Home Charger Advice

[Mikebentley]

quinny100 said:

With these multi rate tariffs you need to work out the average cost per kWh across the rates to find which will be the best value.

To work out your EV consumption, divide you mileage by 3 to get the number of kWh you’ll need - I’ve chosen 3 to represent a reasonably efficient EV and include charging losses and ancillary use.

You then need to establish your normal usage - I used about 10kWh/day with a base load around 100W.

On a 32p/5p tarifff, if I do 300 miles/wk

Home - 63kWh
Home Night - 7kWh
EV - 100kWh

(32*63)+(5*107)= 2551/170 = 15p/kWh which is not bad - it’s well under the price cap.

However, if your EV charging is only 150 miles/wk, you’re up to 19.2p/kWh.

I’ve achieved 13.05p/kWh on Octopus Agile since February with some very minor load shifting and 640kWh of. charging but mostly at times it’s very cheap as I can charge at work for free but if it’s under 5p/kWh I’ll plug in at home. The last 2 days my total energy usage costs have been 71p for 79.64kWh of gas and electricity but it’s been an unusually cheap weekend with many hours at negative prices.

Low EV rates are very psychologically alluring, especially when working out how much your running costs are, but it’s the overall average rate (and standing charges) that determines your bottom line.

I’m not going to break it down that much but last weeks example for me was 200 kWh in EV charging across 5 days. My household average per 24hrs is about 11 kWh per day so 55 kWh home energy over the same period.

On OVO standard tariff the home energy is about £0.26 ppkwh and the Charge Anytime EV tariff under £0.07 ppkwh. I’m doing about 700 miles per week for £15.00.

My household energy is subject to the capped variable rate. An additional bonus with OVO is their free power move promotion which encourages less use between 16:00 and 1930 hrs or something similar with targets of % of your overall use. I was getting £15 pm and now £10pm credits as because my EV charging was moderate to heavy it skews the %. Effectively free money. Would recommend OVO to anyone not able or interested putting everything on at night.

Edited by Mikebentley on Monday 10th June 19:10

[KTF]

Mark-ri571 said:

Intelligent Octopus Go is a no brainier for me but you have to have either a compatible car or charger. Full list of compatible cars or chargers on the Octopus website. We charge our Mini electric just on a 3 pin socket. If I have a low battery I will invariably get extra cheap rate hours during the day and have never had to bump charge at peak rate.

By plugging in during the day and getting cheap rate and by load shifting to cheap rate I have got our whole house average down 15.5p pkwh

How can you be on IOG with a granny charger?

I thought you had to have a wall box so it talks to it once Octopus have decided when the cheap charging period is (which may be outside of the overnight slot)?

[ucb]

KTF said:

How can you be on IOG with a granny charger?

I thought you had to have a wall box so it talks to it once Octopus have decided when the cheap charging period is (which may be outside of the overnight slot)?

Is it through linking the car rather than the charger to IOG?
I'm a little bit lost at present with it as our Leaf won't link to IOG but the inference from what I've read is that it can be either the car or the charger.

[KTF]

It has to be through the charger as if you tick the I don’t have one box it says you can’t sign up to IOG.

Also it wouldn’t be able to control the charge times with a 3 pin plug as it can’t turn it on automatically.

Am going to read up on IOG later as I have a Leaf on order so need to decide if I should switch to IOG or stay on tracker and charge it via solar.

[chriz1]

Mark-ri571 said:

Intelligent Octopus Go is a no brainier for me but you have to have either a compatible car or charger. Full list of compatible cars or chargers on the Octopus website. We charge our Mini electric just on a 3 pin socket. If I have a low battery I will invariably get extra cheap rate hours during the day and have never had to bump charge at peak rate.

By plugging in during the day and getting cheap rate and by load shifting to cheap rate I have got our whole house average down 15.5p pkwh

Just signed up via your code, do they offer and send notifications for extra cheap slot via the app ?

[Mark-ri571]

chriz1 said:

Just signed up via your code, do they offer and send notifications for extra cheap slot via the app ?

Cheers Chriz1. I got a notification from Octopus this morning that my referral code had been used.
You don’t get a notification as such about extra slots. If you plug your car outside the 11.30 to 05.30 period the Intelligent Octopus Go app will work out if you can charge your car to the desired % set in the App. If it won’t charge to that % within the usual cheap rate hours Octopus will invariably give you extra cheap rate hours from plugging in and give you the time slots. Those extra slots are at cheap rate as is your whole house. For example I am charging at cheap rate as I am typing this post. I plugged in at lunchtime and was given the below cheap rate slots. I have never failed to get extra cheap rates but if you didn’t then you would need to click Bump Charge in the app.

