is wholesale price based (and loosely cleaner / dirtier generation) encourage demand shifting and relieve the grid to some extent.  

What we can do and should do is ask for more zero carbon energy and vote with our feet if suppliers don’t play along with the demand. There are products available now that are 100% renewable (inc OVO). The industry also needs some reform and clarity regarding what is actually renewable.  The other issue is educating people that this matters and they can do something about it today. 
 

I am hopeful that discussions like this and people who care enough to be passionate about them, we will gain momentum to make change for the better. 

I will see if I can get you several months of ½ hourly data for you to model with. 
 

The point I was trying to make regarding the source of electricity is currently we only have the choice of renewables or not. At some point there will be no choice (net zero). I agree completely that people do care where their electricity comes from (me included) but I would imagine a comparison site of the near future would be able to filter based on generation source (a tick box for green).

Hopefully people will choose green energy for a slight increase in cost and appreciate the benefits. 

Just catching up on this thread - some very interesting points! 

This is one of the key learnings from this discussion for me - local renewable generation and it’s limitations based on location. 

Wind and solar is criticized by climate change deniers (or those of a similar mindset) for it’s unpredictability, due to dependencies on the weather.  But now I learn that it’s also limited by where it’s based vs where the demand is…. Surely centralised power stations are even more effected by this capacity limitation @Transparent ?

It begs the question of planning - why are these not more distributed throughout the country? I understand you can’t have a solar farm in Leicester Square, but are efforts being made to ensure renewable generation is efficiently optimised from a capacity perspective?

I have an passive-class house  with home automation, so I have a high degree of control of my time of consumption.  I like OVO as a provider, but the financial benefits of a time of use tariff are absolutely compelling for me.

1. Does OVO have any plan to introduce a TOU tariff in the near future, or am I in effect being forced to switch to an alternative supplier, such as Octopus which does offer one?
2. I understand that OVO / DCC have a migration programme for their Secure Liberty 100 E1S0B1 SMETS1 meters to DCC management by firmware upgrade that is due to complete mid 2021.  How can I find the status of my meter?  

Hi @TerryE - two great questions!

I am completely with you… a Time Of Use tariff is an absolute necessity! It’s not just the financial flexibility which matters, but that it provides an effective mechanism for us consumers to make daily decisions which help combat Global Warming.

1: We can be absolutely certain that OVO intend to introduce a ToU tariff. This is very much the bedrock on which they have been developing the new Billing System.

It must be as frustrating for the software developers as it is for us, that the strategy is being thwarted by intermittent inconsistencies in the data retrieved from our Smart Meters. Octopus took a different approach to this, but the OVO design allows for greatly increased opportunities to incorporate devices controlled by the Flex Platform, also being developed by Kaluza.

Unsurprisingly this was one of the subjects which featured in my conversation with Stephen Fitzpatrick last month. He is giving clear instructions to the relevant Managers as to how they should proceed. The immediate result is that we now have a Tech Treehouse which I have described more fully here on the Forum.

The aim is to capitalise on the high quality fault-analysis from customers on the Forum, and discuss the symptoms directly with the Program Managers rather than via Customer Services (the official route).

@Tim_OVO was in the same conversation with Steve, and he is tasked with bringing the relevant OVO and Kaluza staff into that Tech Treehouse. The first set of fault symptoms has now been posted there ready for them.

2: The migration of SMETS1 meters to the National Smart Meter Network has been underway since August 2020. That means the SMETS2 firmware has already been downloaded into your meter.

OVO offer batches of meters to be adopted over the months. They initially moved customers on the Priority Services Register in order to ensure that their sites would be connected via DCC before the cold weather of winter set in.

I don’t know how you will be able to tell when your site has been migrated. In theory it should be a seamless operation!

The supplier I’m moving to, Green Energy UK, as part of my V2G trial will operate a TOU tariff during the trial, it’s called their TIDE tariff and is generally available.  It discourages use between 16:00 and 19:00 weekdays by charging 32.55p per Kwh.

@Transparent, thanks for your reply. 

My current OVO fixed price E7 electricity bill is roughly double what it would be for an equivalent Octopus ToU tariff.  My pay-back period for my £30 termination fee is much less than a month.  

