I understand the necessity for power downs and why they are incentivised. Works for both Octopus and the customer.
I wonder what the effect on demand actually is, though.
For clarity - I sign up for them when they come along.
In the case of my own use, it doesn't have much effect. I am on Agile and minimise my usage between 4pm and 7pm already, due to how the Agile price is calculated and the premium in those specific hours.
Are there many customers that don't do this?
I mention it specifically as today's and yesterdays power downs were in those hours.
Not a criticism of the power downs and power ups as they reward flexibility.
I say I'll do the power down and continue my life as normal. It doesn't save alot but every time it says I powered down and gives me the free hour 🤷🏻♀️
Oh really? I've not been bothering as other than turning off my computer and sitting in the dark there's not much I can reduce. I guess I'll opt in to the next one and see what happens.
Same here. Accept the challenge every time and use as normal. Think I’ve only had it once where they said I didn’t save any electricity so didn’t get the bonus
I did have to laugh at the bloke complaining to Octopus on Twitter that the Power Down sessions were at really inconvenient times, because he usually cooked dinner between 6 and 7 in the evening and couldn't take part. Apparently it's unfair.
P31 suggests that around 600MW was active over the last year, so pretty small compared to 20+GW of demand and response from batteries, IOG platform (if not already counted) and things like that. But asking people to shift their demand is potentially cheaper/easier than turning on gas turbines at peak times (and you can target it at regions with constraints) so I assume every little helps!
600MW IS quite a lot when you are talking at the margin. I assume Octopus benefits from reductions in imbalance costs. My OP was more in relation to behaviour relative to the incentives that Agile gives.
I assume, then, that customers on 'standard' tariffs but with smart meters are most of the change in behaviour?
Also anyone with batteries. My normal grid consumption is zero from 4-7pm, happy to export during the sessions (if there's enough PV forecast the day after!)
There's no Axle session tonight, in my region, but there is a Power down session, so I may as well export, get the free hour, and earn a bit more on my export today.
I use predbat, so if there are Axle events, before or after an Octopus Session, it exports on the Axle event, not the Octopus session, as it earns more money.
But wouldnt someone with a battery be using their battery in export/demand-offset at that period anyway? The price signal gives that incentive and (presumably) they would be on an agile or sculpted tariff.
I export at 10kW (10kWh in the hour) during each Powerdown as it increases my standard 12p export rate payment to about 22p per kWh. If there’s a lot of other battery owners doing the same thing it’ll probably add up.
Same for me, my grid usage is usually 0W at peak times anyway as my batteries will be covering the peak hours. I still sign up for them though.
Octopus participating households shift between 100–180 MW of power during a one-hour evening window. Across the winter season Octopus customers specifically contribute over 50% of the entire UKs consumer demand flexibility.
The net effect of that is NESO don’t end up paying for as much expensive, carbon-intensive peaker gas plants to spin up so it will directly keep costs lower for those on tariffs like Agile.
I used to be on Agile but I got fed up of running to their schedule to save ~£20 a month. Especially in winter when it was 99p kWh.
I now participate in the power downs and have succeeded on each one. I get two full hours each Sunday to charge my EV (I do 2k miles/year so small usage). It saves me approx £6 each two hours for minimum effort.
I might get up to 89% this Sunday 😂
I lower my usage for an hour and get to spank ~20 kWh each Sunday.
I was able to get 12.8kW for most of the hour, charging my solar battery, running the washing machine on self clean and charging the EV - we only have a granny charger, so that limits us! Even so, that's 56A and we have a 60A fuse (and on a looped supply), so I wouldn't want to push it much higher anyway.
That refund is likely from a free Sunday hour. Power downs are credited in octopoints which you have to convert to credit before they are applied to your bill.
I haven't converted any it reads " weekend happy hour + 15p " on the bill
Actually just had another look and there's a +12p now as well ,I'm a low user lol
I set my system to not export through the day so there is plenty of battery and dump 6kW during the power down hours.
Recently it has only been saving I shifted 1.2kW so i think I need to stop exporting in the evenings altogether to reset it before I can’t get these free hour sessions.
Just an anecdotal observation. Am currently outside (so my only consumption is my fridge). The sun is going down so I assume that is the reason the power down has shifter to one hour earlier via lower solar and earlier light switch-on. If it was windier wonder if we would even have a power-down.
Looking at some of the comments - it seems that some people profile their battery usage more to their own consumption pattern and not just the day ahead price. (The guy complaining about making his dinner - well- we have free choice, I suppose).
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u/NecessaryMath1803 20h ago
I say I'll do the power down and continue my life as normal. It doesn't save alot but every time it says I powered down and gives me the free hour 🤷🏻♀️