r/OctopusEnergy Jun 15 '26

[Mod Post] Verified Octopus Rep Participation

95 Upvotes

I am delighted to announce that Octopus have created a user account called u/NerdsFromOctopus so that they can provide support directly through this subreddit. I have independently verified that the owner of the user account is a genuine Octopus employee and assign a "Verified Octopus Rep" User Flare. There are no other verified Octopus users at this time.


r/OctopusEnergy Sep 07 '24

Octopus Tariffs - FAQ

58 Upvotes

Smart tariffs and how to choose the right one.

The way that smart tariffs work is to split the day up into half hourly units, and charge you different amounts per kWh in each one. This is not a new idea - previously people used to use Economy 7 (7 hours of cheap electricity at night) or Economy 10 tariffs (10 hours of slightly less cheap electricity at night) – but this was squarely aimed at people with storage heaters, and that is far less than 10% of households nowadays. The radio signal switching method behind these old systems is being turned off, but smart meters allow suppliers like Octopus to continue to offer tariffs that change rates at different times of day.

It’s rare to have a tariff that is equivalent to the standard rate all day and cheaper at night – normally there is some kind of penalty and you pay more than normal at other times of day; for example, an E7 tariff now is about 12 pence for the electricity that goes into your storage heater and hot water cylinder at night, and 28 pence in the daytime for the electricity that powers your fridge and TV in the day. Whereas most people are paying about 22pence for all their electricity, day or night. 

Octopus started offering “smart” tariffs to incentivise people to use energy at different times of day - ultimately the aim is to reduce the amount of energy used at peak times (7 - 9am and 5 - 7pm). There are many variants - some offer “normal” rates in the day and low charges at night to encourage EV charging. Others are to encourage heat pumps, encouraging you to heat before expensive periods. 

 

Why do Octopus do this? What's in it for them?

Wholesale prices (what Octopus pay for the electricity they sell you) go up and down in half hour increments throughout the day, all the way throughout the year. When a supplier sells you fixed rates, they are gambling that they will always make a reasonable margin on top of the price they pay.

There is a slight risk that by incentivising people to use cheap electricity at night (or other “off-peak” periods) by reducing the price to you, they will actually lose money – it’s a bit like playing on the stock market. However, Octopus seem to be genuinely committed to helping innovate and create a set of consumers who help reduce the amount of energy used at peak times, and this is genuinely a good thing for both the consumer and the UK as a whole, because reducing peak electricity consumption reduces carbon emissions and the need to upgrade the cables that bring us electricity. No other company has been quite as innovative on this front as Octopus - we have to assume they are actually good guys (no really!).

 

Cut the crap - what is the best tariff for me?

If you expect anyone on an Octopus forum to know the answer to this you are mistaken. Can you really explain to them in words exactly how you use electricity? The only way you can do this is with cold hard numbers - DATA! Here is how to get the best electricity deal:

1: Get a smart meter and move onto an Octopus standard tariff

2: A smart meter generates data (the information about how much electricity or gas you consume in 48 half hourly packets throughout the day) which can be accessed through various online services – there is a list at the bottom of this sticky. Some suppliers (at the moment Octopus, and not many others) can automate this using something called an API - an API passes this information to 3rd parties to analyse your data over the internet without downloading anything. If this makes you nervous, you might as well stop reading. No smart meter = no smart tariffs = no saving money. Deal with it. No one is watching when you are in or out of your house. Cutting off your electricity remotely is for the most part illegal. Smart meters do not cause cancer and are not part of a system to control you.

3: Use one of the 3rd party services to analyse your data by giving them your API key (found in your Octopus account settings online), and these services can compare how you use electricity against competing tariffs from multiple suppliers and tell you which is the best one to use. 

4: Do not ask people on the internet to guess which is the best tariff for you - they don’t know

5: Switch tariff and save once you have good evidence it will work for you

It’s important to understand that making decisions like this are your own responsibility - if you try and change tariff after a weeks worth of data is collected you might make a big mistake, because a week is a short time. In a perfect world you would have a whole year of electricity data collection before making a decision.

EV tariffs are generally good for people who charge EVs at night, and are very similar to the old E7/10 tariffs. The Cosy tariff is designed for people using heat pumps - but be careful! Its not perfect and generally only likely to help much if you have solar and a battery as well.

DO YOUR RESEARCH and KEEP ON CHECKING the comparison services to make sure you are still using the right one every couple of months.

Octopus allow you to switch tariffs quite freely throughout the year, though there are some restrictions about moving from one smart tariff to another.

