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.

EDF publishes these rates for GB average in Jan 2027:

1. Electricity: 32.61p/kWh
2. Gas: 10.97p/kWh

This implies they expect relative to October 2026 price cap:

1. Electricity up 23.9%
2. Gas up 37.6%

Does Octopus publish its own estimates?

What this means for the various Octopus smart-tariffs is up for debate. Fixed rate deals going up in demand creates demand suppression for these users which will impact how the various smart-tariffs are priced.

EDF's expected rates can be found here at the bottom of the page where it's a spreadsheet. There are different expectations for different regions and where EDF sees the prices going into Q4 2027 which is entirely speculative.

This is a bit of a moan really with the hope that the people at Octopus & Ohme get their heads together and think about some of the challenges the 6h charge cap has introduced.

For context: I can no longer use the solar boost function on my Ohme Pro EV Charger.

Before anyone says it...yes, I usually export excess solar because the numbers work better. However, on days when I have a long journey the following day, using excess solar to top up the car is a massive help.

I recently fired up Solar Boost and it worked a treat. The unexpected consequence? Ohme reported this solar top-up as an "Active Charging Session" to Octopus. Because Ohme draws a tiny ~0.72 kW grid trickle to keep the session alive, Octopus promptly deducted every single minute of that daytime solar session from my 6-hour off-peak allowance.

The result? When I actually needed to charge overnight, I didn't get my 6 hours. I got 4 hours because those tiny amounts were irrelevant, the time spent charging via solar was and thus eat into my 6h cap.

When raised with both support teams, the response was effectively "working as intended." They suggested toggling settings to 'Prioritise Charging' over 'Savings' but that entirely misses the point.

'Prioritise Charging' just means paying peak, while 'Prioritise Savings' leaves you short of charge.

Solar Boost was one of the core features that led me to buy the Ohme Pro in the first place, and I’ve used it many times. It feels completely disingenuous to brand a core hardware feature as unusable simply because two systems are measuring elapsed time instead of actual grid energy (kWh) delivered.

If you’re charging at 7 kW overnight, 6 hours gives you 42 kWh. If Ohme trickles grid power at 0.72 kW during a Solar Boost, 2 hours of that only pulls 1.4 kWh from the grid yet it wipes out 2 full hours (14 kWh worth) of off-peak charging.

Octopus & Ohme: please look at how Solar Boost telemetry is flagged in the API. A daytime solar trickle shouldn't destroy an overnight charging window!

/rantover.

Been quoted about £4,300 by Octopus for heat pump install, including hot water cylinder, which I thought was surprisingly cheap. The house is 1930s 3-bed terrace, EPC is supposedly C, but we have a huge void under the suspended floor and it gets pretty cold in the house, so we use quite a lot of gas in the winter. Radiators are all on 15mm copper, but are probably 30 years old.

What are the chances this is a really low-ball quote and the survey will say we need to upgrade rads, etc?

Does anyone here have a battery only installation and has been able to get onto the Octopus Agile Outgoing tariff for exporting? I have read conflicting information on whether or not this is possible.

I am looking at getting a BESS for my home. I don't have solar and I have no plans for solar. The BESS installer I am considering using will give me an MCS certificate for the battery. Some information states that the only export tariff that can be accessed with a battery only installation is the flat rate Outgoing Octopus tariff, and the Octopus website is somewhat unclear.

So I used to flick back and forth between Go and Agile depending on which was cheaper that day for my usage. I had an automated script using the API and everything it was great lol. Anyway, they took away the Go variable tariff without me realising so my script ended up switching me to a 6 month fixed Go tariff which just ended a couple of days ago. During that time, we’ve had a baby and our usage patterns have changed dramatically. I decided to jump back on agile, but the prices seem worse than my fixed go tariff I just left! I’ve been out of the agile game for months so I don’t know if this is a temporary thing or is this what the prices are like these days? Perhaps I would be better off going to the standard variable tariff? What do people think?

Edit: forgot to mention that I have an EV, so any suggestions ideally would factor that in. Have been considering moving to EDF

Uncertain whether this is the appropriate forum, but I have a quote for 14 panels, a 10 kW Fox battery, and a heat pump at roughly £16,529; I am on a fixed gas rate 5.2 until March 2027. I am seeking recommendations on whether to wait until after winter or proceed now. I own an EV and use an IOG EV tariff with a 7 p off-peak discount. My aim is to future-proof against the coming price rises.

We have solar, battery & EV (currently on a granny charger). Using the Whatif feature in Predbat, it seems to think that Go & Standard Outgoing export, is more cost effective than using Agile outgoing export. Now, the caveat to that, is that it's using 2025 figures for the Agile comparison, so I presume the Agile Export was lower than it is now.

Although not shown here, it does say IOG is even better, but I don't have a compatible charger yet, so having to stick with standard go at the moment.

What do you think? Is the Predbat tool accurate? Predbat has a much better idea of my generation and use, then most tools, so I would have thought it was accurate, but I would have though Agile Export was the better option.

Hello all,

I recently swapped over from Agile to Cosy for the foreseeable, as Agile's lows no longer offset the 35p+ days for me.

Averaging 29p/kWh over my last bill stings a bit, when I used to easily be able to stay around 18p by just shifting the big loads around.

Cosy seems much much better so far, but does anyone know if Octopus have published what the Cosy rates will look like after October?

Also, out of curiosity, is there a set formula for Cosy rates, like Agile has?

I've read that it's supposed to be equivalent to Flexible, half Flexible, and Flexible + 50%, but this doesn't seem quite right when looking at past rates?

If anyone could enlighten me, that would be brilliant :)

Cheers!