Octopus Intelligent Go Questions

QrizB

Here's a screenshot of my charging data from December, taken from the Ohme app.

This is the monthly chart; you can see there are also options for daily and annual.

irishesman

@QrizB again, very helpful - thanks

matt_drummer

Keep_pedalling said:

matt_drummer said:

I am sure you can download a manual for the car and the charger?

Depending on what car you get, charging to a battery percentage is not always guaranteed!

Where the app is controlling the charge point the percentage you set is the % you want to add rather than the % the car needs to reach so it does not need to know what the actual status of the car battery is just what the battery size is. 

The alternative option is to leave the app to 100% and the car will stop the charge at whatever level it has been set to (default will normally be 80%). If you do this the Octopus schedule will be longer than needed, 

It still ignores it with our Peugeot.

I tell the app to add 25% and it knows the car is a Peugeot e208.

But apart from one time, it always ignores that and charges to 100%

I think this is because the car overides the app, it says that if it gets more than one request from the car to do something different then the app level is ignored.

Peugeot do not let you set a limit on what to charge to, you have to stop it yourself.

Like i said, not a Tesla!

matt_drummer

QrizB said:

:

Tht's 7p/kWh from 0000-0930, and again from 1100-1200.

@QrizB

Where do you get this chart from?

My app has some message about not being able to display rates, I can't remember exactly what it says.

Thanks.

QrizB

matt_drummer said:

QrizB said:

Tht's 7p/kWh from 0000-0930, and again from 1100-1200.

QrizB
Where do you get this chart from?

It's a screenshot from my bill.

matt_drummer said:

My app has some message about not being able to display rates, I can't remember exactly what it says.

I get that from the app as well. With IOG the app doesn't know which periods are cheap, and which aren't, so it can't tell you the price of your electricity.

QrizB

matt_drummer said:

It still ignores it with our Peugeot.
I tell the app to add 25% and it knows the car is a Peugeot e208.
But apart from one time, it always ignores that and charges to 100%

Out first EV was a Vauxhall (Stellantis, like your Peugeot?). The car API wasn't open to Octopus so we only had the option in the Ohme app to "add X%". It always added that % unless the car didn't have space in the battery for that much.

We've now got a VW. VW's API does integrate with Octopus so the Ohme app will let us set a target state-of-charge for the car ("charge to X%") and it will reliably hit it.

The VW also has a built in charge limit and we try not to let the two fight!

Goldwing1

To answer what I can;

1.      You will always get the 7p rate 23:30 – 05:30 regardless of what you do or don’t use.

2.      There’s lots of conflicting advice re charge levels. What is true is that the rate of charge drops off the closer you get to 100% (Think of it as eating a very large meal). Remember that if you come home and plug the car in at, say 6pm, Octopus might decide to charge the car before 23:30. If that is the case, it will adjust the cost down to 7p per KwH for your entire consumption whilst the car is charging so I’d make the most of it.

3.      No idea, sorry.

4.      The website and app will allow you to download the half hourly meter readings and that applicable rate for each half hour. It takes a day or so to become available though.

 

What I’ve found is that Octopus use the percentage to be charged number to work out how much charge you will need and plan accordingly. You should be able to set how much you want the battery charged to in the car or the car’s app.

 

Bear in mind that Octopus also offer “power up” sessions. These offer free slots, normally around two hours. If I can, I run the car’s battery down and then bump charge the car during the free session. If a free session doesn’t appear I just plug the car in and let Octopus do their thing. Bump charging is at the expensive rate regardless of time but you get all the money credited to your Octopus account anyway.

 

If my car stops the charge I have to unplug the charger, leave it for a while and then plug it back in to create another charging plan.

matt_drummer

QrizB said:

matt_drummer said:

QrizB said:

Tht's 7p/kWh from 0000-0930, and again from 1100-1200.

QrizB
Where do you get this chart from?

It's a screenshot from my bill.

matt_drummer said:

My app has some message about not being able to display rates, I can't remember exactly what it says.

I get that from the app as well. With IOG the app doesn't know which periods are cheap, and which aren't, so it can't tell you the price of your electricity.

Good, thank you, I thought I might be missing something.

Thanks again.

kingstreet

We have an MG4 with a 77 kW battery.

We have an Ohme Home Pro and Octopus Intelligent Go.

We do not use the flaky MG app nor do we use the Octopus App. All communication is via the Ohme App. We tell the Ohme what charge to add and by when. It does the rest.

We regularly do an equalisation charge, which is from under 10% to 100% and this means around 70 kW. We try to schedule this for a Saturday night, especially if Octopus have identified it as a greener day when more renewable energy is available. We plug in at 17.30 and allow until 11.00 on Sunday morning. When the car is actively charging on the dynamic schedule all electricity consumption is charged at the 7p rate.

At such times, we also load shift, washing, showering and cooking as often as possible. Since getting the MG in February we have seen no increase in the cost of our massively increased consumption.

QrizB

kingstreet said:

At such times, we also load shift, washing, showering and cooking as often as possible. Since getting the MG in February we have seen no increase in the cost of our massively increased consumption.

Same here. Per my December bill, we used 280kWh on the 7p rate. Roughly half of that was EV charging, the other half was general household use. My average electricity price on that bill was 14.34p/kWh.
I think @matt_drummer has a big domestic storage battery and buys essentially all of his electricity at 7p/kWh?