Intelligent Octopus Go limiting cheap charging.

born_again

Have done in the past when greener days was worth doing. Now makes more sense to charge 1st thing in the morning while using house power more. Might only save less than £. But every penny counts.
Between our 2 EV's it was 12 times last month with around each 2 hours charge. So no where near the 6 hour over 24 hours limit.

Cost cutting. 

MWT

born_again said:

Have done in the past when greener days was worth doing. Now makes more sense to charge 1st thing in the morning while using house power more. Might only save less than £. But every penny counts.
Between our 2 EV's it was 12 times last month with around each 2 hours charge. So no where near the 6 hour over 24 hours limit.

Cost cutting. 

Problem is, plugging in early in morning to force charging slots before 11:00 is not the way the tariff is designed to work.

If you have a way to ensure you get the low-rate slots every morning that you want them, you are not letting IOG work as intended.

matt_drummer

Perhaps outside of spirit of how it is supposed to work?

Not technically cheating but feels like it.

HalfFull

We have 2 EVs, and I do a 40kWhr journey on 3 consecutive days a week, and I'm fairly sure we will not be limited. I'm going to put my hand up and say I'd not noticed the 6 hour limit when we switched over, so when we switched over to IOG I just set 100% capacity target, and plugged in every time I arrived home. I've re-set to 40/70 * 100% capacity now to presumably limit to 6 hours,

However, how would this scenario work....I arrive home 1 morning at say 11am, plug in and take a 6 hour smart charge.  EV#2 arrives home at midnight, and plugs in on the dumb granny charger for the over night? Or for that matter, switches off the smart charge function on the main charger and charges for 6 hours at full whack?

I assume this doesn't include solar charging sessions? In summer if I don't plan to travel for a few days I switch off smart charging and let one of the cars mop up the solar for days at a time. I assume this doesn't count towards my 6 hours?

QrizB

HalfFull said:

However, how would this scenario work....I arrive home 1 morning at say 11am, plug in and take a 6 hour smart charge.  EV#2 arrives home at midnight, and plugs in on the dumb granny charger for the over night?

I think the granny charger will be counted as part of the "whole house" hours. It's definitely not a smart charge.

HalfFull said:

Or for that matter, switches off the smart charge function on the main charger and charges for 6 hours at full whack?

I don't know how Octopus will account for max charging during the whole-house hours.

born_again

MWT said:

born_again said:

Have done in the past when greener days was worth doing. Now makes more sense to charge 1st thing in the morning while using house power more. Might only save less than £. But every penny counts.
Between our 2 EV's it was 12 times last month with around each 2 hours charge. So no where near the 6 hour over 24 hours limit.

Cost cutting. 

Problem is, plugging in early in morning to force charging slots before 11:00 is not the way the tariff is designed to work.

If you have a way to ensure you get the low-rate slots every morning that you want them, you are not letting IOG work as intended.

IOG will only give slots at appropriate times. As you get delayed starts or breaks in the charging time.
So Octopus is controlling the times.
Not forcing anything, just using it as intended.

Qyburn

What happens if for example you plug in at 0900 and need two hours charge before 1100, if Octopus doesn't have cheap slots available? Do you get billed peak rate?

tim_p

Qyburn said:

What happens if for example you plug in at 0900 and need two hours charge before 1100, if Octopus doesn't have cheap slots available? Do you get billed peak rate?

When you plug in, it will go away and think for a minute or two before coming up with your charging plan, if that plan doesn’t include 09.00-11.00 then your option is a ‘boost now’ button, which yes, will be charged at peak rate. All pretty clear in the App. 

MWT

born_again said:

MWT said:

born_again said:

Have done in the past when greener days was worth doing. Now makes more sense to charge 1st thing in the morning while using house power more. Might only save less than £. But every penny counts.
Between our 2 EV's it was 12 times last month with around each 2 hours charge. So no where near the 6 hour over 24 hours limit.

Cost cutting. 

Problem is, plugging in early in morning to force charging slots before 11:00 is not the way the tariff is designed to work.

If you have a way to ensure you get the low-rate slots every morning that you want them, you are not letting IOG work as intended.

IOG will only give slots at appropriate times. As you get delayed starts or breaks in the charging time.
So Octopus is controlling the times.
Not forcing anything, just using it as intended.

If only that was true, plug in at 09:00, ask for at least 14kWh and tell me how often you don't get a solid two hours at the low-rate?

This is a flaw in the system, it will try to deliver what has been asked for by the selected departure time in preference to just the real low-rate periods...

This should change.

born_again

MWT said:

born_again said:

MWT said:

born_again said:

Have done in the past when greener days was worth doing. Now makes more sense to charge 1st thing in the morning while using house power more. Might only save less than £. But every penny counts.
Between our 2 EV's it was 12 times last month with around each 2 hours charge. So no where near the 6 hour over 24 hours limit.

Cost cutting. 

Problem is, plugging in early in morning to force charging slots before 11:00 is not the way the tariff is designed to work.

If you have a way to ensure you get the low-rate slots every morning that you want them, you are not letting IOG work as intended.

IOG will only give slots at appropriate times. As you get delayed starts or breaks in the charging time.
So Octopus is controlling the times.
Not forcing anything, just using it as intended.

If only that was true, plug in at 09:00, ask for at least 14kWh and tell me how often you don't get a solid two hours at the low-rate?

This is a flaw in the system, it will try to deliver what has been asked for by the selected departure time in preference to just the real low-rate periods...

This should change.

In reality It will say will not be ready till later & set a time it is ready.
TBH, never had a issue with getting what I have asked for.

Given I have a OHME Home Pro, you only have 2 options for departure time. 11:00 & 04:00. Any other time selected & it tells you to select either of the times.