My current tariff is £88pm and it finishes at the end of June. I went online today and my provider had a banner encouraging me to look at their current fixed term offerings. £306pm for 12 months. I nearly shat myself.
A quick phone call to customer service revealed that under the variable rate price cap I will pay a trifling £145pm from 1st July until the new cap comes into force on October 1st. Still expensive but not coronary inducing and a gamble I’m willing to take.
Thinking aloud, maybe food for thought for others:
So if not on a smart meter, probably best to provide a meter reading in next couple of days… what is optimal strategy regarding accuracy or lack of it of the numbers you provide? Certainly don’t want them having / estimating readings that are too low, or you get hammered with the extra unit differential being made up at new price. Overdo it with massively inflated readings…they will top up your current monthly debit even more, but you’ll get it back and a lot more long term… but if supplier goes bust, likely to lose out, but i’m with a major / big 6, and if any of them falls shit really has hit the fan.
Or maybe forget the idea of committing fraud and just give them the correct reading?
fair enough, make sure they have right numbers so don’t lose out
Their standing charges are pure fraud
It appears that the Tesla Powerwall app now has an off grid option so you can trigger the breakers to the outside world. You can then pretend that your suburban house is actually an Alaskan log cabin, right up to the point when you go to the local Tesco for a houmous topup.
Someone has also apparently made a Smartthings script for the Powerwall.
No idea what I could then do with it, but…
Are the home batteries likely to get to the point where they make financial sense to power you for the day from cheap economy 7 or Octopus Go power?
That’s what I do right now. I fill up at 5p and run the house off it.
It depends on the day/night differential. Two years ago the financial payback was more than 10 years so we did it for ecosmugness rather than financial gain, now may be different. Solar is probably better financially first if you haven’t already.
I don’t think I can solar. Conservation area, and the sunny roof is on the road side. At the very least it’ll be a world of pain with planning.
I seriously though about solar, there is a big group buy scheme running locally
Got the quote for 10 panels etc and looked at the numbers.
25 years before ROI (this was before current price hike so may be better now)
Doubtful I will be around in 25 years so spunked the money on new speakers 
I guess we won’t know how that pans out for batteries until we really know how long they last, and what the disposal issues are at end-of life. These were the questions being asked in 2018 Solar Battery Storage: Guide to Solar PV Batteries - Build It.
It must get really complicated if we take the interlinked decisions into account though. PV is a good thing from an eco point of view, but if rejecting battery technology on eco grounds means that fewer people will consider PV then maybe the real accounting needs to be done on a system-wide basis.
From the varying carbon footprint of electricity generation during the day (not referenced in the article) and the carbon impact of battery construction, the carbon payback was significantly less than a 10 year life in our case. End of life recycling will happen, the raw materials are too valuable for it not to according to everyone on the panel discussing it at the April Fully Charged event.
Well, they’re more efficient, so don’t need so much energy. OTOH, you use a class A valve amp, so its pointless as it draws the power anyway. 
Complaint logged with OFGEM.
Email sent to Money Saving Expert.
Fuck you SSE/OVO.
FUCK YOU !
Good to see you are leaving room for escalation to BOLD Caps
Always leave room for escalation
