EV tariffs

[Mikebentley]

325iMSport said:

audi321 said:

Cheers that’s much better than my homemade thing.

I’m tempted by OVO despite its complexity. But according to this website it only works with 2 charger brands? Is that right?

https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-any...

Correct, only works with Ohme or Indra chargers.

Which car do you have, is it compatible? If your car is compatible, then the charger is irrelevant.

OVO Anytime user here. I have an MG4 Trophy which isn’t compatible with OVO Anytime so got an Ohme charge point fitted which is. Absolutely works perfectly, get home from work, plug car in and that’s it. Set the schedule for 100% by 07:20hrs and use the Ohme application. It’s never let me down in 6 months and 10k miles. Currently 6.7pp unit. The cheapest motoring ever, current 1000 miles costs £17.

The Anytime tariff might seem like magic but it just works. The standard tariff is as cheap as anyone else’s without the need to set washing machines etc in the middle of the night. With a young busy household it has proven to be zero compromise for us.

[325iMSport]

Mikebentley said:

325iMSport said:

audi321 said:

Cheers that’s much better than my homemade thing.

I’m tempted by OVO despite its complexity. But according to this website it only works with 2 charger brands? Is that right?

https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-any...

Correct, only works with Ohme or Indra chargers.

Which car do you have, is it compatible? If your car is compatible, then the charger is irrelevant.

OVO Anytime user here. I have an MG4 Trophy which isn’t compatible with OVO Anytime so got an Ohme charge point fitted which is. Absolutely works perfectly, get home from work, plug car in and that’s it. Set the schedule for 100% by 07:20hrs and use the Ohme application. It’s never let me down in 6 months and 10k miles. Currently 6.7pp unit. The cheapest motoring ever, current 1000 miles costs £17.

The Anytime tariff might seem like magic but it just works. The standard tariff is as cheap as anyone else’s without the need to set washing machines etc in the middle of the night. With a young busy household it has proven to be zero compromise for us.

I would of joined OVO if my car was compatible, instead I've gone to IO.

Yes IO is a little more expensive but having cheaper off peak hours can claw savings back.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Mikebentley said:

325iMSport said:

audi321 said:

Cheers that’s much better than my homemade thing.

I’m tempted by OVO despite its complexity. But according to this website it only works with 2 charger brands? Is that right?

https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-any...

Correct, only works with Ohme or Indra chargers.

Which car do you have, is it compatible? If your car is compatible, then the charger is irrelevant.

OVO Anytime user here. I have an MG4 Trophy which isn’t compatible with OVO Anytime so got an Ohme charge point fitted which is. Absolutely works perfectly, get home from work, plug car in and that’s it. Set the schedule for 100% by 07:20hrs and use the Ohme application. It’s never let me down in 6 months and 10k miles. Currently 6.7pp unit. The cheapest motoring ever, current 1000 miles costs £17.

The Anytime tariff might seem like magic but it just works. The standard tariff is as cheap as anyone else’s without the need to set washing machines etc in the middle of the night. With a young busy household it has proven to be zero compromise for us.

Kia not on that list either. I wonder what the problem is with the Kia/Hyundai cars. I heard that they were once working with Octopus, but then it stopped or was flaky and now it's not supported at all. I guess after all this time, if it was going to work properly, it would.

[Mikebentley]

I don’t know the technical terms but it’s something to do with the car manufacturers not allowing OVO to communicate directly with the cars not on the list. The other manufacturers do allow it so OVO and hence the Anytime bit can communicate directly. That’s what the Ohme and Indra charge points do for non listed cars.

[C G]

I got an Ohme charger fitted for that reason, although not through OVO themselves

[TheDrownedApe]

OP just incase you need a recent bill. 3 member household all of whom are at home during the day and do IT related work ergo high bills.

Son gamer/streamer for US market therefore 2000-0400 schedule
1 EV which is charged only at home and averages about 700 miles a month.
Dishwasher on every night during low rate.

This bill is slightly higher as forgot to schedule car charge and it charges from 15% to 73% during the day on high rate.

[LordGrover]

I've not investigated any others recently, but switched to Octopus from eDF a couple of years ago when I bought BEV. IOG has worked out well so far for me and my usage; typically averaging 12-13p /kWh.

