Free Innovative Tools to Help Cutting Energy BillsFor prospective and current Octopus Energy users

Unlike major energy providers in the UK which provide only traditional energy tariffs (with so few to choose from), Ocotpus Energy offers a lot of smart and intelligent energy tariffs both for electricity and gas. In fact, currently, there are over a dozen of tariffs for prospective and current Octopus Energy users to choose from!

The multi-million question now is: which tariff is the cheapest or more beneficial to me?

Unfortunately, Octopus Energy itself cannot or would not offer a satisfactory answer to this (maybe owing to a conflict of interest - it earns more when you pay more...). And that is the very reason why this Octoprice App comes into existence (by the way, this website can actually be "installed" as if it is an "app", technically also known as a "Progressive Web App", so this post from now on will refer this website as "the App")!

Note: You may read the following sentence from your Octopus bill: "Good news, you're already on our cheapest tariff. We'll let you know if this changes." Just do not trust this! I am a victim myself until I find out by switching to Tracker which have saved me over 1/3 over my previous bill!

This Octoprice App provides a number of innovative tools that can help prospective and current Octopus Energy users to compare, choose and switch the optimal tariffs at the optimal time to save the most.

Free Innovative Tools in the Octoprice App

Below is a list of the tools currently available on the Octoprice App and their short descriptions:

For Everyone

• Tariff Pages - offersing real-time and historical tariff price data and charts for most Octopus Energy tariffs including electricity (import and export) and gas tariffs, e.g. Tracker prices, Agile prices
• Tariffs at a Glance - a table to instantly understand which tariffs are available and applicable to you
• National Ofgem Price Caps - currently and upcoming Ofgem energy price caps changes around the UK

For Current Octopus Energy Users

[Worry not if you are a prospective user researching at the moment, I have also included a "Trial Mode" for you to try and see how things work without the need of any info to be provided by you! Simply click on the links below and click on the "Try it out" button!] You will need an API key and your Octopus account number to unlock the full functions of these tools.

Information / Data Visualization

• 
  Dashboard - get all your important Octopus Energy contract (contract start and end dates, current tariff code, current energy price and standing charge) and account info (including your Grid Supply Point (GSP), meter serial number and MPAN/MPRN) in one page.
• 
  My Savings - get an overview of your monthly and daily savings of your current Octopus Tariff vs Varible (SVT) both for electricity and gas, i.e. how much you have saved each day and each month. If you have export, your export earnings will also be shown. The amount is inclusive of VAT and standing charges.
• 
  My Octopast Year - see your electicity and gas consumption (if applicable) in the past year on a beautiful polar chart together with the temerature range, sunrise and sunset time and prevailing weather conditions for each day of the past year. Just appreciate how your consumption pattern changes day by day in relation to time of the year and external conditions.
• 
  Data Checker - smart meters are as good as they are working properly. You can use this tool to monitor whether Octopus has retrieved all your meter data and whether your smart meter is working properly. Each filled square represent each 30-minute slot of the day. You can get the total number of missing data slots readily for each month. By checking your data availability frequently, you can avoid surprise of massive energy bill arrears.

Tariff Comparision

• 
  Compare Tariffs - this is the very first tool available on this app. Here you can get recommendations on the cheapest electricity and gas tariffs based on your actual energy usage figures. It is most accurate if you have been with Octopus for at least a year. The price figures presented here include both the standing charges and VAT. If you have export, it will also recommend you the most profitable tariff.

Advanced Tools

• 
  Tariff Hopping - if you have export, then tariff hopping is definitely worth trying as Octopus is offering various kinds of intelligent tariff suitable for different amount of solar generation output (the flux/iFlux tariff are especially worth mentioning). This is the missing tool to help you tariff hopping between various Octopus smart tariffs during the year to take full advantage of the zero exit fee of the various Octopus tariffs. It can advise you when is the best time to switch and what tariff combinations suit you most!
• 
  Load Shift - the ultimate tool to help you squeeze the last bit of savings from your Octopus time of use tariffs (i.e. Agile, Flux, Cosy, etc.) for both import-only and import-and-export users. Octopus offers many tariffs with prices that changes throughout the day in response to the demand of the time. You may have heard of "load shifting" before. This is the exact tool to help you visualize how much you can save by shifting your load to earlier or later periods. If you do not current have solar panels/batttery storage, this tool can also simulate these for you to estimate how much more you can save!

It sounds so good, but, what is the Catch?

I can promise there is NO catch. All your personal information is stored on your device (i.e. phone or computer) ONLY. I have absolutely NO access to your data. All your account and consumption data passes between your browser and Octopus Energy server only. And if you encounter any errors while using this website, I will need to ask your API key and account number in order to debug it as I cannot gain access to your data via the app without your info.

I have even decided to open-sourced my source code so that if you know about web development (in particular React), you can check if I have planted any malicious code in it.

This project starts out as a showcase of my development skills to prospective employers but it has grown rapidly in popularity among Octopus Energy users. And yes, I am a Octopus Energy user too!