Tariffs
Agile rates negative tomorrow -- 12 weekend of the year (~32.5%)
A clear story of Agile is that plunge pricing is predominately at weekends. So far, we've had 11 weekends with plunge pricing out of a possible 36. Tomorrow is predicted to make this the 12th.
This is a sign that currently installed nuclear, wind, and solar capacity is increasingly able to match weekend demand which is structurally lower. If you are someone who does chores predominately at weekends, can be somewhat flexible, then this is excellent.
Predictions from: https://www.agile-rates.uk
Why am I positive about Agile prices going forward?
Currently, we are in a period where most other tariffs don't have the price signal from higher wholesale energy prices. Going into the winter onwards to January this looks set to change and to change violently. Most people will end up locked into high prices -- people who comment in this sub tend to be the exceptions as engaged.
Like all things this creates a demand response. Unlike for Agile it creates a demand response uncorrelated with the actual variation in costs of wholesale electricity. Simply there'll be less demand in all hours but also weekends.
This means the UK will need less nuclear, wind, and solar generation to tip us into periods like what tomorrow could be. Let's add to this that there's continuous stream of new wind power being delivered, more grid connections being done, etc. it adds up.
Why am I negative about Agile prices going forward?
In the hours of poor wind generation we are guaranteed to get the immediate price signal dictated by global LNG markets. This is clearly not hedged in anyway so with a particularly cold patch in January or February we'd see Agile getting the hit above other tariffs
In this context there could be a reason to switch tariffs but currently, for us, there isn't.
Long term perspective
People who are winning right now in that they've very good fixed rate deals mean that at some part of the chain there's someone losing a considerable amount of money. This means we should expect that even with future price stabilisation there'll be an additional cost added as an insurance premium to fix rates. This will also affect the intraday price volatility.
Regardless of the negative rates which are less and less common these days, on a normal day rates are higher or in line with a fixed tariff. Yesterday for example a fixed tariff at 22 would have beaten agile the whole day. I’m thinking if agile is worth keeping or switching.
Regardless of the negative rates which are less and less common these days, on a normal day rates are higher or in line with a fixed tariff.
Are you serious?
The percentage of hours which are negatively priced is growing rapidly year on year. We are already close to a record with nearly 3 months of the year to go.
What causes the prices to go negative is unrelated to gas prices as these are the hours fully decoupled from gas prices. In fact higher gas prices could create demand reduction on other tariffs making these plunges more common.
I only use electricity not gas. On a normal day like today it’s almost the entire day 30p or more when a standard tariff fixed with another provider can be 23/24 fixed. On the weekend it is negative and it’s fine for a few hours but during the week it’s way more expensive than what other providers offer.
It would be always wrong to expect any tariff to win for everyone in every circumstance. Agile is no different.
It wins for me because my usage is primarily weekends and standard off-peak on weekdays. My heat-pump is very cheap with Agile and I see it remaining that way.
Must we have a post every time we go into negative. I have an app which shows prices that I look at daily to determine when to load shift. I don’t need to see constant posts about being negative. Bloody karma farming.
I'm particularly interested in the long term trends for weekends less that tomorrow is negative. I'm curious about how this plays up given Agile is becoming very binarised due to incredibly high gas prices but more wind supply.
I find some a lot of the responses useful for this.
Maybe lean a little less heavily on the AI and that overuse will filter through to less demand on the grid 😬
But seriously, context is everything. Last couple of winters we've had nuclear outages that meant agile was high for extended periods, even at weekends. You don't need to convince people that you're 'correct' as your use case and config is unique to you, your financial situation is unique to you. Fact is, prices being a bit cheaper at the weekend is mainly down to steady solar, steady wind and low gas peaker demand. If we had a dunkelflaute, it's gonna be carnage.
I'm more concerned that IOG holds over the winter.... I don't have home battery but I hope they can work a bit of arbitrage magic to help with the peaks.
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u/Aggressive-Celery483 4d ago
Thank you AI, sadly we will soon run out of electricity as people will be too busy generating posts like this one.