Octopus energy in the UK with the beta agile tariff is based on 30 minute pricing and prices have been so low at times such as yesterday that the price per unit has been negative, for example on Sunday and Monday I was paid 4.2 pence per unit to take electricity off the network.
lovemenot|5 years ago
dharma1|5 years ago
It's really cool. Sometimes the price goes below zero - "plunge pricing" - if there is too much production and too little use. They give you the pricing info for today and tomorrow ahead of time, not sure how they predict future pricing - probably based on weather forecasts, since they only use solar and wind?
I have WiFi smart sockets on things like electric heaters to turn them on when electricity price is below my threshold level. It's a nice feeling being paid for using electricity. If you have an electric car you could also programmatically only charge it when electricity price is below a certain level. Octopus also have an EV leasing company, thinking of selling my current car and leasing one from them after covid19 is gone to a degree that I still need a car again.
Here are their dev docs:
https://developer.octopus.energy/docs/api/
They even have an open graphQL API and a storybook - how many utility companies you know who do this? Looks like Octopus hired the right people!
https://api.octopus.energy/v1/graphql/
https://octopus.energy/static/common/storybook/account-manag...