Octopus Free Electricity Sessions

Acejames87

Hi,

For next summer it would be good if I could juat tick a box to say I've subscribed to octopus saving sessions and then when the 1 hour free session slots come around we can export from battery just before the session and charge the batteries as much as possible in that 1 hr. This year it was generally 1-2pm when the sun was shining the most

admin

Acejames87 Yeah, we'll explore Octopus' API for this.

kerregan

Acejames87 I wouldn’t see this as a priority. It is only free for the power that you use in excess of your ‘usual’ consumption. So as soon as you maximise consumption in a slot, you will not get free electricity for that slot next time around. And if you are on Agile, the price will be close to free anyway.

Acejames87

admin
FYI there is a session tomorrow so it looks like it may not just be only in the summer

JayC

kerregan Subjective I suggest, dependent on your setup/tariff. For those with one or more Giv AIOs on IOG and Fixed Export automation, taken over time, is very much worth it. Here are two of examples

1 x Giv AIO with 6kWh DNO on IOG and Fixed export: Purchase 6kWh hours during the night at 42p , 11:55 to 12:55 sell 6kWh at 90p. 13:00 to 14:00 charge 6kWh for free. Don't use that 6kWh sell it toward the end of the day for 90p a profit of £1.38
2 x Giv AIO with 12kWh DNO on IOG and Fixed export double the above leaving one +£2.26 for a single 'Octopus Free' Instance.

Whilst this is a faff manually, with a WW automation taken over the course of the year (summer sun, winter wind) the benefits would become far more significant. For now the 'Quick Schedule' function at the bottom of the Home page and an alarm on your watch suffices for those of us in the game.

kerregan

JayC Yes, but you can only do this once

johalareewi

One thing about these free sessions is that it is only the electricity above your usual consumption that is free. So you need to make sure you are using way more than normal (however that is determined).
So far I have got 8p back from the free sessions. Not a massive amount.

JayC

johalareewi That really demonstrates the variance! (I'm at £8.20)

johalareewi

JayC I wonder if it is because I am on Agile and during the free sessions, the Agile price is really low (or negative) so I am not going to get much of a rebate. Whereas if I was on standard rate or flux, I would get more back.

kerregan

JayC But if you were on Agile, your price for that power would have been more like 20p rather than £8.20.

JayC

johalareewi I've not been tempted by Agile yet. On IOG my 'normal' for 13:00 to 14:00 is zero (from the grid) and then in these slots I put 6kWh in the battery, run the dryer etc

MrMessy

JayC are you smart charging during the sessions, for that added je ne c'est quoi?

jesseb4me

kerregan The 'Normal' use baseline calculation for a saving session doesn't include days where there was a saving session in calculating what is 'Normal'. I believe it's the same for these free power hours too.

JayC

MrMessy I try to cover all the options that come to mind. Not as extreme as a colleague though, who invites his EDF neighbour to plugin when he has insufficient room in his own car battery on these sessions.

MrMessy

JayC That's very generous of him.
My neighbour drives a Massey Ferguson, or a Hearse on Friday's, so I don't think that's going to work. lol

admin

MrMessy Red diesel all the way then! :-o

adam

I'm hoping the the "more autonomous" "money printer" version for Agile mentioned in the list of proposed developments will justify the subscription payment by fully optimising costs, based on:
Forecasted Domestic Consumption (from account history, possibly adjusted based on the weather forecast)
Forecasted Solar Production (based on production forecast)
Battery size, power, status and type
Upcoming Agile rates, and a forecast beyond that based on the weather forecast
Available export rates
Inverter capacity (to avoid clipping where possible)
Saving Sessions and Free Electricity Sessions
Cost of battery wear and tear due to charging and discharging

I'm not sure the Saving Session or Free Electricity Session is available via API but all the other information could be provided to an optimisation algorithm to compute the best settings to maximise profit. And given that energy is generally cheaper when there's an excess of renewables, the settings for maximum profit will be pretty close to the best for the environment.

To be honest, I'm not sure why companies like GivEnergy have not already provided this option. It would surely give their products a competitive advantage.

And it might also be used to help select the most advantageous system design in the first place.

johalareewi

Looking forward to WW does Predbat. :)