Octopus Saving Sessions

[NewBootsAndRanty]

Anyone signed up for this? Payments for shifting your energy use away from peak times/within a given timeslot each day.

Yep me too. Amazed when I looked out the window and every other house had all the lights on.

We didn’t do it tonight as BIL was cooking (he lives with us) and we didn’t want to mess with his plans. Don’t feel we can enforce it on him.

Same here not sure if neighbours are participating but keeping lights on or if they just arent bothering although i have just asked my friend if shes doing it and she said british gas arent starting theres until december

It's all very well everyone switching off between 5.30 and 6.30 but then if everyone immediately turns everything back on at 6.30, starts cooking and tumble drying surely we're back to square one?

@tribpot thanks, I checked and the snoozing circle means I didn't opt in. I think I was in a rush and clicked on the button in the email but needed to click another button once I was through to the website. I could have sworn I'd done everything but I was at work so anything is possible!

It's about smoothing the peaks rather than just reducing.

So if you move some of us from park to slightly off peak, that is a better way to use the energy...

For park read peak! Sorry

Are people really doing that though? Were still sat with just candles and the fire and i wont bother turning things back on until we need them so our energy use is still lower than normal

Yes, but it's sounding a bit like what happens after an big sports event, or, say HMQ funeral. Everyone's glued to the box and then when the event is over, everyone switches their kettle on - it sounds as if it's just moving the peak a bit.

@Daftasahoover the idea is to shift demand away from the peak period when everyone is making dinner, watching TV etc, rather than reduce demand overall (although that would be better in the long run). This is the demand in the last 24 hours and it did peak at 6pm, and is now dropping down so we're closer to not needing to import energy from abroad. (Image is from here). The black line is the overall demand and red is how much is being met by fossil fuels, green is renewables and blue is other (in practical terms, nuclear). Grey is import/export, so we were exporting power earlier in the day but now importing again, i.e. we're not generating enough ourselves.

Given the apparent blackout warning earlier, I'm really surprised the National Grid didn't run a 2 hour saving session instead, to move more demand later into the evening.

Tribpot, that's a great visual, thanks.

I think it's a great scheme and shows what a little bit from a lot of people can do.
We are with them but as we have solar panels and a battery, we already draw no power from the grid in the day so can't reduce usage.

I'm definitely all for these sessions. Our first we got £1.18 and while not masses, it was no huge inconvenience cooking tea twenty minutes later than I usually would.
Yesterday worked out really well for us as we had a restaurant voucher to use and they had an offer on for half price meals so I had already booked that when the session info came through. We would have saved more had DH been home from work on time and managed to have a shower before 5:30 but can't be helped. He had a shower during the last one as well.

When will the result be ready, does anyone know?

No idea, was ready by now last time. I've not had an email and my app seems to be broken as it's just blank when I click into it.

They tweeted yesterday to say it will be early next week. Quite a few people commenting they had opted in but have been recorded as not opted in.

What on earth is a 'Sticky type of meter' a meter is a meter is a meter

Mine did this last week i had to log on via the website and it sorted it out

I guess it is their “wacky” way of saying, we’ve had an issue. I think they need to sort this out and provide quicker results if they want people to do it seriously for the 4 hour sessions.

I finally got an email back yesterday from Octopus about my gas usage not updating online:

"The issue with your account is, we have recently changed the software we use to store the data and receive it from smart meters. Yours is one of the last to be enrolled into the new system, the old system has a delay in showcasing the half-hour reads. The good news is all accounts will be enrolled into the new system with a predicted timeline of the start of 2023. I do apologise that this isn't the best answer but it is an issue that is being resolved it is just taking some time to migrate all the accounts."

Ooh results are out!
82% saving and 1296 points this time for me.

That was turning off a lot of sockets (but not fridge or freezer) and delaying dinner.

A grand total of £2.37 over both sessions

100% saved, 104 points for this session. A massive 13p, compared to 6p last time.

Oh that must be a bit disheartening for the effort!

You must be a very low user generally which is much better in the long run!

Where are the extra 100 points we were promised for continuing our ‘streak?’ Mine aren’t there… anyone else?

Is there a session tomorrow? National Grid need to save energy- article in the Times.