Octopus EV charging rip-off coming end January

RAFEV

So what exactly stops someone taking their six hours during the allocated charging window, then adding extra miles later on a granny charger during the off peak period? It is not ideal, and for many people it is not even practical, particularly those who have paid to install a proper charger. But it does remain a potential workaround for some users.

I have an Ohme Pro. If there is no way to limit charging to six hours at the charger level, then the only remaining option is manual scheduling in the car itself. That is not what Intelligent Go was sold as, and it does nothing to support genuine grid balancing.

Octopus now say they were not aware that chargers such as Ohme and others were throttling charge rates. That is difficult to accept. Many users observed this behaviour repeatedly and reasonably assumed it was intentional load management. If this was in fact a system fault, then some of what Octopus are now describing as user abuse was caused by their own control logic rather than deliberate behaviour.

A far cleaner solution would have been to suspend off peak household electricity while the car is charging during a peak slot. That directly targets the overlap that causes the issue, removes the incentive to stack cheap energy, and avoids arbitrary limits. 

RAFEV

In fact, Octopus could be rather clever here and offer a variant of Intelligent Go for people who rely on having their car fully charged.

Under that option, you would still get your car charged to 100 percent at the lower rate, just as now, but you would not receive off peak household electricity if those charging slots fall within a peak period. You would still have the same six hours per night as the standard tariff.

That way, people could choose what suits them best. Either prioritise cheap household electricity, or prioritise a guaranteed full car charge, without the need for blunt limits or workarounds.

MeteredOut

QrizB said:

jimmy6363 said:

... and shows a single green bar for usage each day, rather than standing charge/peak/off peak as was previously shown.

I've never seen SC / peak / off-peak in that fashion in the year-and-a-bit I've been on IOG. 

It only shows when showing £, not kWh.



@jimmy6363 it still allows me to page back on the website.

MWT

QrizB said:

I've never seen SC / peak / off-peak in that fashion in the year-and-a-bit I've been on IOG. 

Seem to work for me on IOG, but there do seem to be some differences in presentation between customers for some reason...

QrizB

RAFEV said:

So what exactly stops someone taking their six hours during the allocated charging window, then adding extra miles later on a granny charger during the off peak period?

Nothing, so far as I can tell. I suggested exactly that on the prior thread.

MeteredOut said:

It only shows when showing £, not kWh.

Mine won't let me view as £ only as kWh. Maybe it's because I've got an Ohme wallbox and the Octopus integration isn't 100%?

MWT

RAFEV said:

Octopus now say they were not aware that chargers such as Ohme and others were throttling charge rates. That is difficult to accept. Many users observed this behaviour repeatedly and reasonably assumed it was intentional load management. If this was in fact a system fault, then some of what Octopus are now describing as user abuse was caused by their own control logic rather than deliberate behaviour.

I find it perfectly plausible, it was intentional load management and not a system fault. 

With Ohme, Kraken does not directly control the charge sessions and Ohme were spreading the load by default, with Hypervolt, Kraken does directly control the charge sessions and Kraken was sending a message type that spread the load across the full HH, just like Ohme.

Both of these have been addressed now, and neither resulted in any additional HH periods being used so will not have fallen into the 'abuse' territory. There is a huge difference between a scattering of sessions running at a lower rate for a whole HH with other sessions at the full rate vs those exploiting the system with hour after hour of low rate charging...   

RAFEV

MWT said:

RAFEV said:

Octopus now say they were not aware that chargers such as Ohme and others were throttling charge rates. That is difficult to accept. Many users observed this behaviour repeatedly and reasonably assumed it was intentional load management. If this was in fact a system fault, then some of what Octopus are now describing as user abuse was caused by their own control logic rather than deliberate behaviour.

I find it perfectly plausible, it was intentional load management and not a system fault. 

With Ohme, Kraken does not directly control the charge sessions and Ohme were spreading the load by default, with Hypervolt, Kraken does directly control the charge sessions and Kraken was sending a message type that spread the load across the full HH, just like Ohme.

Both of these have been addressed now, and neither resulted in any additional HH periods being used so will not have fallen into the 'abuse' territory. There is a huge difference between a scattering of sessions running at a lower rate for a whole HH with other sessions at the full rate vs those exploiting the system with hour after hour of low rate charging...   

That explanation sounds entirely plausible, and I am not disputing that some of this behaviour may have been intentional load spreading rather than a fault.

From a user perspective though, repeated throttling looked like deliberate system wide management, so it was reasonable for people to assume it was by design. If Octopus are now framing certain outcomes as user abuse, then clarity about where control sat and what behaviour was expected becomes important.

Regardless of how the throttling arose, the six hour cap still does not address the underlying issue. The problem was the overlap between off peak car charging and off peak household usage during constrained periods. Limiting time does not change that, it just shifts who is affected.

HalfFull

"There could be trouble ahead...."   has anyone compared what they think they used to what Octopus think with the new app feature?

I'm using 23 Dec as my example, as I charged there but not on 22nd or 23rd, so easy to isolate

I think I plugged in when I got home from work at 1700 and smart charged until 2200, for 20kWh ( My 1st pic )

Octopus think I received about 20kWh, in 2 smart sessions but totalling about 10 1/2 hours, and then ran another 4 hours session where I took no charge, so 14  hours in total! ( pic 2)

The smart meter shows the 1700-2200 smart session and 23:30-5:30 std session (pic 3)

There are many many many other long charge sessions not reflecting actual usage in the whole log! 

I wonder if we have found a contribution to the perceived gaming of the system?

For completeness Audi Etron on a Zappi charger using Zappi integration ( we have no mobile signal for the car here)

MWT

HalfFull said:

"There could be trouble ahead...."   has anyone compared what they think they used to what Octopus think with the new app feature?

They will be changing these stats to reflect charge time rather than connection time, and also keep in mind that the 24 hour periods run from midday - midday.

Vegastare

I hope you will forgive my ignorance as totally new to EV and TBH I dread the thought of ever driving OH new EV car.  But several days before Xmas it arrived and so did us changing with our exsisting supplier Octopus  to  Intelligent Octopus Go. 

So this related purely to a house wife who was told by hubby put dishwasher or washing machine/dryer on after 11.30 pm. Am I misunderstand some things on this long thread does this tariff only give reduced electricty charge to the EV charging between 11.30 and 5.30 am.....

Thank you