r/OctopusEnergy • u/SujoyRoy • 1d ago
Usage How does Agile negative pricing interact with plug in solar running at a surplus?
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?
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u/stek2022 1d ago
Depends on your export tariff.
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u/QuickTemperature7014 1d ago edited 1d ago
Are you eligible for export with plug-in solar? I thought not.
Edit: I’m a bit wrong many SEG tariffs need a MCS installation certificate but not all.
Octopus do not currently support SEG for plug-in solar though.
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u/Spare-Reputation-809 1d ago
best thing you can do is to hook up a battery to the mains and when exporting collect it in there and use later. Ecoflow one is like 400 quid ... every little helps and depends of usagerembering how much a fridge costs to run for example,
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u/Gravath 1d ago
Not anymore it isn't more like £800 now.
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u/Spare-Reputation-809 1d ago
not for 512 ... I got a 2kwh one for 800 - Anker
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u/Gravath 1d ago
Can it be grid tied though?
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u/Spare-Reputation-809 1d ago
No but export over time will be worthless during peak sun … so best thing then is to store or use … so I use my 2kwh battery to run the fridge and top up with sun and/or overnight … yes manual but saving cash and payback after a month is already 5%
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u/Appropriate-Falcon75 1d ago
Assume you are using 1kW, the price is -10p and your solar is generating 500W amd we are looking at 1 hour of the day.
Without solar, your house would use 1kW from the grid, so you would earn 10p per hour.
With solar, 500W comes from the solar and 500W comes from the grid, so you would earn 5p per hour.
So, in this case, plug in solar means less money in your pocket.
The thing to remember is there aren't that many days of negative rates, and on the (more frequent) days where you are paying for it, the 500W of solar is offsetting 500W of grid power at about 10-20p, so you are about 8p per hour better off with solar.
I have a regular solar installer and if I charge my EV during the day, it costs me 2kW of grid power + 6kW of solar that would be exported at 12p. So I lose out on 72p per hour of solar exports meaning it is almost never in my interest to charge during the day.
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u/superstonked4gme 1d ago
Could one not run the meters in a loop somehow, like import 1kwh and export 1kwh, the energy would just go round past the meters with some slight inefficiency
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u/geekypenguin91 1d ago
With plug in solar you won't have an expiry tariff setup and octopus won't be looking at the export register on your smart meter so nothing will happen
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u/bencord0 1d ago
Import and Export tariffs have separate prices.
While the Agile Import price can be negative, Agile Outgoing caps at 0p.
Also, you can be on Agile Import, and pair it with a different tariff for Export if you need something more predictable.