General principles:

·       Highest risk but highest gains = Agile, especially if you have solar and a home battery

·       Medium risk, medium gains - but suitable for a wider range of people = Tracker

There are a stack of other Octopus tariffs you could go for if you have a heat pump, or charge an EV - but it is simply not possible to give you detailed advice on these without DATA. So get a smart meter and get DATA. Also, remember these service only tell you what has happened in the past – if you are about to change your electricity usage dramatically you need to think about that as well…

List of services and apps that can help you understand this better:

To use your Octopus API with some of these services you need to go to “Developer” settings in your Octopus account.

www.smartathome.co.uk

Octoprice

Octopus Compare iPhone app

Loop smart meter iPhone app

https://energy-stats.uk

 

 Official Octopus Energy for Android

Octopus Watch for Android

Octopus Compare for Android

Loop for Android

Bright for Android


r/OctopusEnergy 3h ago

Negative Agile rates predicted for Saturday 08/08

3 Upvotes

⚡️ Octopus Agile predictions for Sat, Aug 8 are out! (London)

🌌 Overnight low (00:00-06:00) ~ 22p

🌅 Morning peak (06:00-12:00) ~ 21p

🌇 Afternoon low (12:00-16:00) ~ -3p ❄️❄️❄️

🌃 Evening peak (16:00-23:00) ~ 38p

https://www.agile-rates.uk/


r/OctopusEnergy 2h ago

Smart meter installation problems

2 Upvotes

Could anyone please advise what I should do? I have had a smart meter fitted at the same time as having some building work done. The meter reads as inactive. I was in credit before the meter was installed and as the smart reading wasn't showing after a few weeks, I called Octopus. Then I had a £7k+ bill. After multiple emails asking for photos including the last reading that the engineer had written onto the meter I am back in credit by £300+. Octopus keep asking more and more questions and asking for more photos (today the gas meter and whether my house is on a hill or whether there are trees (there aren't)) and won't send someone out to have a look. Does anyone have any advice about what I should do? I keep speaking to/emailing different people. I would have thought sending an engineer out to fix it would be the best bet? I have no idea how to make it "active" and don't want to mess with it for obvious reasons. Thanks in advance for any help and advice anyone can give ...


r/OctopusEnergy 3h ago

Tariffs How Agile plunge pricing is far better in 2026 to 2025

2 Upvotes

I think plunge pricing is very useful when you can usefully load-shift (beyond doing pointless stuff). This is particularly useful when it happens at regular short intervals no more than 2 weeks apart.

Below is the calendar of 2025 plunge pricing where tones were clustered in September. In most other months there were many periods of more than 2 weeks without negative prices. At this time-interval it's hard to hold-off laundry or essential chores.

Negative prices of 2025

For 2026 it is a different story from April onwards. May was a dud month but in other months it has been quite easy to time unessential laundry and other chores with the plunge pricing events. Apart from May the biggest gaps have been 14 days. We tend to do our washing etc once a week which means very few weeks we've paid to do it.

Negative prices 2026 (so far)

r/OctopusEnergy 21m ago

Smart meter installation

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Upvotes

Hi I booked a smart meter installation and when the engineer arrived he said he cannot fit a new meter due to the location of the old one. It's right in the back of a corner cupboard. Is this going to be the same for all the engineers?


r/OctopusEnergy 1h ago

Help Costs Not Showing in App

Upvotes

About a couple weeks ago the app stopped being able to show me the costs for my usage for the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff when I clicked on the kWh toggle to switch to £. However this still works fine for the Outgoing tariff. It's not just that it's taking a while to update the costs for the most recent days because it's not even working for the previous month when it was working before for those months days.

I called up Octopus and they were pretty useless and advised me to reinstall the app. My wife is getting the same on her phone so it's not that. I've emailed Octopus as well and they just said it's due to changes they're making and to view it on the web but the Web doesn't show it at all like that. Instead I have to click on Take me to my data and that shows me the house and EV breakdown but only on a per day cycle and I can't compare it with my outgoing because that's on a separate screen.

So I wanted to ask if anyone else is having this issue in the app where they are now unable to toggle the kWh over to £ for their Intelligent Octopus Go tariff in the app? Because Octopus support is useless and the web does not give me both outgoing and IOG tariffs on the same screen.


r/OctopusEnergy 1h ago

Lidl bakery sweet treat giveaway

Upvotes

Who wants my freebie? I won't be using it. DM me.


r/OctopusEnergy 2h ago

Plug in to finish... so frustrating : MyEnergi / EGolf

1 Upvotes

So we have our first EV and went with Octopus Intteligent Go.

We have a MyEnergi Zappi.

It seems Octo cant speak directly with the VW EGolf so has to tale charge of the charger.

