Solar Diverters Are Now Kinda Pointless! (On This Tariff!) 

Well chuffed when I got that email from Octopus. Amazing! Like Lee I have a 5.2Kw solar array and a GivEnergy 9.5kwh battery. Also got an EO charger. Was previously getting bent out of shape about diverting to the Mixergy hot water tank or the car, but with this new tariff I immediately set the home battery to totally charge at night and then export the sole excess during the day! It’s paying for much of my electricity and helps put the grid. Winner!

I guess solar diverters have demonstrated that electricity companies need to offer more than 4p/kWh for export!

Yeah got the E mail last week and quite honestly haven’t been able to wipe the smile off my face since. Also was given the option of the Octopus Agile Export but thought against it as it would take a bit more fiddling around on a daily basis where as this is quite simple, charge up at night and discharge battery during the day. It’s a win, win situation, no complaints from me, Thank you very much Octopus, don’t suppose you can do anything about Standing charge I suppose 🤷🏻‍♂️😊

Just had a 5.2kw solar array and a 9.5kw Givenergy battery installed, i was already on OI and had my Tesla with Pod Point charger running nicely on the low cost evening/overnight tariff. With the recent sunny weather i has been amazing to see how little grid i have used. Looking forward to getting the offer to include this new updated tariff. Thanks for the quick update and highlighting the pros and cons.

The key advantage for Octopus, is that they have a certain amount of control charging your car. They can therefore initiate the charge to suit them if it also suits you. You give Octopus control of your cars charging. It is therefore possible for Octopus to initiate a charge even out of the 6 hour period, if the cars plugged in, has capacity to accept a charge, and Octopus need to get rid of excess energy. If they do this, the whole house will benefit from a bonus 7.5p rate.

Another great video. Reading the comments there appears to be confusion on some between FIT payments and SEG payments. FIT payments are for systems installed before some date in 2019 that are below 4kWh and registered. Those payments are 50% of whatever you generate. So for example my system generates 3500 kWh p.a which means I receive 1750 kWh of FIT payments. It makes no difference if you send the the grid or not for those 1750. Invest in a battery rather than divert and you send that to your battery and still get paid for 1750 KWh but at 6.2p per kWh.

Cheers mate

This export tariff is very interesting. In effect, they have turned your solar panel array from a system that primarily supplies you, to becoming a system that primarily supplies the grid. It is entirely in your interest to make sure that every unit of electricity generated from solar is exported. Your car should be charged overnight, same with home battery. There’s no advantage to charging the car up during the day - it just costs you revenue. So I agree, a simple timed switch is all you need for hot water heating. More to the point, there’s no advantage having a Zappi charger at all. A simple charger is all you need now.

It similar but with more conditions to Octopus Flux. The cheap period is lower than the export rate so we fully charge overnight and any production (other than a small top up) is exported and more than covers the charging. Have a decent size battery, able to run a full 24 hrs or more is key.

I get what you're saying and completely agree with it for most cases. However, I don't own my solar panels, they're a lease-a-roof deal that the previous owner of the property took out, so I don't get paid for export. Hence in my situation I want to divert to an EV when I get one to use as much of the 'free energy' as I can. Not sure where I'd stand legally/contractually with installing home battery storage along side leased panels, so if anyone has answers to that, I'd appreciate it. Still got around 15 years on the lease. I would just note that I work from home, so the car would 95% of the time actually be sat on the driveway during peak generation times.

We replaced our 3yr old dumb charger back in march with a Zappi, primarily to do solar divert, but also for a bit of better data collection on the the side. I knew I'd likely never recoup the outlay for replacing the charger, but the increase in export tariffs makes it almost impossible... EXCEPT - by having a smarter charger, that opens us up to hopefully getting a better tariff - as our Zoe isn't compatible with Intelligent Octopus, we are going to have to rely on the charger to be compatible, and with a bit of luck the beta will end soon and that'll be possible (currently on Go) So in the end, not a waste to replace the charger, but we are unlikely to be doing much diverting in the future if the tariffs stay like this.

Yep - I’m exporting most of the day now - and doing limited amounts of arbitrage as well

Yep - makes sense. I’ll be switching from Go to IO when my iX comes in November My Eddi won’t get used much

Day ahead prices are not particular low at night, so I wonder how this works for Octopus.

