Our Solar PV Journey

That's better! The GSA prediction was exceeded by 8.5%:

If you are with Octopus Energy you are permitted to switch between their smart tariffs as frequently as every 28 days (correct at time of writing). This means that selecting the right tariff need not be a particularly high-risk endeavour. Even better, if you have been with Octopus for a while, then the Octopus Compare app will let you compare the effect of various tariffs on your actual smart meter data. Different types of users will have very different useage profiles. In particular, the following things have a significant effect on your PATTERN of usage. These things can make each tariff considerably more or less attractive: An all-electric vehicle (a PHEV, to a lesser extent) A heat pump Photovoltaic solar panels Thermal solar panels Battery storage Storage radiators Any electric water or space heating Before you start using Octopus Compare, there is another tool which allows you to take a quick look at all of the Octopus smart tariffs. On the energy-stats.u...

In case it has not occurred to you to do this... many browsers can be set up to start with more than one page opened. I set my copy of Chrome set up to start with the following pages open in separate tabs: The mysmartenergy.uk graph of Agile prices for today. The SolarAssistant page for my system. The BBC Weather forecast for my area. My home page (which contains a collection of useful shortcuts). This setup very much delays the opening of Chrome, but it does mean that I have pertinent information at my fingertips. And, since Chrome can be set up to sync settings across devices, I have the same information avasilable on my phone and tablet. There are even Chrome extensions which allow pre-configured displays of multiple tiled tabs to be set up (see example below).

As I said before, it is quite possible to make good use of the Octopus Agile tariff without having a high degree of automation or integration. In fact, acting exactly as if you are on Octopus Cosy while actually being on Agile would probably give substantial savings. However, there are some tools which can be helpful: As previously reccomended, the "Octopus Compare" app remains a very useful app. You may find an app called "Octopus Watch" useful. It is particularly useful for calculating savings and also has a feature to reccommend when to run an appliance expected to take a given time to run. There is a "skill" for Amazon Alexa which allows you to ask verbally when to run an appliance for the lowest cost. It is called "Agile Octopus Timing" and, once enabled, is invoked by asking, for example, "Alexa, ask Agile Electricity for a three hour slot". It is worth making a shortcut to the appropriate page on the mysmartenergy.u...