Unfortunately “absolute necessity” is a statement of intent not a timescale.  It’s not worth the hassle for me to switch supplier were OVO to introduce a ToU tariff within the next 3 months, say.  Beyond that it becomes a no-brainer.

Again, I agree with you @TerryE . I have no doubt that it is as annoying for the OVO Directors as it is for us customers that a Time Of Use tariff is still not launched.

Let’s note that both Octopus and Green Energy UK are relatively small companies when compared with the OVO Group. They have shown much greater agility in creating workable code and obtaining useful feedback from users.

It’s now more than 12 months since the substantive fault reports appeared here on the Forum about issues with OVO’s new Billing System. That means the majority of customers who provided that feedback will now have changed contract.

Although I’m certain that the software developers within Kaluza have noted a number of these Forum posts, their lack of direct engagement with the customers is galling.

For too long they have persisted in working within their exclusive bubble in the mistaken belief that they will suddenly have a bug-free world-class product which we will be congratulating them for.

I’m afraid that ship has long since sailed.

@Transparent, thanks again for your valuable response.  As an end-consumer, I had missed this OVO Kaluza aspect. 

I am retired now,  but I was the CTO for the operations division of an internal IT services provider in my later career. I spent a lot of my time interfacing to CTO and CFOs of multi-nationals, so I understand that it is really hard to develop a successful IT strategy to address a market that is responding to pivoting technical drivers.  Some like Apple, Tesla and Amazon get this balance right and follow a successful strategy leading to significant growth.  Most get this wrong and either fail or at least badly falter.

My feeling is that OVO are floundering and for me personally, it is time to switch providers. 

It is nice to see more competition, but this tariff seems very expensive. Even if you use as much electricity during the night as you do during the peak period (and it is called peak period because most people use more electricity), the average price is 16.8p/kWh. For normal use, you are probably around 20p/kWh. Nice concept, but uncompetitive numbers. There are many better tariffs out there. 

The tariff seems expensive @MrPuds because we’ve only been told one price-point within one time-slot.

All ToU tariffs have major drawback at the moment because they’re still trying to average-out the costs across the nation. They have an inbuilt rigidity which helps to attract customers whilst the software is still being developed.

If an Energy Supplier took the bold step of basing their ToU tariffs on the true energy costs within the customer’s geographical location, then those of us living in areas with an over-supply of renewable energy would quickly snap up a contract. Contrarywise they’d lose customers in the large (profitable) metropolitan areas…. and could therefore find their shareholders objecting!

It’s a tricky balancing act to keep enough customers on board whilst the ToU algorithms are being honed.

So, a year later, massive energy price hike, COP26 behind us and still no TOU plan

To be brutally honest, now is not a good time for any energy supplier to launch a ToU tariff at all. Even Octopus Agile is currently pinned to the maximum possible rate pretty much non-stop at the moment, which is wiping out any possible savings you could make from it. If it wasn’t for the caps they put in place, the prices would have skyrocketed beyond reasonable levels.

Until things return to the real normal, it’s unlikely that any other supplier including OVO would be keen to introduce a ToU deal.

While that is true, in April we will have a higher price cap, one that is profitable again, and there should be room more different tariffs. ToU is certainly something that makes sense, and it is a shame that we have so few options on the market. OVO really should consider launching one - ideally one that is different from the existing options. I am also still waiting for a three-tier tariff: low, normal, and peak time. 

Wow - this was a really good discussion over 2 years ago. Whilst things have changed in the market generally, I do think that this needs resurfacing as it is vital (in my view) to make progress in carbon reduction

Another year on and no real additional options for ToU except for a couple of other suppliers. 
Re-reading this thread, one of the questions posed was looking at how users could compare pricing to ascertain if they could ‘pay less’.

Linked to another subject on a publicly available api to enable further interrogation of usage and cost, there are a number of offerings others can point to which do exactly that. 
I currently use Octopus Agile and continue to look at a wholesale tracker pricing to see which is best for my usage profile. This is available each day and can be examined by day, week, month and year. 
I continue to look for something from OVO to offer in this area