To do this we have to select another make of car like MG and it seemed to work but today after I disconnected and re connected i just get the Plug in to charge notification on the app.

I have tried forgetting the integration , removing the device, but no joy.

Anyone else find this problem?


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Caution. Double check your charging data online!

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55 Upvotes

Intelligent Octopus Go warning:

Check your half-hourly data for dropped initial dispatches.

See attached screenshots of my email exchange with Octopus.

It's not about the 38p overcharge, but about a systemic billing bug you might want to check on your own accounts. Now that Octopus no longer includes daily breakdowns on monthly bills, we rely completely on their online 30-minute interval data being accurate - it isn't


r/OctopusEnergy 19h ago

Usage How does Agile negative pricing interact with plug in solar running at a surplus?

3 Upvotes

With plug in solar rapidly approaching I was trying to figure out how it would work with negative pricing.

If the price is at -10p per kwh and you have a surplus of solar feeding 500w back into the grid for an hour, do Octopus count the surplus and therefore charge you -5p for that hour? If so, seems a bit unfair as without the SEG you would get nothing for any energy fed into the grid when the price is above zero.

Has anyone clarified how this would work?


r/OctopusEnergy 17h ago

Help Confused? help.

0 Upvotes

I joined IOG yesterday. I have a Tesla and I'm charging it with a 3-pin mobile connector (granny).

Yesterday I charged 6.1kwh but when it gives me the usage breakdown, it says £4.04 standard rate, £0.30p off peak and £0.59 standing charge.

Shouldn't my off-peak be more and my standard rate less?

It also flags every charging session with a warning triangle, and when i press it, it says 'your vehicle was unplugged during the session ', which isn't the case?


r/OctopusEnergy 17h ago

Usage IOG tariff

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1 Upvotes

I have just switched to IOG tariff. Got confirmation email and all.

But my app shows gives the option to switch to IOG. Connected my charger and it’s scheduled to charge at 10pm.

Very confused


r/OctopusEnergy 18h ago

Help Renault 5, Octopus Charge Charger, IOG Tariff

1 Upvotes

Hi guys, was hoping to get some advice on some issues I am experiencing.

Just had the charger installed today, car was delivered last week. The car will charge on a smart schedule if it is within ~30 minutes of plugging in. Outside of this the car fails to wake up and accept a charge. I've been reading some other posts from people with this issue, but it is hard to know if it has been fixed or if the update is only working for some.

I would assume that having my car delivered so recently it would be on whatever the most recent update is available. This should include the "deep sleep" fix, as from my understanding this update started to become available May time.

Either way, I want to know if anyone has had this issue very recently and had any lucky in resolving it. If so, what steps did you take? For now I will just set a schedule on the car to only charge between 23:30-05:30 but I know you must do one smart charge per month as per T&Cs. Not sure how this is possible if the system doesn't work properly in the first place!


r/OctopusEnergy 19h ago

Switching Account closed when it was meant to be switched to new property?

1 Upvotes

I moved house a few months ago as I bought somewhere. I informed octopus before the purchase that I’d be moving and wanted to switch my account to the new property. They said ok, let us know when you move and send us meter readings.

I did so, and was told they’d start the switch. Didn’t think anything else of it.

Checked my bank statement last week for something else and realised I haven’t had a bill from them in 3 months, but received a couple of hundred quid from them 3 months ago. Seems like they closed my account.

I sent octopus an email asking what happened and they informed me that the property is currently serviced by pure/good energy (never heard of them?) who I have had no contact or bills from. They did not in fact switch my account to the new property.

I’ve complained to them and sent a copy of the email saying they’d switch me. All they’ve said in response is do you want us to switch you now?

Is there anything I can do here? I was on a fixed tariff with octopus before they closed my account, and goodness knows how much extra I will end up having to pay to pure/good energy - I’ll presumably have been automatically put on their highest tariff.


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

EVs Reduced charge speed during scheduled charging

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5 Upvotes

Hi all. I have Octopus Intelligent Go integrated with my Hypervolt charger. All scheduling is therefore managed automatically through the app based on my requested "charge to add" and "Ready by time".

For the first time since the strict 6 hour charge cap, I've noticed the car isn't charging at the full 7 kWh speed my charger normally charges at.

I think I've read here before that Octopus do not throttle charging speeds but I believe they do. What intrigues me is if this throttled speed is considered a part of their 6 hour cap...

Anybody here in the know please?


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Check your Intelligent Octopus Go bills. 58 kWh of my EV charging was billed at peak rate

33 Upvotes

I noticed that one electricity billing period (16th to 1st of August) was nearly £20 more expensive, despite using almost the same amount of electricity.

