BG or Octopus EV tariff

[mystreet]

That standing charge for Octopus is low, it looks like mine pre April. Mine currently on Octopus is 65.37p, still cheaper than Eon's but not by much (£7.56/year).

Problem with Octopus standing charge is that are not the same where you are in the country. My current standing charge is 48p per day, but my day rate is 28p per unit. I did post elsewhere that it appears that if you have a higher standing charge your daily cost is lower for 15 day units.

Edited to add link below

Octopus Go will reduce prices in April 2024 #13

 

[Gomev]

Problem with Octopus standing charge is that are not the same where you are in the country. My current standing charge is 48p per day, but my day rate is 28p per unit. I did post elsewhere that it appears that if you have a higher standing charge your daily cost is lower for 15 day units.

Edited to add link below

Octopus Go will reduce prices in April 2024 #13

Not just Octopus, the standing charge is set for all suppliers by Ofgen same as standard variable cap. The supplier can undercut that figure but not charge more. Octopus slightly reduces theirs from the standing charge cap.
Octopus' by region show it does vary enormously. Funny how London gets the lowest charge...

 

[ger]

Octopus energy standing charge is now 65.37 and I would have to go onto a starting rate tariff as I’m not a member.

 

[johnb80]

Octopus energy standing charge is now 65.37 and I would have to go onto a starting rate tariff as I’m not a member.

Yes you join Octopus on a standard tariff and move immediately to a smart tariff assuming you have a smart meter etc.

 

[Gomev]

Just for reference this link show the price cap from Ofgem by region for electricity.
Unit price and standing charges are by region and also whether you are on a single rate tariff or a time of day tariff. Also by payment method.

Get energy price cap standing charges and unit rates by region

Electricity and gas standing charges and unit rates by payment type for regions within England, Scotland and Wales.

www.ofgem.gov.uk

These are the figure for direct debit and time of day tariffs.

Electricity standing charges and unit rates paid by Direct Debit, multi-rate​

People who pay different prices for the electricity they use at different times of the day, called a ‘multi-rate’ (includes Economy 7 meters).

Region	Daily standing charge January to March 2024	Daily standing charge April to June 2024	Unit rate January to March 2024	Unit rate April to June 2024
North West	51.79 pence per day	51.01 pence per day	27.41 pence per KWh	23.27 pence per KWh
Northern	57.42 pence per day	70.94 pence per day	26.89 pence per KWh	22.21 pence per KWh
Yorkshire	55.99 pence per day	67.40 pence per day	26.94 pence per KWh	22.26 pence per KWh
Northern Scotland	59.36 pence per day	62.25 pence per day	27.54 pence per KWh	23.65 pence per KWh
Southern	49.96 pence per day	63.72 pence per day	27.78 pence per KWh	23.33 pence per KWh
Southern Scotland	62.06 pence per day	64.56 pence per day	27.19 pence per KWh	22.71 pence per KWh
North Wales and Mersey	62.19 pence per day	66.94 pence per day	28.45 pence per KWh	23.99 pence per KWh
London	38.52 pence per day	40.75 pence per day	28.55 pence per KWh	24.22 pence per KWh
South East	47.57 pence per day	57.40 pence per day	28.25 pence per KWh	23.83 pence per KWh
Eastern	44.01 pence per day	50.46 pence per day	28.12 pence per KWh	23.83 pence per KWh
East Midlands	50.68 pence per day	55.72 pence per day	27.13 pence per KWh	22.59 pence per KWh
Midlands	54.34 pence per day	62.82 pence per day	27.24 pence per KWh	22.67 pence per KWh
Southern Western	58.66 pence per day	67.93 pence per day	27.40 pence per KWh	22.91 pence per KWh
South Wales	54.20 pence per day	62.80 pence per day	27.69 pence per KWh	23.21 pence per KWh
Great Britain average	53.34 pence per day	60.33 pence per day	27.61 pence per KWh	23.19 pence per KWh

 

[tsedge]

The lack of continuity in the market is very vexing. You want to use BG, you need to use their proprietary Hive tech. Octopus, then it’s Ohme or Zappi. We can only hope that it becomes better regulated and more open in the future I suppose.

