I'm on an electricity tariff with dynamic pricing. The last week has been pretty rough in fairness, but generally it's really rewarding on most days and sometimes, on days like this, it's amazing.
Based on my past calculations, whenever the cost is below ~20p, I'm paying less for heating than I would with a gas boiler. Where the cost of energy is negative, I'm essentially getting paid to use surplus energy.
Which app is that and why is 22:30 not blue?
It's Home Assistant. If you're not familiar, it's an insanely powerful open-source platform for self-hosting your smart home. It can handle heating, lighting, security, charging, presence, all sorts. I highly recommend it if you have any smart home kit at all. But it is a bit of a rabbit hole.
The data you see there is being automatically imported from Octopus and Home Assistant uses it to calculate the best time to run the heaters; it even takes the weather forecast into account to make sure that the walls are warmed through so the heaters don't need to run when energy is expensive.
The 22:30 is highlighted because it's the cheapest rate for the period.
Home Assistant eh? Thanks! 🙏