[OT] Octopus Energy rates for Avro transferees

Thats quite a wide difference between the gas and electricity unit rates of almost 5 times.

At those prices, its almost tempting to build and run a CHP engine that will run on NG to generate your own electricity and hot water......

see

On their tariffs page I can't see *any* with the word flexible in their name

But think yourself lucky you didn't get the "Goodlord Tenant October 2021 v2" with economy7

Pop along here:

https://octopus.energy/tariffs/ ...and overwrite the word Postcode at the bottom with your, er, postcode. Select Filters then Flexible.

HTH

Capital cost would kill it with those units in a domestic dwelling.

Back in the late 70s a chap at the alternative energy place in Wales ran a morris minor engine and generator with full heat recovery from exhaust and coolant until someone ran it dry while he was on holiday. Later the calor totem was shown on tv, it was a fiat 127 engine running an asynchronous generator Quite a few were sold but engine life was the problem and again they were too powerful for a single home, I know the firm I occasionally worked for came across one running a hotel in Scotland.

I helped with installing a marinised Petter diesel with heat recovery for a remote classroom and the fuel cost just about matched the value of electricity produced but I know we could beat that seriously now with a permanent magnet genset and inverter.

Then there were the couple of different Stirling engined units which Briish Gas trialled and one of which was due to be put into a few homes in Manchester but this was aborted. The Stirling ones should have had similar (longer than internal combustion engines) life to heat pumps as the units were similarly hermetically sealed, like a fridge, but only gave out 1kW of electricity when run.

Now with the demand for EV charging I suspect the balance of heat to electric power is better suited to a single user. Also engines are much longer lived now too plus the modern electronics in inverters as used for solar panels make it attractive to run an engine at its most economical speed for the demand and rectify the ac and chop it back to synchronous ac for the house.

Personally I would like to try this with the engine and permanent magnet motor from a Honda civic whose NIMH battery pack had failed and caused the car to be scrapped.

Not sure how one would get round the Gassafe requirements for connecting to the main though plus I cannot afford an EV to make it worthwhile.

Use a Cooker quick connect gas hose?

You would want a flexible gas hose between rigid fixed gas pipe and a vibrating metal engine. :-)

Wasn't Germany trying to promote microCHP for as many households as possible? Did they get anywhere with take-up, how's it working out for them with current gas prices?

Even if that met the regulations I doubt it would provide the power for a 7.5 kW EV charger and even that would require the engine to run too long so maybe 15kW would be better. If you could get the thermal conversion up to 30% (could be more with a SI engine running optimally but remember no ECU controlling the mixture now as the gas must be premixed in the manifold so no injectors) that means providing 45kW of gas, much more than a cooker needs.

This is what Shell says having taken over my Daligas account:

You?re moving onto our Flexible 6 tariff, which includes 100% renewable electricity* as standard. The average price of this tariff, based on a medium-sized UK household, using Ofgem?s national average consumption rates, is £1,277 per year?.

This is a standard variable tariff and the cheapest we have available, given today?s wholesale costs. This tariff is protected by Ofgem?s price cap and rates are fixed until 1 April 2022, when the price cap will be revised. This tariff has no exit fees.

We?ll send you more information on your tariff rates in the next few days.

And this is what E.On says about my Enstroga:

We've moved you on to our Next Flex tariff for now - which means:

You'll pay a standing charge of 29.72p per day and 21.69p/kWh for each unit of electricity.

Prices include VAT and are guaranteed until 31 March 2022, based on paying your bill in full each month. If you set up a Direct Debit, you'll benefit from lower prices than shown here.

No idea, but AIUI a problem with CHP is the mismatch between heat and electricity demand. If you're grid connected there's always electricity demand and you want to generate as much as possible. But in a domestic situation you only want the boiler running occasionally to keep the heat up to temperature, which means the electricity output is bursty based on your thermostat coming on and off. Plus I don't think they had quite scaled down to domestic size (especially given it's much easier to reduce your heat demand by insulation) which meant they were quite aggressive when installed.

It might make more sense for commercial premises where there's a constant low grade heat demand that would be burning gas anyway, say some drying processes.

It seems the current CHP units are cracking gas to make hydrogen and then using that in a fuel cell - it may be these are more efficient on a small scale than rotating plant.

Theo

Mmmm - these are the charges I jotted down when Eon directed me to their site. It was difficult to tell which tariff they'd put me on so I assumed the cheapest they offer - 'Eon Nextflex':

Unit rate - All/Day (per kWh) 20.08

Which is pretty much identical to my old Igloo tariff . . .

ISTR the microCHP units use a scroll expander, presumably the opposite of a scroll compressor in a heat pump?

When the UK electricity generating industry shed technical staff after privatisation, one of the senior managers who took the fairly generous severance packages had plans to develop microCHP using the turbocharger turbine used in commercial vehicles for the "heat to movement" stage. I don't think anything came of it though.

Oops - missed a bit off:

Gas Electricity

How odd, try again again

Gas Elec

Slightly lower for my postcode.

Interestingly, for the first time in my experience, for E7 rates, the daily charge is higher, 23.85p cf 23.76p, so just over 30p per year. Why bother?

Perhaps it is a data error.

Chris

So have you managed to setup a Direct Debit by E.on as the price is a bit cheaper?

EDF seem to be dragging their feet with the Utility Point customer transfer, all these Daligas/Enstroga/Avro mentioned in this thread went bust weeks later, but all I've heard is a "goodbye" email from UP and a "hello" email from EDF, no actual tariff or account details.

I've only just received tariff details on the Avro/Octopus transfer via email although I known about them by other means beforehand. Octopus have indicated that personal details will have been transferred over by next Monday and I will get my final Avro bill by the end of the month.