I have solar panels and am on a standard tariff where I pay around 30p per kWh and receive 17p ish for export. My hot water comes from an oil burning boiler so for me using excess leccy to heat the water makes sense both financially and environmentally. Last year I was paying 36p per kWh and received 7p for export so it was better financially last year but it's still worth it now.

If you have a lot of solar and so generate more than you are allowed to export a diverter still makes sense, once they provide the ablity to change the divert from a 0w export to a level that is near the amount you are allowed to export.

Very sensible charging by Octopus, stimulating use during the quiet night hours and encouraging exports during times of high demand.

Afternoon mate

I'm Northern Ireland and export has been more than night import for the last year. Night import 15p, export 18p. So I have been exporting all I can from my solar and charging the car at night. £500 back in my pocket at start of October.

Hi and thanks for the videos. I’m looking at having solar + battery fitted on my home. Have had a quote from a company to fit Solax and Triple Power battery. Is this a reputable brand? The specs look good but I can’t find too much about the equipment on line?

Octopus Flux is even better for this. I've been filling my battery at 19p/kWh in the morning and emptying it to the grid at 33p/kWh in the evening. Any surplus solar during the day gets exported at 21p/kWh. Solar diverters never made sense to me if you have a battery. If you have 500W of surplus solar, just run the immersion heater at 3kW for 5 mins, powered by solar and battery, then let the battery recharge from solar for 25 mins. Requires something like Home Assistant to do the automation, so maybe not as user friendly as a solar diverter, but a lot cheaper.

I can't get intelligent octopus as my car isn't supported and I have a Zappi. I've gone on to Flux though and am now so relaxed about exporting to the grid. I still heat the hot water with solar but have gone back to charging the car overnight. Charging in the day would often draw from the grid if clouds moved through or you use high energy devices like the kettle.

makes sense for people just to get batteries to balance their own useage and keep costs down, guess this is the reason as you say.

On OI with a givenergy 8.4kwh battery.. I’m thinking to set my discharge to between 9pm-11.30pm, set at 3000w (inc home use) and keep a 10% reserve in the battery level. This should mean that I should be able to discharge my remaining battery power completely within the 2.5hr window?

Great video, could do with more volume

Apparently there still is no surplus of solar power in the UK. In the Netherlands, some providers have started to ask a fee for exporting solar power to the grid. Dynamic contracts with an hourly rate show quite some hours with negative prices during the early afternoon: better consume elektricity than to export it!

Good video - agreed, I've reached the same conclusion for IO. I'm even going to fully charge the solar battery every night anyway and stop second guessing the weather. The Zappi is going to become a timed charger.

Can your batteries be setup to auto discharge? Any news on the video about your brothers All in one install ?

Have you ever updated your inverter software and did you have any problems? Mine has been sitting in the background for some months but I've not upgraded yet.

Here in deepest mid Wales there's no smart meters so we're stuck on bog standard tariff.

Got my panels and battery on mid summer day. Took some weeks but I am now on octopus go and the 15p fit. My charger does not work for the intelligent tariff. My panels have exactly balanced my consumption overall for 2 and a half months, and if I had the fit from day one I would be currently in profit

It's very frustrating that Intelligent excludes so many EV owners With this increase in the export, it's so much better than Go

In my hoise this has all been hallening right now... moved to SEG to be able to swqp to intelligent, tried to divert the avsolute max i could, etc. Now back kn 15p export rate... i am turning off the eddi and solar surplus charging... feels odd but males sense financially. Also need to re-re-educate the wife to schedule appliances to run at night rather than when the sun is shining.....

Recently watch Marcus Brownlee video about his Tesla roof. Staggering consumption, he uses overs 200 kwh per day, over 75,000 kwh per year. Mine is 6kwh per day and under 2,500 kwh per year, my bill for the year is under £600. I live in New Zealand. similar latitude to Gibraltar.

So Harry is right just getting a All in One and no Solar ..... going to be interesting to see his stats

Hang on? I understood that I get FIT payment for generating from the solar panels? It measures what has been generated before I decide where it is going. Is this wrong? Or is it only wrong on post FIt?