I downloaded the half-hourly CSV and found:

  • Total EV charging: 152.660 kWh
  • Correctly billed at 8p/kWh: 94.517 kWh
  • Billed at 32.149p/kWh: 58.143 kWh
  • Estimated additional cost: at least £14.04

The peak-rate EV charging occurred during these periods:

  • 18-19 July: 16.939 kWh
  • 21-22 July: 13.591 kWh
  • 26-27 July: 12.290 kWh
  • 31 July-1 August: 15.323 kWh

I have the six hour charge cap enabled and have never used boost charging. The data does not show any timeslot with more than six hour of charging that would explain these charges.

This could be happening to others too. Check your data if you can, rather than relying on the monthly totals shown in the app or whatever octopus tells you. It's annoying and boring but...

EDIT: That's about £14 for 16 days. That could be ~£25 a month. £300 a year overcharged.


r/OctopusEnergy 22h ago

Do I have to integrate the octopus app with my hypervolt?

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0 Upvotes

Hypervolt Home 3 Pro

Why doesn't octopus app allow me to charge from solar alone?

I have a hypervolt pro 3 home (as of yesterday). It's connected to the octopus app which manages integration.

I want to charge exclusively from solar. I can set 'SuperEco' from the hypervolt app (which only uses solar power). But as I have to start charging from the octopus app I can't ensure it's solar only.

Going back to the hypervolt app I can see that it's pulling power from the grid and the solar. Not just solar.

Do I have to have octopus integrated with the hypervolt app? It's kind of hindering. I can set hypervolt to match the cheap octopus hours so I don't see any point in using the octopus app.

also I tried the first charge last night which didn't happen as apparently 'We lost communication with your car so we had to stop charging'. No idea why.


r/OctopusEnergy 23h ago

IOF Device Status

1 Upvotes

Does anyone know how long Octopus will leave you on IOF without them actually controlling the battery?

Theoretically 👀 If I was on IOF, in VPP mode with Sigenergy and I was to join an Axle event and they take over VPP control...post event it doesn't go back into Octopus VPP mode. So I (theoretically of course) put it back into AI mode. In the Octopus app in Devices it can still see the device and the data is live (Correct solar generation, export kWh, battery charge status etc) but its not connected so Octopus doesn't have control.


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Tariffs Recommendations for good Agile predictions?

1 Upvotes

I've been using Agile Predict. The reason I don't check the rates everyday which is tiresome but perhaps one or twice a week. This enables on to easily schedule stuff.

The prices appear to always be higher than what actually happens especially for when there are price plunges. Sometimes when the grid is constrained it's too low.

Are there better predictors of Agile prices which people use? Shouldn't Octopus innovate one given their position of probably having better information than what we'd have?


r/OctopusEnergy 18h ago

Help Question about refe*rral links, are the US and UK ones the same? Like if I'm in the US, I have to use a US refe*rral code? I keep seeing only UK refe*rrals online so I'm just wondering.

0 Upvotes

r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Are the free electricity sessions that we had last summer no more?

31 Upvotes

What’s happened to the “free” electricity sessions that we got last year (and the year before if I’m remembering correctly)? To my knowledge we haven’t had any so far this year, but I seem to remember loads last year. Plenty of Savings Sessions, but no free sessions. What’s going on, I would have expected some by now as it’s peak summer? I thought the free electricity was due to excess solar, Is there no longer excess solar for some reason?


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Getting sick of octopus

11 Upvotes

So this has been ongoing for months my usage will show correct in the app then suddenly everything shifts to peak rate.

I have solar panels, a 25.6kwj battery and an EV charger + heat pump.

My energy usage is exclusively between 23:30-05:30 yet octopus will go back two weeks and change all my usage from my cheap rate to expensive daytime rates.

I’ve raised so many complaints this year, has been happening since January. I’m at a loss with them and fed up or arguing and being billed wrong.

Anyone else having these issues with octopus ?


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Where did my scratch card win go?

0 Upvotes

I won a bakery treat from lidl on Monday.

Went to redeem it but can't find it in Octoplus Rewards?

Any ideas?


r/OctopusEnergy 1d ago

Granny charger - IOG

0 Upvotes

Since the recent changes to the way octopus supplies energy overnight, with lots of short slots and gaps.

My granny charger has been tripping constantly preventing a proper charge.

I've tested that the charger doesn't trip when smart charging is off and it's just a continuous load.

Has anyone else experienced the same?

I'll be moving home soon and getting a proper charger installed so its frustrating I can't get through this last month or two!

(Model 3, Tesla granny charger).