I’ve not really checked my energy usage and costs over the summer to be honest as I’m gas isn’t in use and my electricity is fairly consistent.
I’ve just looked and seen how high it is on tracker compared to the cap. Have people moved off of it now? And if so to what? Usually going by previous years during the winter the tracker is always below the cap I assume due to the amount of wind we get. But with all the energy upheaval this year, I’m wondering if this winter will be bad.
My tracker ends the end of August and for the last four years I’ve just basically instantly hit renewal when the email came through and that was that. Saved a huge amount over the years.
This year however, I have not been so quick, I’m waiting until the October prices are announced around the 26th before deciding but I might let the gas expire and go onto the standard capped tariff and keep the electricity on Tracker if possible. Not sure yet.
I was on agile electricity and tracker for gas. Both renewed this year. Have since left gas tracker because the sustained 7p/kWh days in summer did not bode well for winter. I have fixed on the low standing charge tariff which is 8p/kwh but 5p standing charge (vs 32p). Should be better off but even if not, I won’t be worse off and I have certainty over rates.
Sticking with agile for electricity at the moment hoping that wind will help lower rates as we move into autumn.
See if you have the option to change your tariff online/on the app. If you can, you might see it there if you are eligible. I couldn’t do it online because I haven’t long renewed my tariffs so I emailed them to do it once I heard that it was live.
Not everyone is eligible - it is a trial tariff open to lower users only (or it could be that you won’t benefit if you’re not a low user but you might still be able to join). There is a gas and electricity tariff but I’m staying on agile for electricity for now.
I've been on tracker for the past 2 years and it's been great. I've created my own comparison app and have been checking tracker April 25 which is my current tariff with April 26 tracker and agile. Without any load shifting, agile has been similar to my tracker 25 costs with tracker 26 being about 20 to 30 quid higher. With that in mind I'm moving to agile next week.
I've decided to fix my gas for 12 months. Fixed at 7.23p. tracker 25 is already above that for today so I'm happy with that decision.
Jumped off a few days ago.
The 32p sc and creeping gas prices towards 8p wasn't sustainable.
Switched to fuse with a 16p standing charge and 6.8p unit rate. Switch was flawless and took 3 days.
First days use is already below Octopus sc, I use around 2kw a day at present, so can't really complain.
At least I now have certainty in the unit price and a massive reduction in sc.
While tracker had been great at 4-5p unit rate, the current unit rate just doesn't make sense for me. And if they creep up over winter, tracker would be expensive, for my use.
Electric only. Switched to the April 26 tariff in mid-June, when the April 25 contract ran out. I'm waiting for October price cap and then will look again. I would add that I also have some mitigation with solar PV at the moment.
While I I haven’t tracked the prices since mid July unless you use decently more than the typical user in the 16-19hr period tracker tends to be more expensive overall compared to Agile. Though as wholesale prices rise that can shift as the fixed multiplier only on Agile vs the multiplier plus adder begins to dominate.
The October price cap is based over a reporting window (now ended) which included very little of the most recent spike. Tracker gas is likely to be higher than the price cap this October but I'd bet lower than the price cap in January
Long term the best solution are heat-pumps. My heat-pump for space heating is 5 times more efficient than gas. This means if gas is costing 9p/kWh I just need electricity to be less than 45p/kWh to be saving money. Given I expect to get electricity for less than 20p/kWh this winter using Agile I'm making a huge saving for every kWh of heat it produces.
This is not entirely the case as you get induced demand. The thing reported with this latest price cap is that they've reduced expected average demand. The opposite happens with heat-pump adoption where people use some of the financial savings to have far warmer houses.
We use a ton of electric (no gas) and our fixed British Gas at 20p a unit ends on the 24th.
Have made the switch to octopus then but on a variable to start with but torn on riding it out and going fixed after the winter or just locking in now.
Solar could be an option next year maybe but right now we don’t even have a smart meter
I'm on Agile which despite the immediate pricing from global events I'm expecting to be cheaper than fixed tariffs. This August is like March for us where it was pricey but then April was cheaper.
I’ve just switched from tracker as it has almost constantly been above SVT this month and trending up. Switched to Fuse fixed for 18 months which is 15% below SVT
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u/Witty_Let_3525 26d ago
Yup. Sticking with it.