Is the calculation as to whether you pay more for your fuel before tax on EVs or ice cars? Ie loads of the cost of petrol is tax but not of electricity so are we actually paying (the poor) oil producers less for petrol in our tank than the electric out the wall?

EVM. Eon Next offering similar on EV tariff. 9.5p midnight to 7am, 32p at other times. Export at 16.5p !! This is great for us who getup at 6am anyway and can bang the dishwasher and washing machine on which both last Approx 1hr to use those big white goods loads (circa 3-4kw) before 7am.

My parents have just got panels/battery installed - and initially were dead set on the idea of diverting solar to the immersion for hot water with an Eddi or similar. All the quotes they got were also quite happy to sell them this - it was a good £600 on top. I convinced them it really wasn't worth it given export rates, so it's reassuring to come from you that you've reached the same conclusion! If the market does change, it can always be retrofitted too I figure.

I have correct car and a Zappie charger but can’t connect to Intelligent . I have tried . Hopefully Myenergi will get round to integrating with this. They state ready by Aug but nothing yet 😢 Glad Your system working I have stayed with Go and hope to transfer soon

Good if your'e not on the old FIT.. if you are, like me, then if you change to ANY export payment tariff then you will lose at least the export segment of the FIT, maybe even the whole generated amount I'm not sure on that but either way it does mitigate the savings you would make..

I turned my diverter off a couple of months ago. I'm on Flux so the export is pretty good during normal hours and very good in the evening. It's cheaper for me to heat using gas at 10p/kWh than use the excess. .You could argue that you shouldn't be using gas, however, the reality is that someone is using the export anyway. Gary Does Solar does a good presentation on the subject

This is great news. I'm currently on OI with a home battery but no solar. So i more or less run the house from the battery during the day. In 3 weeks, i'm moving to a house with about 2.5kw of solar which benefits from FIT. I thinkni right in saying i can opt out of any deemed export part of the payments and get this instead? Whilst still get the lucrative FIT payments?

Hi I don't have EV and I want to get this tariff to use it for heating my home can I get it ? Thanks

I renewed on Go a couple of months ago. I have solar panels, battery, Tesla, etc…need to think about a tariff switch to IO.

I’m on FIT with 50% deemed export. Switching to metered export is a one-way street. I’m getting home battery installed soon, should I switch humm………

They are launching this just as Summer is ending and Solar Glut wholesale price plunges won’t be back until the late spring of 2024. It would be interesting to see if this Export price is still being paid in June-August 2024

We have done quite well out of this tariff. For the last two months our total gas and electricity incl standing charge is just £10 for a 4 bedroom bungalow with solar panel and a givenergy 5kwh inverter and 9.5kwh battery. No ev.😊

Get two tarrifs and put the cheap night time rate into the feed for your solar panels. Of course it runs at night.

I’ve got a FIT and even though it’s less than 5p for import I get 50% deemed export. I don’t think it’s worth giving up export payments which are guaranteed to try and see if I can gain by exporting more here. Or is it

I would love this tariff but have a Zappi and non-compatable MG4 so should I get an Ohme or switch my SEG to Scottish Power 12p feed in or get a Tesla?

What about if you're on the old assumed 50% export tariff and get paid even if you use all solar?

I'd just settle for Octopus installing the isolator and new meter we've been asking them for since January so we can take advantage of these new tariffs, or at least responding to our complaint about their poor customer service. Absolutely useless, fed up of hearing "here's a track I hope you'll like" - it's always Britney Spears.

Hopefully they’ll add the Zappi soon.

I'm on the Go tariff because my charger and car won't work with Intelligent Octopus. I don't understand why Octopus Go users are left on the old 4.1p SEG export rate when intelligent Octopus users now benefit from 15p - a big difference?

So since Paris has banned electric scooters, any chance on gettin' our hands on those batteries cheaply?

When will octopus stop making these good tariffs only available to EV onwers. I have solar and a battery and use use more overnight electricity than most EV owners but im not allowed on this tariff, im stuck with a higher overnight rate. Im not interested in export, i use almost all my solar. I just want a good over night price.

