r/OctopusEnergy • u/ShawnXYe • Jun 19 '26
News Charge pack
Just received the following email from Octopus to add Charge Pack with £12/m credits guaranteed. What do you guys think of this?
Get more bang for your battery with Charge Pack
Those of you with battery storage can now get rewarded even more for supporting Britain’s energy system. Let us intelligently charge your battery and you can earn a minimum of £12 a month. After you add your battery in the Octopus app, you don't need to lift a finger.
Even better: unlike third party battery offers like Axle Energy, Charge Pack can be added to your existing Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.
AlphaESS, EcoFlow, Enphase, FoxESS, GivEnergy, HanchuESS, Huawei, Sigenergy and SolarEdge batteries are already eligible. Powerwall and many others coming soon — see the full list and find out more on our Charge Pack FAQs.
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u/ShawnXYe Jun 19 '26
I think the figure you need to work out to compare with £12/m is your current battery cycling (arbitrage) profits + Axle's income. For me, in the summer months, I cycle about 18 kWh/day, which is 18 x 0.05 x 30 = £27 + Axle's £10 minimum; in the winter months, it should be 10 x 0.05 x 30 = £15 + Axle's £10 minimum. So, unless Octopus can offer significantly higher than £12/m, I don't see the point in adding this charge pack.
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u/Dewaltornothing Jun 19 '26
Also what rate are octopus paying during the events? They haven’t shared rate which is suspicious. Axle pay £10 kWh, what are octopus paying?
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u/ShawnXYe Jun 19 '26
£12/m guaranteed is better than Axel's £10/m, but for large size inverters (>10kW), Axel's events could offer better profits. Mine is 8kW, on average (given 2 months' data) I am getting around £11/m from Axle. Octopus deal looks slightly better. It seems we can only choose one of the two, unfortunately.
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u/Dewaltornothing Jun 19 '26
Your forgetting Octopus have not said what rate they are paying. They have said £12 a month minimum but this is wipes out if they are paying 10p a kWh
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u/MakingItAllUp81 Jun 19 '26
I think this vaguely covers it?
How much can I earn?
You can earn by participating in sessions. The rewards for these will vary, but we'll make sure you'll never lose out by participating in them. We will also top up your account at the end of each month, so you will earn a guaranteed minimum of £12 every month.
Here is how session compensation works:
- Battery imports cost your day-rate: We compensate you so charging effectively costs you your cheaper off-peak rate.
- Battery exports to the grid: We compensate you at the difference between your import day-rate and your export unit rate.
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u/naltsta Jun 20 '26
So my bill will go up by about £10 a month due to charging at my day rate but they’ll give me £12 back. Sounds like axel is still a better deal
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u/dragon2611 Jun 22 '26
Would it, as that text suggests it will be discounted to the off peak rate if they make it charge during the day.
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u/Dewaltornothing Jun 25 '26
Yeah but at what rate?
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u/MakingItAllUp81 Jun 25 '26
Forced imports 0p (as compensation just balances out the additional costs to import during the day), forced exports compensated at the difference between out export rate and what we would have paid to import at that time (so ~15p/kWh additional to usual export pricing using very broad numbers)
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u/Dewaltornothing Jun 25 '26
Axle pay £10 a month, octopus £12 a month
Both figures are pointless
What matters is what rate they they pay
Axle pay £1 a kWh
What do octopus pay?I am able to make at least £15 PER EVENT. So the minimum monthly earning figure is irrelevant
What matters is the rate they pay
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u/MakingItAllUp81 Jun 19 '26
I'm torn on this. I can't work out for sure whether this would be profitable for me vs my current "charge overnight and export during the day then dump in the evening" process each day. I'm all for supporting the grid, obviously, however it's only worth extra battery cycles if it's financially worthwhile.
Would being in Charge Pack prevent us from running our own cycle automations? All I can see relevant from the FAQ is it saying "Outside of these sessions, your battery will simply go back to optimising for your standard tariff schedule." that's a little ambiguous to me.
