Today my energy supplier Tonik wrote to me inviting me to consider solar panels, a car charger, or a storage battery – all of which I already have. However on their website I found a wider vision of the future home which they thought could halve energy consumption. I thought it would be interesting to compare their vision with my status.
As you can see from the table below the content is quite similar, although I have more ambitious use of solar and more sophisticated smart heating management.
| Tonik's Vision | My Q3 2017 status | My Q3 2019 status |
|---|---|---|
| Switch to Tonik for lowest cost renewable electricity. | Done. | Now with Octopus |
| Smart meter | Waiting on Tonik | Supplied via Octopus |
| Connected thermostat (whole of house device) | Connected thermostats (individual room temperatures and schedules) | |
| LED bulbs | Done. | |
| Smart tariff | Without a smart meter on nearest equivalent (Economy 7) | Agile Octopus dynamic smart tariff. |
| Solar PV | Done. | |
| Battery storage. | Done. | |
| - | Surplus solar electricity diverted to charge electric car. | |
| - | Surplus solar electricity diverted to heat water. | |
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Subsequently we’ve switched our electricity supply to Octopus where we not only have a smart meter but also a dynamic smart tariff where the price changes each half hour and daily i.e. they publish the prices each day for the next day and those prices can change each half hour. We pay about 9 p/kWh on average, although it can be as high as 35 p/kWh or a low as negative (i.e. they pay us to use electricity).
If you want to consider switching to Octopus you can use this link and save a further £50 (offer correct of time of writing) https://share.octopus.energy/ochre-beach-637
Today it’s been announced that Tonik has ceased to trade and that OFGEM will find a new supplier for Tonik customers. Yesterday it was announced that Octopus were expanding with 1000 new staff.