Related to Intelligent Octopus. I might have an interesting video you could do, if you haven't already. Should I get a faster charger?. or if you do should you link it to IO?. Now the above might sound odd, but bear with me. Normally I do about 40 miles per day, with this I can easily charge overnight with standard charger. But of course sometimes I will do more and an overnight charge is not enough. In this case IO will kick in even during peak times, and I get full house @7.5p. eg. last night asked IO that I wanted car for 8:30 @ 100% next morning, and IO scheduler did 20:30 -> 8:30 , 12 hour charge. If I had a faster charger IO would have just been the standard 23:30 - 5:30 6 hours. Now with the 15p export using a slow charger seems to make even more sense, because not dumping the extra solar you will get due to charging and not consuming during this period you are going to save / make more money. Now of course the one disadvantage of a slow charger is if you do much higher mileage, eg, more than 150 per day. But if you was, chances are your using superchargers anyway. I was planning on getting a home charger, but I'm just wondering if it makes any financial sense now..

This is pretty damn annoying tbh, as we had an iBoost with our solar install last summer, and just bought a Zappi for use with our new PHEV and future (second car) EV. Now it seems like with these tariffs diverting is pointless and I could have avoided the cost of iBoost and had a much cheaper charger. On the up side this makes making optimal use of the solar we do generate much simpler in the long run.

I really don't follow your rationalle here. I could agree IF you have so high a storage capacity, multiple Powerwalls / Batteries, 100A Company fuse, and very low House demand, but otherwise it makes no sense to export IF you will need to later import at the premium rate? For instance in the case of a Powerwall you could potentially make around £1 per day profit?, BUT a mere 3KW of high rate usage, and you're back to square one! Our usage is fairly high at over 20 kWh/day and Solar enables that premium import to be reduced on reasonable weather days. Through the Summer we do have surplus after heating Water, and Spring and Autumn a Night storage Heater also. So yes exporting to grid would make sense. WE ONLY HAVE AN 80A COMPANY FUSE, SO Heating Water, Night storage, Car, and Powerwall would send us soaring over 100Amps! The Car and Powerwall are around 52 Amps. But the 52 degree north winters of UK mean we need to store every KWh possible at the low rate for self use later in the day. No surplus to export. Am I missing (the plot here ;-) We've got a 15 Panel P.V system, Single Tesla Power Wall, iBoost feeding surplus to Immersion & Storage Heater. A BMW i3, (which nicely charges in around 4 Hours).

I've been trying to get on a tariff to charge my car over night since early 2021. Signed up to EDF's Go Electric one, switch over, was told I needed a new smart meter (apparently I have a first gen one) and am still stuck on a standard fix rate tariff. Have a Chargemaster home charger which we got with our Zoe but now have an MG ZS which isn't supported by the Octopus ones. Anyone else had an issue getting onto a dual rate tariff?

I'm on IO, not got the Email or the App updated yet. But hopefully it's just a delay, as this is fantastic news. This would save me having to think about dumping solar, or if tomorrow is sunny or not. In theory I could just charge batteries to 100% during the night, and if it's a sunny day, I'll get 15p for what the solar generates, if it's not I've got 100% charged battery to pull from, no thinking required, this make managing solar use a piece of cake.. :)

The numbers make sense. To get the Intelligent Octopus tariff, you have to have a compatible BEV and car charge point or an Ohme charge point. IO does not affect those on Feed in Tarriffs because you get paid approx 8p (one of the last, lowest rates) for every kWh you generate at a rate that assumes 50% usage. Solar divert is still the way for us as the FIT income is constant no matter how much solar generation we use: if we generate 20kWh and use none of it, FIT income = 20kWh x 8p = £1.60. If we generate 20kWh, put 4kWh into the house battery, 3kW used by the house and 13kWh into the BEV... we still get an income of 20kWh × 8p = £1.60

I don't understand why that is so much better than Octopus flux? Just because you have an EV?

That’s crazy, the wind and solar output is at its lowest at night. The grid is at its most polluting at night when the percentage of electricity is produced by natural gas is at its highest. Last night 8.9.23 the grid was emitting 275g of CO2 per kWh (excluding bio mass emissions of 60g per kWh). Burn more gas store recharge at night and discharge in the day when there’s a reliable solar and higher wind energy. Does that make sense to anyone?