Monthly Archives: October 2021

Electricity rates

It’s now 3 years since I became an Octopus Energy customer. Each month I’ve been noting the average unit rate from my electricity bill. These average rates vary month-by-month as I’ve always been on a smart tariff where the price is different at different times of day, and thus my average rate varies depending on how my consumption is divided between different times of day

MonthYear 2018/19Year 2019/20Year 2020/1Year 2021/2Year 2022/3
November14.27 p/kWh8.96 p/kWh6.69 p/kWh7.37 p/kWh12.75 p/kWh
December10.17 p/kWh6.51 p/kWh9.61 p/kWh7.66 p/kWh14.26 p/kWh
January6.86 p/kWh9.74 p/kWh8.32 p/kWh15.36 p/kWh
February5.59 p/kWh11.18 p/kWh6.93 p/kWh11.36 p/kWh
March5.02 p/kWh8.85 p/kWh6.88 p/kWh10.14 p/kWh
April8.35 p/kWh8.74 p/kWh7.36 p/kWh9.33 p/kWh
May4.48 p/kWh11.50 p/kWh6.36 p/kWh8.59 p/kWh
June7.03 p/kWh3.49 p/kWh12.52 p/kWh9.48 p/kWh (part old Go at 7.5 p/kWh)
11.28 p/kWh (part new Go at 9.5 p/kWh)
July8.20 p/kWh4.40 p/kWh15.60 p/kWh (part)
End Agile / Start Go
5.92 p/kWh (part)
10.09 p/kWh (new Go with 7.5 p/kWh overnight)10.62 p/kWh (to 30/6)
10.39 p/kWh (from 01/07)
August6.29 p/kWh (part)
5.99 p/kWh (balance)
6.15 p/kWh6.19 p/kWh 11.82 p/kWh11.63 p/kWh
September5.63 p/kWh7.62 p/kWh6.30 p/kWh11.07 p/kWh13.41 p/kWh (to 15/09)
12.66 p/kWh (from 16/06)
October6.86 p/kWh6.97 p/kWh6.83 p/kWh13.76 p/kWh13.66 p/kWh

For most of this time I was on a very complex tariff called Octopus Agile which is directly linked to wholesale prices and, while historically that has been very good value, rising wholesale prices recently have caused that tariff to get increasingly expensive and so I’ve switched to Octopus Go which provides a 5 p/kWh inc-VAT night time rate for 4 hours. This is ideal for charging our electric cars and also the home battery if the next day’s solar production looks as if it will be limited.

Both of these tariffs are so-called smart tariffs enabled by smart meters. Some people can be very negative towards smart meters and indeed smart tariffs, but based on my experience it seems to me that if you have some flexibility to move electricity consumption to off-peak periods these can be excellent value for money.

I currently use the FiT revenue from my solar panels (about £700 annually) to offset my energy bills and am left paying £20/month towards household energy. I also earn a little income from referrals.

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