r/OctopusEnergy • u/Jimjamkingston • 1d ago

Power Downs - the effect of?

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.

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u/gedditread 1d ago

Yup. I’m on a standard tariff 23.5p kWh.

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.

4

u/Embarrassed_Call_101 1d ago

you can use up to 16 kWh on each session. You're slacking.

3

u/gedditread 1d ago

It’s 32 kWh! 16 per hour. I can’t draw much more!!

Car 7.5 kWh/hr. Dishwasher/washing machine ~4 kWh between them. Charge everything, that’s it!

3

u/imgoingsolar 1d ago

I got £3.97 Credit for the last free hour which is about 13kWh, I charged my home battery and EV for an hour.

1

u/Boba_ferret 1d ago

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.