Has anybody else noticed the changes to Intelligent Octopus Flux tariff charges recently?
The beauty of the tariff was that the import and export charges were the same in both day and peak periods, which meant Octopus could use your battery to shuffle supply to balance the grid without the customer paying for it.
The change made the import charges 2p more than the export in that same period. So now whenever Octopus imports electricity at night and export it at lunch time, say, then they are charging us 2p per Kwh for that. This is on top of the VAT which we pay for import but don’t get back when we export.
I had no warning of this and i think this is a game changer.
I would welcome anyone else’s perspective on these changes.
I’ve not noticed the change, left IO flux in November.
The price used to be the same even after accounting for VAT.
E.g. 21p inclusive of VAT for import and 21p with no VAT for export.
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I hadn’t noticed the vat handling in my bills!
I’m embarrassed to say my rant was totally unjustified and I will remove the post as soon as I can.
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Hi Folks, I left Intelligent Flux back in August 2024. I had joined in late June having installed an AIO battery. Immediately the readings from the smart meter became intermittent and unreliable. After repeated e-mails to Octopus about the problem I switched to Cosy and Fixed Export to regain control. Since then Octopus have failed to re-establish the smart meter connection and have presented me with a bill based on non Smart tariffs dating back to June. The matter is now with the Ombudsman.
Hi Chris,
I was intrigued to hear about your ‘intermittent readings’ on your smart meter after the AIO installation. My smart meter also started to give intermittent readings after my GivEnergy system was installed. My theory was that this is a big metal box between my smart meter comms module and the remote antenna - just a theory…
…in any case Octopus have fixed it (with some guidance from me based on how they got a neighbour’s smart meter to work). As in your case, Octopus assessed the missing readings based on non-smart tariffs; however, for me they did manage to upload most of the historic readings once the comms was working again, so this only amounted to a £few and life was too short to pursue this further.
I wrote up how my Smart meter was fixed here:
…just in case this would help anyone else.
Question: has anyone else experienced a loss of smart meter communications when their GivEnergy (or other brand of) solar/battery system was installed? Are you located in the North or South?
As far as the DCC, who operate smart meter communications, including specifying and supplying the comms hubs, the North starts in Warrington/South Manchester). The North uses a dedicated radio signal and the South piggybacks on the mobile network - mine is on the northern network.
Chris good luck with the Ombudsman; it will be interesting to hear how you get on. The implication, from their website, is that if you are experiencing financial loss because your smart meter is not working, then you should be compensated. I politely threatened Octopus with this and perhaps this was part of their motivation for trying a bit harder - Good Luck
Dave