[audi321]

One major question I have with OVO is the charging times.

Lets assume I want the car to be fully charged and I plug it in at say 2pm for leaving the house at 7am the next day. What will it do? Will it stop and start the charging all day to get me fully charged in time? Or will it only charge when it's cheap and therefore leave me short of miles?

[plfrench]

audi321 said:

One major question I have with OVO is the charging times.

Lets assume I want the car to be fully charged and I plug it in at say 2pm for leaving the house at 7am the next day. What will it do? Will it stop and start the charging all day to get me fully charged in time? Or will it only charge when it's cheap and therefore leave me short of miles?

It will get you to the level you request (I just have ours at 100%) by the time you ask for. In your example, it will generally start around midnight. But there’s also a minimum level (which I set at the highest allowable 50%). If you’re below this level when you plug in, then it will start charging straight away regardless of what time of day it is. It will stop again once it gets to you level and then carry on when it’s a time of lower demand.

It will still only charge you at 7p/kWh for this first chunk even if it’s at 6pm.

So, in your example if you plug in at 2pm with say 40% charge ( and your min set at 50%), it will charge straight away till 50%. The remaining 50% (assuming you’ve set to 100% required by 7am) it will pop in later.

I’ve not had a single problem with it working for two vehicles on 2 EV chargers (a PodPoint and another one I can’t remember - neither are Anytime directly compatible) for just over 6 months and over 20,000 miles worth of charging.

Ovo are beta testing compatibility for Hyundai and Kia at the moment - it was mentioned in a recent app update.

[audi321]

That's fantastic if it will charge to the minimum (you said 50%) immediately and still only charge the 7p/kWh regardless of what time of day it is.

[PurpleFox]

Has anyone eles found that Octopus don't support a Mercedes EQC with a Tesla wall connector? I don't think it is the connector as selecting a Taycan and a Tesla wall connector allows me to proceed to open an account.......

[James6112]

I hadn’t worked out the average price kwh before, that sounds the best way.
I’m with EDF. Not the cheapest
33p kwh
8p kwh 0000-0500

Wife has phev
I’ll get Ev soon
Washing Machine/Dishwasher timed to come in in the cheap period
Average 21p kwh November
Petrol saving on phev effectively half of the electric bill! (300 mpg, half a tank in 3 months)

[plfrench]

audi321 said:

That's fantastic if it will charge to the minimum (you said 50%) immediately and still only charge the 7p/kWh regardless of what time of day it is.

Yes, I'd originally assumed this wouldn't be the case and it would class it as urgent charging, but no, all comes through at 7p rate. I can't see why anyone would set the minimum level to be below 50% it allows you to have! I think it is actually a mistake in their app programming - so might not stay this way forever! Their wording even suggests it should be charging this portion at standard cost:



The only time it charges at the standard household cost is if you press the urgent charge button in the Ovo App. This is current monthly period 8th Nov-7th Dec:

[plfrench]

James6112 said:

I hadn’t worked out the average price kwh before, that sounds the best way.
I’m with EDF. Not the cheapest
33p kwh
8p kwh 0000-0500

Wife has phev
I’ll get Ev soon
Washing Machine/Dishwasher timed to come in in the cheap period
Average 21p kwh November
Petrol saving on phev effectively half of the electric bill! (300 mpg, half a tank in 3 months)

Just tried that too for 8th Nov-7th Dec:

1986kWh electricity used @ 25.48p = £505.93
Standing charge 30 days @ 47.91p = £14.37

Anytime credit = £-189.12
Powermove credit = -15
Power Move Plus = -2.19

VAT @5% = £15.70

Total electricity bill = £329.69

Average cost per unit = 16.6p/kWh

If you ignore standing charge and VAT, it comes out at 15.1p/kWh

[James6112]

plfrench said:

James6112 said:

I hadn’t worked out the average price kwh before, that sounds the best way.
I’m with EDF. Not the cheapest
33p kwh
8p kwh 0000-0500

