Octopus Intelligent Go - separate out EV and household usage on the latest bill.

Ian4321

Hi All,

My latest bill from Octopus separates out consumption for EV charging and for household usage. There is a line item for each category in KWh consumed, a rate and a total ££££ value for that category.

As the only approved device for billing in my setup is the smart meter.

I've been back-and-forth with Octopus and got very little traction to my question "Are Octopus using Ohme Charger Data for billing"? I've asked 3 times now and I have every response but a yes or a no.

There are two reasons I'm asking.

#1 I have an Ohme Home Pro charger. When i got it installed, I specifically asked Ohme is the Home Pro charger was approved for billing and the answer was a clear "NO".

So unless Ohme have retrospective approvals not only on the charger as the point of measurement, but the whole back-office system to collect the data - I would be a little disturbed by this.

I have a MID approved energy meter in-line with the charger and I record different values between what the charger thinks has been consumed and what I have measured, however, I've not been bothered up to now and Octopus have been billing me on the Smart Meter measurement.

#2 Is it the start of separate tariffs for Household consumption and EV charging? Again, not got a straight answer but I'm not sure I've asked it a bluntly as that.

At the moment, it looks like they are taking the smart meter reading and separately the Ohme data. What is not charger usage (from Ohme) must therefore be household usage.

That is fine whilst they are charging the same rate for all the units consumed but if and when they introduce separate tariffs, then there will be a problem of accuracy.

I will have to dispute the charges and ask for a "Check meter" to be installed.

I will also share some of the details from the response I have from Octopus and it might get a bit technical - so feel free to stop reading now.

Octopus say they are using the charging schedule they give to Ohme to create the bill.

The fundamental flaw with this is that I can ask for 80%; Octopus will create a schedule or 80% but for some reason that car only takes 66%. This exact scenario happened a couple of nights ago.

It is true to say that Octopus know that the car only charged to 66% because it says on the Octopus App, but they would need that data from Ohme to say that and therein lies the problem.

On a technical note, all home chargers use the Type-2 cable to connect to the car. In the specification for type-2 cables, there is no mechanism for the car to share the state of charge (battery level) with the charger so the charger is blind to the current level of charge. That necessitates me doing the calculation and putting it in on the Ohme app.

The only signal the car can send to the charger is a "Vehicle Disconnect" either when the car has had enough or you have disconnected it to go to the shops late at night.

There are some vehicles that the owners have subscriptions to send the data back to the cloud (e.g BMW - I think) and Ohme can tap into thet data about the battery level.

On my car and a lack of subscription; that feedback is never going to happen.

I would be interested to know if other Octopus customer have the same concerns and/or have any better feedback from Octopus Customer Service.

QrizB

Your entire concern appears to be "Octopus might in future choose to bill EV and home use at separate rates and if that happens their billing might be wrong".

Personally, I wouldn't get this invested in worrying about a hypothetical future situation.

Woodstok2000

Ovo have been running this same system for years, as their Charge Anytime has different rates for household and EV use. The data went to them either via the charger, or via the car, depending on which model of each you had. The charger or car just needs to be able to tell how much electricity had passed through it, not be approved for billing.

Pretty sure my car is not approved for billing, but it did a very good job of telling Ovo how much charge it had taken.

Maybe Octopus have a similar system - do you have to register or integrate your car when you sign up with them?

Keep_pedalling

I am still waiting on my first bill with this split on, but my understanding is that the split is based on the fact that Octopus know when your car is charging and what the charge rate is. You are still being billed from the smart meter but the non-EV use is made up of total energy used minus the estimated use via the charge point.

Even if that estimate is wrong for some reason the total charge for that period will still be the same.

HalfFull

On the app I was surprised to see that they detect and split out the odd bit of import when I have the smart charge off and using solar excess to charge and assign it as EV charging. Most of the time the split is academic as both loads are on the same rate I guess the only way I loose out (or gain?), is if I need more than 6 hours, and hours 6+ are overnight when the house should be on low rate and the car on high rate

Petriix

It's worth pointing out that it's not entirely hypothetical because there is a scenario where you do get charged at different rates for the home and car at the same time. If, for example, you plug in at 5:30pm and request to add 100% of your 70kWh battery to be ready by 5:30am, it will need to charge for 12 hours at 7kW. The first 6 hours of charging will be at the off peak rate but the remaining 6 hours will be charged at the peak rate. Meanwhile, the house will be at the off peak rate for the first 6 hours of charging and remain at the off peak rate from 11:30pm to 5:30am.

Admittedly it's an unlikely scenario but I'm sure some people will encounter some degree of overlap like this occasionally. I haven't delved into the t&cs but I suspect that there are clauses about it being a beta product and you accept billing based on the reported usage from your car or EVSE. In any case, the discrepancy is unlikely to amount to a significant amount of overcharging.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6684301/octopus-intelligent-go-separate-out-ev-and-household-usage-on-the-latest-bill

As the only approved device for billing in my setup is the smart meter.

… and that is the only device they will use to determine the total kWh to be billed within a particular HH.

So on that point Ofgem will be satisfied.

The detail about the rate used to bill those kWh is where it will get interesting if there are two rates being used within a particular HH.

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82146494#Comment_82146494

Well they know when you exceed the 6 hour limit. I got timings wrong.🤦‍♀️

I also have a OHME.

Reed_Richards

Isn't EV charging efficiency about 90% so wouldn't there be a significant difference between the energy a charger says it has supplied and the energy a car says it has received? So if Octopus (or whichever supplier) communicates with the car you would get a smaller number than if they communicate with the charger for what is actually the same amount of charge added.

matt_drummer

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82147798#Comment_82147798

The ac charger is in the car.

The bit on the wall is just a fancy power supply.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82147972#Comment_82147972

That is true, but there are several places the car could be reporting what it has received, and at worst it could just be reporting the SoC which could be even more than 10% different to the energy the EVSE has recorded passing through…

Using ODB on my Ioniq 5 I can see the AC kWh received, the DC that it converts from that and the energy stored in the battery as well as the change in the SoC, so lots of different places.

I suspect that most of the EV integrations just report the SoC which will be relatively inaccurate and after all the losses in the chain.