Our sensible tariff prospects know that if you wish to profit from Octopus Agile or Octopus Go, you need to actually be making the most of our Agile API. This is identical API that permits you to entry Octopus IFTTT and Alexa providers, however it additionally lets you obtain personalised half-hourly consumption knowledge, create your individual apps, and run your individual sensible home equipment. We’re large followers of anybody that does one thing ‘sensible’ with our API as a result of so typically, they find yourself pushing the boundaries for everyone else. This is the story of 1 such pioneer.
On the sixth November 2019 a brand new Twitter account referred to as ‘EnergyStatsUK’ posted for the primary time. Its message was easy: “Hiya World!”. The following day, nevertheless, it posted once more, and its second message was extra substantial – it contained a graph. That graph occurred to point out the typical Octopus Agile costs over the course of that individual day, as effectively a comparability to our Octopus Go tariff.
Nobody seen – there was not a single ‘Like’ or ‘Share’, however the identical factor occurred the following day, and the day after that. After some time, a number of eagle eyed Octopus Agile prospects noticed the graphs and began sharing the posts; 5 days later EnergyStatsUK hit 100 followers. The account has posted every single day since.
I first came upon about EnergyStatsUK by the Octopus Agile Discussion board (a web-based discussion board I run for Agile fans). Not lengthy after that, one among our regulars – Agile fanatic Mick Wall – revealed that he was the brains behind EnergyStatsUK. Once I, intrigued, requested in regards to the web page, he advised me precisely what he was as much as.
Mick has labored in IT infrastructure for nearly 30 years. Having found the API for the Agile tariff, he began experimenting with it in his spare time. Within the course of, he taught himself methods to use Ubuntu, WordPress, InfluxDB, Python, JSON, Nginix, Couldflare, SSL and Grafana, and ultimately he lastly created https://www.energy-stats.uk/ and https://twitter.com/energystatsuk.
What began as an experiment rapidly started to get a variety of consideration. It quickly grew to become clear that Agile prospects (and even some non-Agile prospects) had been discovering the each day Twitter updates actually helpful. As of February 2020, his web site was getting round 500 hits (round 300 guests) a day, and this quantity continues to develop quickly. Visitors comes from all kinds of sources; Twitter, Fb teams, YouTube, our Octopus discussion board, a Tesla house owners’ membership, a Cash Saving Professional discussion board, a Converse EV discussion board, a Piston Head discussion board, and even the Bulb prospects discussion board. The curiosity and enthusiasm for our Agile and Go tariffs is clearly reaching far and broad.
Once I requested about the place the concept got here from, Mick advised me that it began when he put in photo voltaic panels on his roof.
“We stay in a 1930’s 3 bed room semi, and had 5.1kWh of photo voltaic panels throughout completely different roofs. Our 3.68kWh inverter was put in in September 2018, so we simply squeezed in for the ultimate throes of the Feed in Tariff.”
After producing his personal photo voltaic vitality, Mick discovered the transition to an Agile Tariff fairly an apparent subsequent step. The trail from photo voltaic technology to Agile is a really fairly a effectively trodden one, taken by lots of our new Agile prospects. That is largely as a result of prospects who generate their very own solar energy are already effectively versed at taking a look at each day breakdowns of their photo voltaic technology and residential consumption, and balancing their vitality utilization to match.
Agile pricing is revealed on the Octopus account dashboard which works for many, however individuals like Mick have developed methods to view their each day costs that higher swimsuit their preferences. Having initially constructed EnergyStatsUK for his personal profit, he determined to make Agile pricing publically out there for everybody to see (by way of Twitter and a web site). Right here, Mick exhibited a basic entrepreneurial trope – resolve an issue for your self and there’s sure to be a bunch of individuals similar to you who’ll love your resolution.
Mick additionally included his personal Octopus referral code, hoping to only cowl a number of the web-hosting prices, and rapidly began gaining a good bit of account credit score. Upon realising this, Mick despatched an apologetic e-mail to our CEO, Greg:
“I get the responsible feeling that this is not what the referral system was supposed for use for?”
Upon seeing this e-mail, Greg obtained in contact with Rebecca, our Product and Advertising Director and mentioned: “I’m delighted that he’s doing effectively and assume that we should always reward him massively! [This] is all the pieces we’d prefer to encourage.”
Mick remembers Rebecca’s immediate reply:
“Firstly, we now have by no means acquired an e-mail like this earlier than. While we do have some protections in our T&Cs round referral misuse – I LOVE your web site, we’re actually pleased with our revolutionary tariffs, and it is a smart way of showcasing them. Please crack on as you might be with no restrictions from us. No-one has ever contacted us to say ‘er, bit awkward, seems like I am incomes a bit a lot’ but!”