Edited by Mark-ri571 on Tuesday 11th June 13:53

[Mark-ri571]

KTF said:

It has to be through the charger as if you tick the I don’t have one box it says you can’t sign up to IOG.

Also it wouldn’t be able to control the charge times with a 3 pin plug as it can’t turn it on automatically.

Am going to read up on IOG later as I have a Leaf on order so need to decide if I should switch to IOG or stay on tracker and charge it via solar.

I am afraid you are incorrect. Octopus Intelligent Go requires you to have a compatible car or compatible charger. There is a list of compatible cars on the Octopus website. My Mini SE is one of the compatible cars. As the Mini only has a small battery I didn’t bother with a charger and the IO app works by connecting directly to the car . A lot of Mini owners like myself only charge via a 3 pin socket. You have to have a smart meter though.

[KTF]

Ok that makes a bit more sense. Thanks. So you have the granny charger plugged in and switched on all the time and the car turns itself on and off?

Does Octopus talk to the car then rather than the charger? How does it do that?

And do you get the cheap rate every night plus the cheap rate when Octopus car decides to charge as well?

Or do you only get the cheap rate when Octopus decides to charge the car?

[Mikebentley]

This is the same all providers in that you need a car that is compatible with the energy supplier or a smart charger that is compatible. Compatible vehicles are those I believe whose manufacturers allow the smart meter to communicate with the cars API software directly. My EV s haven’t been compatible with OVO so I use an Ohme home pro charger which is compatible and communicates to OVO any energy used to charge the EV. I then use the Ohme app for all charging schedules and don’t set any in the car itself as doing so can cause issues.

[Mark-ri571]

KTF said:

Ok that makes a bit more sense. Thanks. So you have the granny charger plugged in and switched on all the time and the car turns itself on and off?

Does Octopus talk to the car then rather than the charger? How does it do that?

And do you get the cheap rate every night plus the cheap rate when Octopus car decides to charge as well?

Or do you only get the cheap rate when Octopus decides to charge the car?

Whenever I want to top the battery up I plug my car into the 3 pin socket. Octopus then within seconds recognises that my car is plugged in and I get a pop up on my phone and iPad telling me what Smart Charge times I have been given.
Yes Octopus communicates directly to my car ( over the air somehow??) and of course the smart meter bills at the reduced rate during the Smart Charge period as well as the normal overnight cheap rate period.
Yes you always get 6 hours 23:30-05:30 at cheap rate plus whatever you get during the day as Smart Charge. If I know we are putting the washing machine on or ovens on I plug the car in so as to get whole house cheap rate. You won’t tend to get cheap rate between 16:30 and 18:00 as that’s obviously when demand is at a peak.
Here’s what it looks like on my billing for a day when I had Smart Charge





ETA

Sorry, referral codes not allowed.

Edited by Mark-ri571 on Tuesday 11th June 16:27

Edited by Big Al. on Tuesday 11th June 17:02

[chriz1]

Hi hopefully someone can help, I'm switched now to octupus inteliggent go all good. Says when my car will charge etc..

Octupus says I should let them manage my charge and turn off anything else that controls the cars charging ti let them do it.

I have an a3 and I can't figure out how to completely turn off the audi charge timer I can either set a time or if I turn off timer it will start to charge immediately.

Does it matter ? Or should I just set the audi charge times between the cheap tariff window and not worry ?

I'm sure it will charge either way but would rather stick with the Octupus one as it seems better ?

[ucb]

chriz1 said:

Hi hopefully someone can help, I'm switched now to octupus inteliggent go all good. Says when my car will charge etc..

Octupus says I should let them manage my charge and turn off anything else that controls the cars charging ti let them do it.

I have an a3 and I can't figure out how to completely turn off the audi charge timer I can either set a time or if I turn off timer it will start to charge immediately.

Does it matter ? Or should I just set the audi charge times between the cheap tariff window and not worry ?

I'm sure it will charge either way but would rather stick with the Octupus one as it seems better ?

Just turn off the Audi charge timer
Octopus will control the charger or the car depending on which it controls.
Our leaf will charge when first plugged in but the Zappi soon turns back off until the designated periods