How you could reduce your electricity bills to an average of £0 with a solar and battery installation on an Octopus Agile Flex tariff.
It has been reported that some Octopus energy customers are seeing electricity bills of £0 by combining solar and battery storage with a flexible tariff such as the Octopus Agile flex tariff. This tariff allows customers to take advantage of the volatility of the wholesale energy market where the unit price of electricity can suddenly increase at any time in half-hourly increments, but the average rate is lower than other tariffs.
This is a perfect fit for our solar and battery customers who can utilise the free stored electricity in their batteries during high peak times and take advantage of the lower or even negative rates when available to recharge the batteries. They don’t even need the sun to be shining to fill their batteries due to the predictable nature of the UK’s energy demands and the advent of smarter batteries and inverters. The fair export prices that are being offered allow large return payments to customers which more than cover any winter months where their solar production will be reduced due to the shorter days and the fact the sun is lower in the sky. This practice is called energy arbitrage and is a secret weapon for our customers who are taking advantage of the various flexible energy tariffs.
Octopus has stated that their price spikes are short-lived and typically last from 30 minutes to one hour. The timing of these spikes is normally sometime between 4 pm to 7 pm which coincides with people coming home from work. Our battery systems are generally full of free electricity generated from the solar throughout the day and their capacity is more than enough to get you through the evening or they can be emptied in the peak times when the rates are higher.
The unit rates can often drop as low as 10p per kWh in times of low demand and as high as 100p per kWh in times of high demand. This large swing is substantial enough to earn our customers decent amounts and achieve net £0 electricity bills by managing your energy usage. With the use of an electric car, the same can be done to also reduce your fuel bills by charging your electric car at off-peak times. When charging your car at home the savings are already substantial compared to conventional gas cars but also public car chargers. When utilising the cheaper unit rates on the flexible tariffs this substantial saving can be vastly improved.
If you would like to find out more about how My Green Electricity can help you take advantage of the various flexible tariffs, get a free solar report on your property or a quote for either solar, battery storage or an EV charger then don’t hesitate to get in contact where we will be happy to help.