Spain's New Variable Price Electricity

[mitch...]

Spain is not often noted for leading the way but their new pricing for electricity, which has three price periods per 24 hrs, and includes weekends, seems better than the UK's E7 system.

This along with proposed surge pricing (for periods of high demand which could have had user agreed load shedding) was the great opportunity that the UK government managed to waste with the superfluous (and entirely passive) smart meters.

The irony is that Spain started this to lay the way for electric car charging overnight but if take-up is big, then the high power cars will suck up might make usage overnight a high price rate period! Not many people will want to drive at night and charge during the day to save money!

[Andrew]

Octopussy energy have a demand pricing tariff called "Agile" but if you look at the 18-month graph of average max and min charges you can an interesting change this year compared to last year even without drilling down into the data -

Either they have significantly increased their rates for this tariff or this is because of the La Nina effect. Not sure which it is.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Hardly a missed opportunity, Octopus optionally offer a tarriff which is entirely variable, they just advise you in advance what the rate will be. Nothing to prevent other suppliers doing similar.

[Tim+]

Well maybe, but smart meters as being installed in the UK allow a lot more flexibility. Spain are a bit ahead of the game in rolling out smart meters.

Superfluous? How to the the Spanish electricity meters know when and how much power is being consumed throughout the day unless they?re also to a degree ?smart??

We have all the tech to make it work here and it?s got nothing to do with the government, it?s down to the power companies utilising the data available to them, like Octopus have done with their Agile tariff.

Tim

[Jethro_uk]

If there was any honesty in the free market mantra the Tories use to shot on us, we should be able to buy our electricity from Spain. Or indeed anywhere.

I'm still waiting to be able to change my water company - as promised by their privatisation. When's that due ?

[Robin]

There's nothing stopping you from buying your electricity from Spain. Put your DIY hat on and there are obvious options - especially if you have space for a couple of containers of batteries which can be trucked in as and when.

Where were you promised the ability to do that? I was on the fringes of water privatisation and everything I saw envisaged there would be /very/ limited competition - only for /very/ high volume users (think 100s of megalitres a year).

[Andy Burns]

Households can't (yet?) but businesses can

[Max Demian]

I don't have a meter and pay what I consider is an excessive charge, but the company claims that they can't review it as it's based on the rates that don't exist any more.

I don't think competition does the customer any good apart from tins of beans on the supermarket shelf.

[Chris Bacon]

So get a meter.

[Max Demian]

Not sure if it's possible. (I've heard that if you ask for a meter and they can't supply one you can get a discount for single occupancy.)

Don't really want one. I don't want to have to think, "Should I flush the bog?"

("If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down.")

[Andy Burns]

under 1p and 2p respectively, if you have a dual flush cistern.

[John Bryan]

Four years ago had a meter fitted. Single person occupancy and my water bill has halved...

[Roger Mills]

Before we opted for having a meter, I fitted my own meter and monitored our consumption for a year - and then calculated what we would have paid for metered water vs what we actually paid for unmetered. It was a no-brainer. We're now paying only about half of what unmetered would cost. And our habits haven't changed - we don't go out of our way to save water.

[Andrew]

Except that that tariff seems to have become much less advantageous if the 18-month chart of max, min and average rates is correct.

[Tim+]

Indeed! I jumped ship to Octopus Go as frankly the Agile tariff was getting too punitive. I was just making the point that we can do variable tariffs here in the UK and that Spain isn?t doing something new.

Tim

[Andrew]

That was never offered with privatisation. You had the option to go onto metered water and pay for what you actually use. You can always go off grid, with your own well and private sewage treatment works, as some rural folks have to.

There cannot be an option to switch suppliers without a National water grid, which will never happen.

[RJH]

Pretty much my experience over the past year. I think I've another year left before I decide whether to keep it.

[Andrew]

My bill with Southern water was over £330 until I had a meter installed about 15 years ago and immediately it went down to about £120/year.

[RJH]

And just imagine how much better and cheaper it would be if state owned and run :-)

[Max Demian]

That's about how the utility is delivered, which is the same with electricity and gas.

Competition is between the people who send out the bills.