Mick was delighted. As soon as we’d credited him along with his well-earned credit score, he began taking a look at tech he would possibly spend money on.
He began with the heating – normally the most important client of vitality within the house.
“To try to assist, I purchased and arrange small Xiaomi temperature sensors in every room of the home (about £10 every) that report again to Dwelling Assistant (that I’ve operating as a Digital Machine on my little Intel NUC house server). These sensors have allowed me to stability the temperature of the rooms a little bit utilizing the TRVs (Thermostatic Radiator Valves), however it’s nonetheless not the perfect resolution. Regardless of how a lot you tweak handbook radiator TRVs it by no means appears to correctly stability.”
That is the primary time I’ve heard somebody attempt to stability heating per room utilizing handbook TRVs and room temperature sensors, and I beneficial utilizing impartial sensible TRVs as a substitute. If you wish to do that at house, it’s additionally value noting that you just don’t want a sophisticated digital machine set-up to run Dwelling Assistant – a Raspberry Pi may be greater than ample usually.
Subsequent, Mick turned his consideration to move. Electrical autos gross sales are rising rapidly, significantly due to the brand new Profit In Type tax aid scheme. In Mick’s phrases:
“My spouse is a group nurse, and with this April’s adjustments to the corporate automotive ‘Profit In Type’, it appears like we will get an EV at a really beneficial value.”
Mick’s purchasing record consists of an Electrical Automobile and an EV charger – ideally one that may sync itself to the photo voltaic technology from the roof, that means the automotive costs from any extra photo voltaic throughout the sunniest instances of the day with out having to attract on the grid for vitality. I’ve beneficial Octopus Electrical Automobiles, who may also help you get nice offers, and profit from all the prevailing authorities incentives.
Mick additionally started to consider putting in a house battery to retailer the remaining photo voltaic vitality that wasn’t getting used up. This might then be used to run the home throughout the 4.00- 7.00pm each day peak in grid demand, when Agile costs are usually highest. It might additionally cost up on low cost grid vitality when the Agile value is especially low in a single day or when we now have our well-known Plunge Worth occasions (the place we pay our agile prospects to make use of vitality!).
Mick’s additionally carried out some attention-grabbing technical work with the intention to monitor his electrical energy utilization, and work out the place particularly he could make financial savings. Warning – tech stage: 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️
Open Power Monitor
emonPi makes use of CT clamps to watch the circulation of vitality which Mick then forwards to PVOutput each 30 minutes (as a result of they’ve a fantastic charting characteristic). This may be prolonged for EV charger monitoring and battery monitoring (and many others.), if extra CT clamps are used. While every machine/system has its personal built-in chart, utilizing Open Power and CT clamps is a neat method to see all the pieces in a single place.
Dwelling Assistant
Mick has used a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a Pimoroni GFX hat display screen (in a hand constructed Lego field!). Utilizing a python script, Mick pulls the utilization/photo voltaic knowledge from the emonPi each 10 seconds and the display screen adjustments between inexperienced/crimson relying if the home is exporting or importing. This easy crimson/inexperienced – not producing sufficient/producing sufficient show is extremely straightforward to know. Sooner or later he intends to exchange this with an Android pill operating Dwelling Assistant Dashboard.
2 weeks later, Mick had been on a purchasing spree and picked up:
- A Tado thermostat and 4 sensible TRVs
- An EV leased by the NHS BIK scheme
- A Zappi charger
- A Lux Energy inverter and two Pylontech 2.4kWh batteries (4.8kWh whole) – which has the potential to be prolonged
All of those merchandise (and there are a lot of extra on the market!) can drastically cut back vitality consumption, serving to you to profit from self-generated photo voltaic vitality, and grid-energy when it’s greenest and least expensive (by price-signals). In each his unique EnergyStatsUK challenge, and his subsequent enterprise into the sensible house world, Mick has shone a highlight on an entire host of great tech, displaying simply how a lot you may obtain with it.
It’s value emphasising that Mick’s story isn’t a one-off. I often speak with prospects who’re utilizing our agile API with their sensible tech to avoid wasting tonnes on their vitality and cut back their carbon footprint within the course of. It’s all the time nice to listen to about their innovations and improvements, and we’re in a position to share all kinds of concepts (If you happen to’re studying this and want to focus on any of this any additional please don’t hesitate to get in contact).
To become involved, we don’t all must be like Mick – however what he (and our different great pioneers) are doing helps us visualise what house and residential vitality administration will quickly appear to be. Due to their work, the remainder of us don’t must discover ways to code to construct a sensible house, and it’s turn into a lot simpler to combine completely different items of sensible tech. Today, your sensible tech is appropriate with our Agile tariff from the get go – that means tremendous inexperienced vitality is now tremendous straightforward.
