Octopus Intelligent Go - Smart Charging Schedule & 3 PIN EV Charger

QrizB

Reed_Richards said:

I asked about this before but nobody replied.  If Octopus expand their charging window beyond normal hours, does that mean you whole house benefits from the cheaper rate at those other times?  I'm completely confused, @QrizB seems to imply that it doesn't then says that it does.  @QrizB, when you refer to "charging window" do you just means the normal hours or do you mean any time that Octopus chooses?

Apologies for any confusion, I thought I was being consistent!

I defer to the answers above provided by peter3hg and Petriix. These reflect my understanding.

Reed_Richards

Thank you @QrizB, the answers you referred to made it abundantly clear.

Now that I have an EV and a Smart Meter, I get cheap electricity overnight so when my solar panels start exporting again it would be better for me to get paid 15p per kWh to export my spare solar electricity than to heat my hot water, which I can do overnight for less.  My current EV tariff is with Eon Next and the really good thing about that is that it runs for 7 hours from midnight to 7 am which means I can also kick-start my heating at the cheap rate.  But Eon Next does not pay a decent rate for export.  So I am trying to understand everything I can about possible alternatives like Octopus Intelligent Go.  

born_again

Reed_Richards said:

I asked about this before but nobody replied.  If Octopus expand their charging window beyond normal hours, does that mean you whole house benefits from the cheaper rate at those other times?  I'm completely confused, @QrizB seems to imply that it doesn't then says that it does.  @QrizB, when you refer to "charging window" do you just means the normal hours or do you mean any time that Octopus chooses?

If IO gives you a charge slot outside the 23:30 to 05:30. The WHOLE house usage is included in the 7.5p cost.
So if you get a slot like that, use it as much as you can 👍

TBH, a granny charger is so slow, that you are going to be better with a wall box. yes it will cost, but the convivence & speed of charge are well worth it.

QrizB

born_again said:

TBH a granny charger is so slow, that you are going to be better with a wall box. yes it will cost, but the convivence & speed of charge are well worth it.

Although a granny charger, being slow, increases the chance of Octopus extending your charging window so you get more whole-house consumption at the cheaper rate

MeteredOut

born_again said:

Reed_Richards said:

I asked about this before but nobody replied.  If Octopus expand their charging window beyond normal hours, does that mean you whole house benefits from the cheaper rate at those other times?  I'm completely confused, @QrizB seems to imply that it doesn't then says that it does.  @QrizB, when you refer to "charging window" do you just means the normal hours or do you mean any time that Octopus chooses?

If IO gives you a charge slot outside the 23:30 to 05:30. The WHOLE house usage is included in the 7.5p cost.
So if you get a slot like that, use it as much as you can 👍

TBH, a granny charger is so slow, that you are going to be better with a wall box. yes it will cost, but the convivence & speed of charge are well worth it.

I'm still working through the calcs based on our mileage.

6 hours cheap rate each night at 2.5kW (which is what my car receives after losses - the charger provides 2.8kW as measured at the socket) gives 15kWh on an overnight charge.

But, my two days on IO have actually given 7 hours with Smart Charging (so 18kWh).

I've been getting a touch above 3 mi/kWh in the 2 winter months I've had the car, and expect 3.5-4 mi/kWh in the summer, so that gives a additional range of around 45 to 60 miles each night for the 15-18kWh provided by the 3 pin charger. That easily covers our usual daily usage/commute, but does mean we may need to use peak price (30p) when we do have longer journeys.

But, assuming a charger install of £1K (Zappi is probably the best fit with IO, but is more expensive), that would provide 3,333 kWh at 30p/kWh and 13,333 kWh at 7.5p/kWh, which is a lot of miles.

I fully appreciate the convenience a wall box charge would bring. I believe the charging losses would be lower too.

Reed_Richards

QrizB said:

born_again said:

TBH a granny charger is so slow, that you are going to be better with a wall box. yes it will cost, but the convivence & speed of charge are well worth it.

Although a granny charger, being slow, increases the chance of Octopus extending your charging window so you get more whole-house consumption at the cheaper rate

Do you think so?  I had assumed that everyone had the same charging windows and the "intelligent" bit was just to fit the required charge inside the windows.  In the example given by @Petriix, it looks as if their car may have been charged between 6:30 and 7:00 instead of earlier.      

MeteredOut

QrizB said:

born_again said:

TBH a granny charger is so slow, that you are going to be better with a wall box. yes it will cost, but the convivence & speed of charge are well worth it.

Although a granny charger, being slow, increases the chance of Octopus extending your charging window so you get more whole-house consumption at the cheaper rate

Ah, thanks. I'd not thought of it like that

I wonder if it can be gamed, such as setting the "ready by time" to later in the morning (eg, 9am) on days I don't need to drive the car, in the hope that it sets smart charge slots to nearer to that time when the household is awake and there's an increased load being used. I wonder if setting the charge limit above 80% might change it too. 

That's Saturday mornings experiment

MeteredOut

Reed_Richards said:

QrizB said:

born_again said:

TBH a granny charger is so slow, that you are going to be better with a wall box. yes it will cost, but the convivence & speed of charge are well worth it.

Although a granny charger, being slow, increases the chance of Octopus extending your charging window so you get more whole-house consumption at the cheaper rate

Do you think so?  I had assumed that everyone had the same charging windows and the "intelligent" bit was just to fit the required charge inside the windows.  In the example given by @Petriix, it looks as if their car may have been charged between 6:30 and 7:00 instead of earlier.      

I'll post my smart charging periods for tonight when they're set later (they're not set earlier than 12 hours beforehand) and see if others can do the same.

But, since you set a "ready by time" in the Octopus app, I assume it uses that. So, if I set it to 05:30, it'll charge up in the standard overnight off-peak window. But if, as I did today, have it set for 7am, it did not charge 00:00-01:30, but extended the off-peak to 6am via the smart charging. I suspect they're therefore dynamic per user.

MeteredOut

It certainly looks like Octopus changes the smart charging periods based on user settings. My car is at 77%, and here's the smart charging periods it set when I had the charge limit to 80%, 85% and 90%. 

.       



This doesn't really tell us whether it will give longer smart schedules if using a 3 pin charger though (though I suspect it does ). I'll need a lower current battery level to really test that, and also to test whether changing the "Ready by time" also changes the smart schedule.

Petriix

MeteredOut said:

Petriix said:

For the avoidance of doubt, here's an example of a billed morning showing three additional 30 minute slots outside the usual 11:30-5:30 cheap window charged at the lower rate for the whole house.

@Petriix Where do you get that chart? I can't see it in the Octopus app. Is it one of the other 3rd party Octopus apps?

It's a screen shot from my bill (pdf) which can be downloaded from the app but is also emailed each month. I've only been on Intelligent since November but my next bill will show a few more 'bonus' 30 minute cheap slots.

To confuse matters further I often just disable smart charging and just schedule the Zappi for the 6 hour window between 23:30 and 5:30 as my car can be unreliable if asked to restart charging too quickly after stopping. I tend to do more smart charging if I'm going to be at home and don't especially need a full battery. The T&Cs say you only have to do one smart charge per month so it's pretty flexible.