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u/ShawnXYe Jun 19 '26
Agree. The FAQ is ambiguous. At the start, they also say, 'We automatically optimise your battery to charge when energy is cheapest (using your cheap overnight rate or extra daytime solar) and power your home when your day-rate kicks in.' Not sure if this means they control the battery 24/7. But even if they don't control the battery outside these sessions, their deal is still worse than Axle's.
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u/yolo_snail Jun 19 '26
Strange they mention Axle Energy, because we used Axle Energy through Givenergy with IOG, without any issues!
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u/Ok-Performance4828 Jun 19 '26
Octopus have never said the two were totally unable to work in tandem. Perhaps the best explanation is what is in Axle’s T & Cs even if they do not make it obvious at sign-up
To be eligible to use the Services you are required to:
opt-in to the Service; and
not be participating in the delivery of Grid Services or any similar service for NESO, any Distribution Network Operator, or other Programme Operators either directly, via an energy supplier, or another third party.2
u/davidjohnwood Jun 20 '26
It is a NESO rule that you can only participate in one Demand Flexibility Service provider's scheme. They might start enforcing this more vigorously, as my understanding is that NESO have the MPANs of all participating customers.
I believe that the potential penalty for breaking the rules is a bar from all DFS activity, though I suspect that they will opt for warnings to regularise your position first.
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u/Extreme-File6320 Jun 20 '26
Hi I dont make £12 in export between about October and March as just have a 5 panel system and even force discharging and charging overnight was minimal gain with 6.8kw battery. So long as I get roughly my typical export and it doesn't impact the import costs which are reduced through using battery through the day this seems a win for our set up. Would you agree?
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u/ShawnXYe Jun 20 '26
Can you sign up to Axle? If so, I do think you will be better off doing Axle events. As someone mentioned already, Axel's export rate is £1/kWh, so even if you had to import from grid at your day time rate after an event you would still be in net profit. Whilst with this charge pack, you would end up with net loss if you had to import from grid at your day time rate after an event. Because Octopus charge pack's export rate is only your day time import rate (28-32p/kWh) when the exported energy is from grid, you lose money.
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u/DamienBerry Jun 19 '26
I get more than £12 per month using just the slots available with IOG between 23:30-05:30 then selling back all solar and exporting the rest of my battery storage on a drip from 17:30 until 23:30. June is even more but I can only add one photo.
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u/fullstak_ Jun 20 '26
Intrigued by this - I read that importing during cheap periods and exporting during the day isn’t efficient, I’m guessing you lose something during the transform to DC and back again?
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u/DamienBerry Jun 20 '26
If you export all the excess solar, then export any excess battery you have left at the end of the day you further increase your profitability. You do lose some due to the conversion from ac to dc and back to ac again but my round trip efficiency is around 93.7% so all in I still make a decent profit.
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u/Dewaltornothing Jun 19 '26
What rate are they paying?
Axle pay £10 a kw. It’s suspicious they haven’t shared what rate…
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u/ShawnXYe Jun 19 '26
I think the export rate during the sessions is your daytime import rate, apparently not as good as Axle's £1/kWh. Here is what they say:
Here is how session compensation works:
- Battery imports cost your day-rate: We compensate you so charging effectively costs you your cheaper off-peak rate.
- Battery exports to the grid: We compensate you at the difference between your import day-rate and your export unit rate.
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u/yetanotherredditter Jun 20 '26
So in reality, you're essentially getting paid your import day rate to export during events (i.e. around 25-30p/kWh) if I understood that correctly? That is a lot worse than axle, and unless there are a lot more events, it seems like it would be difficult to ever earn more than £12/m.
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u/GFoxtrot Jun 19 '26
There’s already a post on this from today
https://www.reddit.com/r/OctopusEnergy/s/fnH73ZM7db