Octopus intelligent go questions

rubble2

I might well be missing something obvious here but can anyone confirm my reservations on switching to this tariff please.

I am about to purchase an EV and am looking at sorting out how to organise home charging.

Our annual mileage will be quite low (about 5000 per annum) so would not need to worry about charging every night - maybe only one or twice a week.

My existing tariff is 22.25 per unit and standing charge of 65.84 per day.

If we switch to Intelligent Octopus go the tariff will be 34.73 day time with a standing charge of 68.00/day, at what point does charging the car at 8p per unit overnight compensate for the increased cost of running the house during the day?

I seems to me that my unit price will be increasing by 12.48 so it will need a considerable number of 'charging hours' to break even on the deal - looks to me like I may be better just sticking with my existing tariff and forget about reduced charges over night. Am I correct?

Peter999_2

Presuming that you will get about 3.5 miles per kWh then your break even would be if you used less than 1,634 kWh a year during the day. Have you got access to previous bills to see if you use more than that a year?

Don't forget, though, that with IOG if you end up charging through the day (happens a lot for me) then your whole house gets the 8p per kWh rate, not just the car. Could you load shift all your heavy use to be when you are charging the car? - Only doing 5,000 miles a year would make that pretty difficult to be honest.

If it were me, I would consider using the Octopus Tracker tariff or the Agile one. I was using about 6,000 miles a year for a while on my EV when working from home and found that Agile was pretty good for me. I'd just charge during the slots where it was cheap - for example, in April the average price was 15/16p per kWh on Agile (in Yorkshire).

Have a look at the website below which shows you all the prices for the last few years and see what you think.

agileprices.co.uk/?region=M

It's not easy finding the right tariff and only you can really know how much energy you use and when. Good luck.

Netexporter

A home battery is an ideal companion to an EV tariff. Fill the battery at night and run the house at off-peak price all day.

Are they taking on new OIG customers again? They'd stopped it whilst they consulted the crystal ball as to what mayhem Trump is going to rain down on us all.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81985668#Comment_81985668

Yes, there are fixed versions of all the Intelligent tariffs open for new customers at the moment.

The variable versions are not currently available though I believe.

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81985443#Comment_81985443

Just did thi today in another thread.

Rodders53

See my comment on this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6666630/ev-chargers-having-to-bite-the-bullet

We do approx 5200 miles of charging at home at circa 30kWh per 100 miles (3.33 miles per kWh) and for me it's cheaper to be on a fixed single rate than IOG by approx 10%… assuming my day/night use remains unchanged. Even with a better miles per kWh of 4. We tend to need a weekly charge, unless on a trip away (another 1800 miles per annum) perhaps.
I suspect that IOG 'daytime slots' are too variable and changeable by Octopus to use easily and tip that to a break even point for us, let alone become cheaper. (We can't move washing/dishwasher and such to night-time due to sleep disruption but your mileage may vary.)

If you have solar and/or battery energy storage then the calculations will change enormously.

Set yourself up a spreadsheet with variables, mileage (home/public charge), miles per kWh and your estimated day / night consumption normal and shifted use (if you can do so). You can even throw in some guesses for 'daytime at cheap rate' slots that IOG may provide…

THEN you'll have some figures to work with and compare other tariffs as well.

Ms_Chocaholic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81985583#Comment_81985583

I'm intrigued how I can charge the car during the day for the lower rate. Surely on IOG you have to set it up for smart charging and during the day isn't an option. If I choose "boost" then I pay the higher rate.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81986089#Comment_81986089

You select when you want the car to be charged by and then see what happens.

The 'day' runs from midday - midday and the latest you can request a charge to complete is 11:00, but you can plug-in any time you want from midday onwards.

It varies a lot, but it is a rare occurrence, for me at least, not to get at least some of the charging taking place outside the 23:30 - 05:30 period.

Do be aware that it is extremely common for the planned charging periods to change, so do not depend on the first schedule you see in the app actually being completed as shown.

Newbie_John

As you still haven't purchased your EV, maybe consider V2G/V2H?

Reed_Richards

seems to me that my unit price will be increasing by 12.48

Your unit price averaged over 24 hours will be 28.0475p per kWh, assuming you get 6 hours at 8p per kWh. If octopus throws in some extra hours at 8p it will be a bit less. But the increase in average unit price is 6.0475p

Reed_Richards

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81986170#Comment_81986170

Which charger enables these options? I'm still looking for one.