OT: OVO pricing

It will be interesting to see how much you've saved over the previous years, but there is also the capital cost of the heat pump installation (and any radiator change necessary) to take into consideration. It seems that the yearly servicing cost is about double that of a gas boiler service. Any idea what they do to justify this?

My power consumption is pretty regular. I do certain things at certain times, and I do not wish to change them to times which might be inconvenient. I know how much a laundry wash uses, how much the oven uses to cook a meal, and I can usually predict pretty accurately what the morning reading is going to be. This morning, I was right on target.

I do not, and never intend to, own an EV, so that is not in the equation.

In my case, the house is old. The installation of a heat pump would require yards of copper piping to be replaced, and larger radiators to be installed, all with huge chaos and disruption. The cost would be vast, the pump itself would only be a minor part of the total. My last oil boiler service charge was £170. Gas is not available in the village, although ironically there is a Cadent technician living here. The house has the stump of an ancient gas supply pipe from when the village had its own gas plant.

Yes - agreed. In fact it won't work at all without a smart meter. The Glowmarkt service is simply one of the less wekk known benefits of a smart meter.

Fair enough, but it does require a smart meter to provide the information.

Apart from special occasions such as the monitoring of the performance of a new electrical item, it isn’t easy to see why one should want to know one’s

I’m not sure that living one’s life according to such a random pricing system is a desirable goal.

I suspect that the kite-flying proposal that has been put forward for EV road pricing might well prove to be a disincentive to make the switch from an ICE vehicle. We shall see…

That's pretty good, especially if that rate is maintained over winter. Who are you with (sorry, missed if you mentioned it earlier)?

One could spend an estimated minimum of £30k(?) on solar panels, battery, inverter, a heat pump, and insulation, and lose £1200 of interest on the money so spent.

Total energy costs here are £2100pa, so even if electricity was free I would gain only £900pa making the payback time an unviable 33 years. Add in the cost of electricity and timescales recede much further.

An incentive might be to double or treble the costs of gas, or ban the sale and installation of gas boilers, or both. But as things stand, such a system as described isn’t really viable on cost grounds.

Not enough, probably…

Worked soooo well in 2022/3 :-(

Getting anyone to replace it, if it goes wrong (millions have) is sadly not one of those reasons.

you mean a *working* smart meter, surely ?

Well, what more would you want, or expect, than cheaper energy bills?

But, you can not only get cheaper bills, you (especially with Octopus), get really great access to your consumption data. The consumption data, if you make use of it, offers the opportunity to seek out even cheaper tariffs.

Even taking all that into consideration - there is money to be saved by having smart meters.

My flat, currently occupied, has Octopus 'smart' meters. It would be up to the occupier to use this data, but I cannot really find how to make the promised savings. My house, using OVO, is as I described it. Again, in my circumstance, how would I make these savings with a 'smart' meter?

Also

The green tariff includes a £40 contribution each year to support new renewable generators.

"The £40 we’re providing will go towards buying ‘subsidy-free’ Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) from new UK renewable generators."

ROFLMAO... How did you find Father Christmas last year

How?

You go hungry until the cheap rate kicks in, then you can cook.

By the suppliers offering different tariffs if you have one, this may involve you changing the time you cook or do your laundry to save a few pence.