Supergroup Smart Home Tariff Workshop

We’ve a really weird scenario the place wholesale prices have dropped, electrical energy retail value has risen and fuel costs have fallen – the exact opposite of what we count on from the expansion in renewables and need to get off fuel.

The Finances Replace

However by Thursday twenty seventh Nov 2025 we had extra change as a part of The Finances which reduces payments by round £150 by shifting three quarters of the renewable obligation to common taxation and axing the vitality firm obligation funds – due to enter impact on the first April. So we are going to nonetheless see the Ofgem elevate for January to March on capped tariffs.

On electrical energy what we’re seeing here’s a flattening of the variability of wholesale vitality prices and a rise within the non-wholesale parts. Should you image Agile import/export meaning decreased variation so on the whole implies a transfer away from the power for time of use tariffs (i.e. good tariffs) to replicate excessive/low renewable technology.

That is complicated after we take into account:

• We all know we’re shifting to electrification of every thing
• We all know we’re not happening the Hydrogen for heating path
• We all know that renewable vitality is decrease value than fossil gasoline and is rising quickly
• We all know that renewable technology is distributed and intermittent

The “spark hole” drawback

Nigel Banks commented throughout his masterclass that this implies the ‘spark hole’ between electrical energy and fuel means heating parity is barely achievable at an air supply warmth pump effectivity of 4.7.

Flexibility is being squeezed

Renewable vitality is distributed and intermittent so the wholesale market will nonetheless be risky which is why all our good tariffs exist for us shoppers to profit by way of our payments. However as a substitute what’s taking place right here is corporations buried within the system are taking margins from flexibility and coverage prices are pushing up the mounted ingredient of electrical energy prices. It’s as if Ofgem don’t consider, or belief, that houses and companies can change behaviour to the good thing about the grid. If we proceed this path it’ll imply there’s no incentive to keep away from charging an electrical automobile between 4.00pm and seven.00pm (peak demand) and so much more grid will must be constructed which can get lumped onto coverage prices much more and so forth.

The Wasted Wind website is an efficient instance of this. Storm Claudia on 14th Nov 2025 meant we had actually excessive wind technology a few of which was curtailed at a value of £820,553. However on the similar time fuel technology elsewhere within the nation was required to satisfy demand at an extra value of £2,928,887. That’s a complete of £3,749,440 further value simply on the 14th Nov. And for the reason that begin of 2025 to the date of my Masterclass we’ve spent £1,286,372,794 on this mixture of curtailed wind and additional technology from burning fuel. Additionally take a look at Robin Hawkes’ website.

High 10 Run Down

10: Good Tariffs

Agile continues to be our extra common tariff while Go, Cosy, Flux varieties are designed to supply one of the best profit for electrical automobiles, warmth pumps and residential solar-batteries. Fan Membership, like Agile, supplies low cost vitality when the wind blows domestically and Comfortable is geared toward anybody with evening storage heaters. I additionally coated our Tenant Energy tariff which is a sport changer for social housing landlords to assist their tenants profit from photo voltaic by providing a reduction to the present versatile tariff anyplace between 20% and 30%. This low cost is agreed per social housing landlord and applies to all their tenants which might be capable of be part of the scheme. Discover out extra right here

9: Agile and Tracker Dashboards

Impressed by Mick Wall’s extremely standard website, these are instruments to see present & previous charges, and likewise a value comparability by taking your historic half-hour knowledge to see what your invoice might have been. A phrase of warning: any time-of-use tariff comparability (whether or not ours or another vitality provider) primarily based on historic half-hour knowledge will most certainly be fairly out of sync with a budget durations so can’t give an excessive amount of of a sign of what your value could be sooner or later. E.g., should you’ve merely not been charging a automobile in a single day then plugging these historic readings into the Go tariff received’t give a real reflection of what Go may cost a little you should you did cost in a single day. The truth is that’s the entire level – time-of-use tariffs assist us shift load that we are able to shift (automobile charging, sure; cooking, gaming, TV perhaps not, and so forth).

8: The Discussion board

We invited all present discussion board members to the Masterclass. Our discussion board is sort of technical and arrange as a spot to debate and share tech slightly than search or escalate assist – therefore we’ve stored it as invite-only for a few years now.

7: Open API and modifications coming

Our open API lets anybody create and make out there any service or product integration to us – that could possibly be merely discovering the tariff you’re on and making one thing observe charges or utilizing your historic half hour knowledge to supply use insights.

I discussed that we’ll be making an OAuth methodology out there which can give just a few safety benefits over the present API Key methodology:

• You’ll get a pop-up to log in and agree entry as a substitute of getting to seek out your API Key and pasting that right into a service so it’ll be a lot simpler to attach.
• You may grant entry per service/product and revoke separately which can be a lot simpler than storing and regenerating API Keys.
• We’ll apply higher management over what every service can entry which improves privateness management of your knowledge.
• We will higher promote issues which might be related to us.

6: Microgrids and Zero Payments

I didn’t dwell too lengthy on Zero Payments as Hannah coated that in her Masterclass, however Microgrids are going to get attention-grabbing. A microgrid permits us to handle vitality technology, storage and consumption throughout just a few hundred properties (I confirmed the instance of this one). A website like this has one giant battery (extra environment friendly), photo voltaic on all of the properties and a decreased scale connection to the nationwide grid. This implies it’s both simpler to certify for zero payments, or we’re capable of provide decrease charges. Watch this area for extra on microgrids and likewise different neighborhood fashions coming too.

5: IO-Go rule bending

We actually like seeing all of the engagement with all our good tariffs and the advantages they’re going us this actually reveals the impression we are able to all make.

However I confirmed the worst case instance we’ve come throughout of somebody managing to get a full day (10.04am to 10.00am the following day) of low fee on IO-Go. It’s a small variety of clients determining methods across the management on this method and clearly this isn’t within the spirit of the tariff. The truth is it’d imply a automobile is charging on the worst time of day (4.00pm to 7.00pm) and driving up the associated fee for everybody else. So be careful for modifications right here as we tighten this up a bit.

4: Knowledge knowledge knowledge

I outlined that we’ve obtained a warmth pump, electrical automobile, photo voltaic battery system and numerous different gadgets similar to Netatmo indoor/out of doors temp/humidity, Tewke switches/sensors, Voltaware disaggregation, Tado zonal (controversially – however my function is R&D so that is experimental), the House Mini and likewise House Assistant. There’s far more than 100 knowledge factors throughout all these and all a bit disconnected aside from House Assistant – and for that you just want a level to determine because it’s extremely versatile. With the suitable perception and management all this can assist make a house extra snug (humidity, temperature), environment friendly and lowest value. There’s much more to do on knowledge right here.

3: Works With Octopus

Is our Works With Octopus a properly stored secret?

A number of years in the past I began getting frequent requests from clients to verify if we appreciated x services or products that purported to connect with our API. These are usually for the Agile import/export tariffs as connecting tech, providers or knowledge visualisation is especially related on these tariffs. So we created the Works With Octopus program to showcase one of the best of one of the best third celebration connections.

I’m eager to see integration give actual advantages plus it’s nice to present modern start-ups a leg up the place they’ve obtained one thing distinctive that has potential to make a distinction. For instance Agnes’s Airex digital bricks, Dhruv’s Livegrid digital fishtank or Heata’s water tank knowledge centre.

Because the Agile import and export charges are so dynamic then it’s apparent you need to automate issues accordingly. We’ve even constructed our personal Octopus Labs service to do that with a small variety of merchandise. And we constructed a instrument to view present and historic charges. Our Clever Octopus tariffs make this far easier by having a two or three fee tariff that doesn’t change every day however we use the dynamic nature of the wholesale market to determine one of the best time to cost a automobile. It’s necessary for us that we ship indicators to recognized Clever Octopus gadgets as we’re typically bidding these into the flexibleness markets – so now we have to know the kW and kWh we are able to count on to get. That’s one motive that the IO management indicators (similar to IO-Go further half hours) aren’t revealed by way of the API.

It’s your alternative if you would like max publicity to the wholesale market or depend on us to make all of it work. I can see professionals and cons of each and in reality I feel we are likely to see the extra technically minded go for Agile. I feel that’s why it’s necessary now we have fairly a spread of tariffs as all of us suppose in another way.

There’s naturally extra issues related to the Agile API than we’ve related Clever Octopus to easily as a result of the API is public for anybody to make use of. The truth is it’s so open we don’t even have a really authoritative record of every thing connected to it. That’s one motive we created the Works With Octopus program – a method for us to vet and promote those we actually like and worth. However we are able to’t record every thing.

Issues related range from most of the solar-battery producers and electrical automobile chargers to providers similar to House Assistant, Homely and Power Genie. Mick Wall’s Power Stats UK continues to be in all probability probably the most well-known integration. I’m all the time looking out for tech and providers making intelligent use of the API so all suggestions welcome.

2: Electrical Match

It’s not solely our houses that may profit from the mix of tariffs and renewable technology. Electrical Match is for companies eager to go additional with consuming vitality at one of the best occasions for the good thing about the grid. Companies are capable of ebook output from named technology websites and see a dwell dashboard of their consumption and technology knowledge.

It is a far deeper relationship with the grid than another service I’ve come throughout and the varieties of companies similar to Cafe Nero are main the best way right here.

1: The Octopus Labs

I’m exhibiting my bias placing this in at no 1 however for a motive. Labs is the place we run experiments or launch new issues we need to trial and kick off scale with. We launched Powerloop, Fan Membership, Electrical Match, Photo voltaic Share and Tenant Energy right here. It additionally fashioned the prototype for Clever Octopus. The Agile and Tracker dashboards are a part of this too. And the IFTTT and Alexa providers dwell right here too. A number of of our Works With merchandise are related by means of Labs too which helps us take issues over to Clever Octopus in time.

Though a little bit of a secret it’s an open innovation method that any Octopus buyer can entry and use. It’s a lab although so we do break issues every now and then and assist may be very restricted.