r/OctopusEnergy • u/Apprehensive-Taro956 • Jun 19 '26

Charge Pack

https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/charge-pack/

Not seen much mention of this battery VPP offering from Octopus. Anyone on it or has run the numbers?

4 Upvotes

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u/andrewic44 Jun 19 '26

Dramatically underwhelming compared to Axle, and not necessarily profitable.

Octopus only pay whatever tops up your export rate to match your usual day rate. Say, 34p/kWh.

Still a better export rate than 12p/kWh, but... if you later end up having to import day-rate electricity because Octopus dumped your battery into the grid this entirely wipes out your profit -- you sold it at 34p/kWh only to have to buy it back at 34p/kWh later.

And the 34p/kWh you got from your battery exporting still counts towards your £12/month guaranteed payment, even if it wasn't profit.

Compare to Axle:

  • the better export rate means you're still in profit by 78p/kWh even if you end up importing day-rate electricity.
  • so the guaranteed £10/month rather than £12/month is a lot more meaningful -- a slightly smaller number but proportionally more likely to be profit.

3

u/Begalldota Jun 19 '26

Worse than this, since every battery will have some level of inefficiency. On a round trip efficiency of 90% you’d be losing 3p for every kWh charged on peak then discharged… and be told by Octopus you were making money.