Octopus Intelligent Go Questions

matt_drummer

I do.

Nearly everything is at 7p.

I had a couple of kWh at day rate on Christmas Day.

There are always some small bits but not much to speak of.

tim_p

Same here but only since October. Monthly average cost per kWh has been 8.35p, then 7.92 and Dec was 7.12p. Wonder how long IOG will continue?

matt_drummer

I received my bill for 10 December to 9 January today.

I imported 935.80 kWh at a total cost of £72.11

Average cost 7.706p per kWh

Not bad

Not including the standing charge that is the total cost of running the house, heating, dhw and `fuel' for my wife's car.

We used to spend £60 a month on petrol before I bought her the electric car.

Heating is from a heat pump and it is on 24 hours a day.

There was some solar, of course, but not that much.

The total bill was £87.23 including the standing charge.

And I don't actually pay anything as it is all coming out of my balance from solar export. I am still £700 in credit and the worst will soon be over.

Before anybody states the obvious, I know I had to buy the solar panels, the batteries, the heat pump and the ev.

QrizB

Ohme has a "solar boost" function in its app. If you're exporting more than 720 watts, it'll start charging your car at 1.4kW (the slowest charge supported with a Mode 2 charger, I think?) and will import the balance.

I switched this on today (the first time for a while that my home battery looked likely to become full, and I'd be exporting any significant amount) and, as expected, Ohme put 4.9kWh into my car; 3.6 from solar, 1.2 from the grid (yes I know that doesn't add up ...)

The Ohme app tells me that the 1.2kWh will be charged at the IOG "smart" rate of 7p/kWh, despite it being the middle of the day, and claims that I'll be charged 9p. As I'm still on deemed export and would otherwise have had no direct benefit from those 3.6kWh, I'm counting this as a win

If you're interested:
https://ohme-ev.com/support/how-to-charge-with-solar-boost/

GaJames

QrizB said:

irishesman said:

I've signed up to Intelligent and we're picking up our new EV tomorrow.
My setup is fairly simple, a Ohme Pro charger (fitting on the 24th) and an EV.

I'm also on IOG, with an Ohme ePod (I didn't want a tethered cable). I suspect my answers to your questions will be similar to matt_drummer's.

irishesman said:

1) Intelligent Go allows for 6 hours charging at an off peak rate. From what I see, that will not necessarily be between 23:30-05:30. If I get given a slot at a different time (say 20:00 for 30 minutes) will I lose one of the original 23:30-05:30 time slots?

No. You get 2330-0530 every day, plus any other slots that Ohme / Octopus choose to apply.

For example, one day in December my IOG times looked like this:

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

irishesman said:

2) I really don't want to charge the car outside the 7p rate, but from my understanding, you setup the charger to reach a certain percentage of charge at a certain time. ie 80% at 6am. Is it possible just to configure to charge at the 7p rate and not worry about the final battery charge level? Our mileage is low enough to not care about being fully charged every morning and getting to 80% can easily be over a 2 or 3 night period. What I want to try and achieve is that if the battery is only at 60% at 05:30, it stops charging until the next 7p rate slot and at that point continue charging until 80%.

Even if you can set this, there's really nothing to gain. The slots that are chosen automatically for charging will always be cheap rate ones. even if they're outside the 2330-0530 period. (Note there's also a "max charge" button in the app which commences charging immediately, at whatever rate is in force at that time. Try not to use this if you don't have to!)

irishesman said:

3) Does the Ohme Pro allow me to see the amount of kWh used in a Day/Month/Week timeframe?

Yes, the Ohme app provides this info. I'm typing on my laptop but will try to get a screenshot.

irishesman said:

4) Does the monthly bill from Octopus split out off peak and peak usage?

Yes. Plus you get daily charts like the one I've posted above, each accompanied by a table showing how much electricity you used in each 30-minute slot and what it cost you. My monthly electricity bill is ~33 pages as a result, which isn't a problem when it's a pdf but occasionally Octopus send me paper ones too ...

irishesman said:

My IHD is still showing my old tariff. Does this change, and can I see the off peak/peak figures in there?

No. The IHD doesn't know which 30-minute slots are cheap and which are expensive, so it can't give you an accurate cost. The kWh display is still accurate.
(Checking my IHD, it still has tariff info from Go, not Intelligent Go. I was on Go before my Ohme was fitted.)

Hi - how do you access this graff to see costs?

Thanks

kingstreet

Your bill pdf has a page for each day with a graph at the top.

AndyB82

Just a word of warning based on our experience - if your smart meter fails to send/octopus fails to receive just one half hourly meter read for a day, you'll be switched onto Flexible Octopus from Intelligent Go for that day. We've not had a bill since January and when I queried it, this was the explanation given. So on days when we charged our EV/ran appliances within the 23.30-05.30 window thinking we were getting 7p/kWh, we've now been charged at 25p/kWh. There's no way to predict whether we'll get the 7p rate going forward either - totally out of our control which is very annoying.

Octopus have sent me a short questionnaire essentially asking if I've covered up my meter with a large metal box, once they receive that back they'll flag our case up to their "Metering Specialist" to see if they can fix the smart meter reporting.

I know smart meters are notorious for this but it seems incredibly unfair that we can't actually know what rate we're getting until after the fact.

QrizB

QrizB said:

Ohme has a "solar boost" function in its app. If you're exporting more than 720 watts, it'll start charging your car at 1.4kW (the slowest charge supported with a Mode 2 charger, I think?) and will import the balance.

I switched this on today (the first time for a while that my home battery looked likely to become full, and I'd be exporting any significant amount) and, as expected, Ohme put 4.9kWh into my car; 3.6 from solar, 1.2 from the grid (yes I know that doesn't add up ...)

The Ohme app tells me that the 1.2kWh will be charged at the IOG "smart" rate of 7p/kWh, despite it being the middle of the day, and claims that I'll be charged 9p. As I'm still on deemed export and would otherwise have had no direct benefit from those 3.6kWh, I'm counting this as a win

If you're interested:
https://ohme-ev.com/support/how-to-charge-with-solar-boost/

I checked my bill and, sure enough, Octopus have charged me 7p/kWh for any import while Ohme Solar Boost was running.

A nice and unexpected bonus to having an Ohme charger!