Renewably

Your home

What would save your home the most? Tell us a little about it, pick what you're thinking about, and see what each change would save – from the past year's real prices in West Midlands.

  1. 1Your home
  2. 2What you're thinking about
  3. 3Your savings, step by step

About your home

Not sure? Find your region – your bill or your town tells you.

kWh

What you buy now – with panels, only what comes from the grid. Typically 1,600 for a small home, 2,500 for an average home, 3,800 for a large home.

Advanced settings

For fine-tuning: whether you run the washing machine, dishwasher or tumble dryer when electricity is cheapest – "some" is about a sixth of a typical home's everyday use, "a lot" about a third. We move that use to each day's cheapest hours.

What you have, and what you're thinking about

Your electricity tariff

Switching is free – we'll find the cheapest for your home at each step.

p/kWh
p/day
What do you drive?

What you drive now – an electric car changes which tariff is cheapest.

More details
mpg
p/litre
mi/kWh
kW
%

How much of what the charger draws reaches the car – usually 85 to 95 per cent. Plugged in from and until: when the car's at home to charge – the same hour for both if it's always plugged in. Plugged in during the day, it can use your panels' spare electricity.

A typical car on the road does 36 mpg on petrol or 42 mpg on diesel; leave the price blank for the past year's UK average.

How is your home heated?

What heats it now – storage and electric heaters change which tariff is cheapest.

kWh

The yearly total, from your bill or app – typically 9,500 for an average home.

litres
p

Blank for a typical home's use and, for oil, the national average price – LPG needs yours. Oil and LPG homes get £9,000 towards a heat pump in England and Wales until 31 March 2027.

m³ loosekg
£

Logs by the loose cubic metre, pellets and coal by the kg – it's on the bag. A heat pump in place of wood gets no grant; in place of coal, the usual £7,500.

Split units heat the rooms they're in and leave the hot water to your boiler or an immersion heater. Most can cool in summer too – 0 if you won't use them for that.

kWh/yr
kWh/yr

Your bill's yearly total above includes the heaters – on Economy 7, add the day and night figures together. Hot water is taken as an immersion heater.

kW

Most storage heaters are on their own circuit that the meter switches on at night – since the radio teleswitch ended, a smart meter does it. The power is on each heater's label (often 1.7–3.4 kW each). Octopus's Snug tariff only works with heaters the meter switches.

On a tariff that's more expensive from 4pm to 7pm, warming the home from 1pm and easing off through the peak costs less – the home stays warm, using a little more heat.

More details

Boost: how much of the heat comes from the heaters' boost button or another heater in the evening, at the day rate – old heaters often run cold by then. Night hours: on your bill or meter, or ask your supplier; many meters keep GMT, so the hours move an hour later in summer.

More details
£

The SCOP is the seasonal efficiency for heating on an installer's quote; leave it blank for a typical installation. Split units keep the boiler for hot water, so a boiler due for replacement is still replaced.

Solar panels

On your roof, or a plug-in kit on a balcony or wall – now, or ones you're thinking about.

kWp

A kit's size is its panels' total: two 400 W panels are 0.8 kWp. Its inverter puts out at most 800 W, the legal limit. What the home doesn't use goes to the grid unpaid, so a kit pays most where someone's in during the day.

More details
£
°
°

If you know them: the compass bearing the panels face (south is 180°, west 270°) and their angle from flat. They replace the choices above.

kWp
°
kWp
°

Panels on more than one roof face – east and west, say – make their electricity at different times of day. The size above is then the first face's; give each other face its own size, direction and pitch (angle from flat). They share one inverter.

kW
kW

Panels bigger than their inverter lose the top of a sunny peak.

p/kWh

Each tariff comes with its supplier's usual export tariff. On a different one? Choose it, or give another supplier's rate. On the Feed-in Tariff you're paid the same whatever you export, so using your own sun costs nothing.

A home battery

On its own, or with solar panels.

kWh
£
More details
kW
kW
%
W

From the battery's data sheet. Where the export rate peaks in the evening, the battery can sell then too: Octopus pays for everything it exports, other suppliers only for what the panels made.