Octopus Greener Days

Octopus Greener Days (or Greener Nights/Mornings?)

Octopus Greener Days is their way of forecasting which days in the week ahead would be the greenest to use power.

Each day is given a score out of 100.  The higher the score then greener the day, ie more renewables on the grid.

The timeframe Octopus analyse is 23:00 to 06:00 each day.

Octopus highlight which evening to plug in, to take advantage of the coming overnight energy.  They show a crown on their website highlight which is the best day to plug in.

So really, the whole thing should be called “Greener Nights” or “Greener Mornings” in my opinion.

Because the data is actually 23:00 to 06:00, I prefer to display which early AM is greenest.   ie, showing 00:00 to 06:00.  See below.

Where does the data come from?

The comes directly from Octopus via a Graphql query.

You can play with this yourself via this link:

https://api.octopus.energy/v1/graphql/#query=query%20GreennessForecast%20%7B%0A%20%20greennessForecast%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20validFrom%0A%20%20%20%20validTo%0A%20%20%20%20greennessScore%0A%20%20%20%20greennessIndex%0A%20%20%20%20highlightFlag%0A%20%20%7D%0A%7D&operationName=GreennessForecast

You can see in this screen snippet how the data is presented.

You can clearly see the raw data show the time period 23:00 to 06:00.

Hence why I think this should be called Greener Nights/Mornings, not Greener Days.

What’s in it for me?  Money?

On most fixed tariffs like Intelligent Go there is no financial reward in delaying your car charging to a greener day.  But there is a moral reward.  Knowing you are charging when it is best for the grid.

If you’re on a variable tariff that is affected by the amount of renewables on the grid, like Agile or Tracker, you may find that the Greener Day score corresponds with cheaper days or cheaper overnight slots.

Spreading Awareness

Ultimately I see the Greener Days score as a way of making folks aware how the amount of renewables on the grid make the grid more green.

More green = lower carbon intensity.

Whether you choose to let the Greener Score persuade a change in EV charging habits, is up to you.  But the grid will thank you if you do.

You can find more about Greener Days on the Octopus website.

https://octopus.energy/smart/greener-days/

Greener Days Score (Next 5 days)

Greener Days Score versus Agile and Tracker (last 50 days)

Note: I’ve reversed the scale on the graph for the Greener Days Score to be a negative value to scale better with the lower Agile and Tracker pricing (right hand side)

The Greener Score still shows positive within the graph though.