Wife has phev
I’ll get Ev soon
Washing Machine/Dishwasher timed to come in in the cheap period
Average 21p kwh November
Petrol saving on phev effectively half of the electric bill! (300 mpg, half a tank in 3 months)

Just tried that too for 8th Nov-7th Dec:

1986kWh electricity used @ 25.48p = £505.93
Standing charge 30 days @ 47.91p = £14.37

Anytime credit = £-189.12
Powermove credit = -15
Power Move Plus = -2.19

VAT @5% = £15.70

Total electricity bill = £329.69

Average cost per unit = 16.6p/kWh

If you ignore standing charge and VAT, it comes out at 15.1p/kWh

Good going!
I’ll look for a better tariff soon & shift some more usage into the cheap period where possible..

[audi321]

Right, I've been on the OVO tariff for a few days now and it's just as plfrench said, they seem to charge me 7p for charging at anytime they think it's 'green' to charge! 26p for normal household usage.

For example I have the car on charge now and it says 'Smart' charging (has done since i plugged in at 8pm last night) and it's charged the whole night and morning at 7p.

I have a feeling it's a bug, so until they fix it I'll be taking full advantage! There is a possibility that because it's ridiculously windy, they have a surplus at the moment, so it's cheap today, but I'll monitor it and report back.

I have 2 EVs, a Tesla MS and a Cupra Born. The Tesla was simple to set up (just put my user credentials in) but the Cupra was a bugger (turn things on in the car in menus that I didn't even know existed, a 'S-PIN' which I couldn't remember setting up, etc etc) but got there in the end.

[Mikebentley]

audi321 said:

Right, I've been on the OVO tariff for a few days now and it's just as plfrench said, they seem to charge me 7p for charging at anytime they think it's 'green' to charge! 26p for normal household usage.

For example I have the car on charge now and it says 'Smart' charging (has done since i plugged in at 8pm last night) and it's charged the whole night and morning at 7p.

I have a feeling it's a bug, so until they fix it I'll be taking full advantage! There is a possibility that because it's ridiculously windy, they have a surplus at the moment, so it's cheap today, but I'll monitor it and report back.

I have 2 EVs, a Tesla MS and a Cupra Born. The Tesla was simple to set up (just put my user credentials in) but the Cupra was a bugger (turn things on in the car in menus that I didn't even know existed, a 'S-PIN' which I couldn't remember setting up, etc etc) but got there in the end.

I don’t think you will regret it. It’s been a game changer for me. It just works fantastically well. They have been offering me the £15 credit to try and shift usage to overnight too but with a busy household I can’t see the point for me.

[plfrench]

audi321 said:

Right, I've been on the OVO tariff for a few days now and it's just as plfrench said, they seem to charge me 7p for charging at anytime they think it's 'green' to charge! 26p for normal household usage.

For example I have the car on charge now and it says 'Smart' charging (has done since i plugged in at 8pm last night) and it's charged the whole night and morning at 7p.

I have a feeling it's a bug, so until they fix it I'll be taking full advantage! There is a possibility that because it's ridiculously windy, they have a surplus at the moment, so it's cheap today, but I'll monitor it and report back.

I have 2 EVs, a Tesla MS and a Cupra Born. The Tesla was simple to set up (just put my user credentials in) but the Cupra was a bugger (turn things on in the car in menus that I didn't even know existed, a 'S-PIN' which I couldn't remember setting up, etc etc) but got there in the end.

Good stuff. Our Born wasn't a problem to set up, not sure what happened there!

Have you opted into their 'Power Move' scheme? This quarter they're giving an additional £15 credit per month for using less than 13.5% of your total weekday energy consumption between the hours of 4pm-7pm. With Anytime left to do its thing and a moderate amount of EV charging you're pretty much guaranteed to get this. I've managed it easily for Sep, Oct and Nov so far with Dec sitting at about 6.5% so far.

[audi321]

No I’ve not seen that. I’ve also not seen the urgent charging button in my app. Where is it?

[plfrench]

audi321 said:

No I’ve not seen that. I’ve also not seen the urgent charging button in my app. Where is it?

You might need to login to the website to find the Power Move opt in.

The urgent charging button appears when the car is plugged in but not charging. It's where the 'Car unplugged' message is below: