Plan for multiple Octopus Tariffs with automated switching

[owinwood]

Firstly absolutely loving Predbat, I've got it set up and running with a Luxpower Invertor and it's been brilliant.

I've been reading a few of the reddit threads lately with people switching tariffs on a daily basis and it made me wonder if that is something that Predbat could do? Apparently switching between smart tariffs doesn't come with the 30 day penalty of being able to switch again that switching to a fixed tariff does.

It seems that switching currently happens on the same day, with the new rates applying to that day too. In the following reddit thread someone has written a script that looks at their usage for the day at around 11pm, then switches to which ever tariff is the cheapest for them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OctopusEnergy/comments/1ieftdf/i_wrote_script_to_save_me_money_and_automatically/

I was thinking in the case of PredBat, this could potentially be run sometime in the evening the day before, running an initial prediction for the next days costs based on (for example) Agile and Flux, selecting which prediction would produce the most optimal results, it would then run with the selected prediction as well as automating the switch in the early hours of the morning.

I imagine there is a lot more to consider, but thought I would throw this out there in case there is some merit to the idea.

[gcoan]

Has been raised as a feature request #1948

Personally I don't think exploiting the loophole that Octopus allow you to change tariff and it apply retrospectively for the day of change is a good thing. The more its exploited the more likely it is that Octopus will clamp down on it to the detriment of everyone.

Of course I'd love the cheapest price I can for my electricity but accept that there are some swings and roundabouts to the tariff choice.

I also wonder about Octopus' ability to accurately bill if you change tariff on a daily basis !

[owinwood]

Thanks for the reply. Apologies I missed the raised feature request.

I agree that it does pose some risk with regards to Octopus closing what could be considered a loop hole, or get to the point where so many people are doing it, it no longer switches the same day.

I think it may be interesting to at least be able to plan for multiple tariffs, even if switching is not then daily and automated.

I currently compare my spend against a fixed tariff using the Octopus Compare app as it makes the most sense to me. As if I was on a different tariff I would be charging etc at a different time.

[owinwood]

I really should have read all of the feature request before I replied 🤣. So I am back to apologies once again.

[gcoan]

I do a similar comparison myself using my monthly consumption against the standard variable tariff as that's what I'd be on if I didn't have batteries and solar

After lots of spreadsheet modelling I moved yesterday from Agile to Cosy as the Agile rates have been particularly poor (twice what they were last January/February) and the outlook is for more of the same. Seeing this compared in Predbat would be useful but the charge pattern is quite different (3 lots of charging each day in the Cosy slots rather than overnight) so would need a full re-calculation of each Predbat plan.

Be interesting to see what's possible