The market for home EVSEs is consolidating and will continue to consolidate until there's a handful of big players. Many smaller independents have already gone to the wall.

Octopus will continue to add other supported cars and chargers, wherever the manufacturer is willing to work with them.

I have 3 lots of batteries, 1 commercial solar PV system with a Growatt inverter and Growatt battey (7 kWh) and I then embarked into making my own powerwall. The batteries inside it 16 x 280AH LifeP04 came from Fogstar. The inverter used is designed for this purpose a Victron Multiplus II GX and a Battery Management system by Seplos. All of these items are top class items - the LiFEP04's are Evie, the Inverter is Victron and the BMS Seplos. The large item costs have come down a lot from when I built my system - Battery Cells £100 each, Inverter £999 and BMS £150 makes the total for a top notch battery system £2750 + incidentals such as wire etc, this makes a 14 kWh usable storage battery with a 5 kW inverter / charger (it will run for a considerable time with a huge overload eg 8kW plus). Putting all together is very straight forward and you save an absolute fortune on commercial systems and a fortune on energy costs. Win - win.

Apologies for the thread drift here (sorry Rolfe its your thread too as moderator, talk about playing with fire )

Batteries EVE LiFePO4 280Ah Prismatic Cell (Grade A)
Inverter Victron Energy MultiPlus II 48V 5000-70-50 GX Pure Sine Power Inverter Battery Charger - Low Energy Supermarket
BMS Seplos 48V 200A LiFePO4 BMS (V3.0)Seplos 48V 200A LiFePO4 BMS (V3) without Active Balancer

This is a great contribution in so many ways:

• Showing what is possible with some ingenuity and hard work.
• Teaching the pros and cons.
• Answering questions with depth and details.
• Awareness of topic drift.

I was initially highly skeptical of John's claims but I have found him to be accurate, well informed and right about many things. You'd do well to listen to him.

 

[johnb80]

I was initially highly skeptical of John's claims but I have found him to be accurate, well informed and right about many things. You'd do well to listen to him.

Tha can allus tell a Yorkshireman but tha cant tellim much

Thank you for your kind words,

I only aim to help people, tell them what my solution has been and how I ended up there.

 

[Alchemist]

Non-compatible charger so GO or BG were the choice. BG fixes the price for a year unlike GO and you get an extra hour per day vs the octopus.

Now that is not to say all is rosey, it was a nightmare to get up and going despite them being existing supplier and having one of their smart meters (unfortunately it was a smets1 that hasn’t been upgraded to 2). They don’t tell you but you but the unadopted smets1 wouldn’t work so took 3 attempts for them to get a functioning smart meter in. Their billing is pretty meh - they only bill 6 monthly by default and the usage etc on their app (the old system acct number stating with 85) doesn’t work. That aside, loving the low rate tariffs (all electric house), water heating, washer, dryer, dishwasher, car all in the low times = serious savings. Obv. lesser savings if you use gas.

I had the same painful experience getting the charger installed. Success on third attempt but only because they subcontracted to a competent installer. A big plus with BG and Hive is that along with the low tariff, we get 12 months free electricity for charging EVs. As we run two EVs, an air source heat pump and recharge solar batteries on low tariff to use later, it’s a good deal for us for now.

 

[johnb80]

I had the same painful experience getting the charger installed. Success on third attempt but only because they subcontracted to a competent installer. A big plus with BG and Hive is that along with the low tariff, we get 12 months free electricity for charging EVs. As we run two EVs, an air source heat pump and recharge solar batteries on low tariff to use later, it’s a good deal for us for now.

You need to read up on the tariff, it doesn’t do what it says on the tin as per usual with this bunch of clowns.

“Year's free charging claim and 8,000 miles fair usage cap are based on gov.uk National Travel Survey (NTS 0901), showing average UK driver annual mileage of 6,600 miles in 2022. 8,000 miles fair usage cap is approximate, based on an actual consumption cap of 2,290kWh and an assumed EV efficiency of 3.5 miles per kWh. Efficiency differs depending on multiple factors, such as vehicle model, driving conditions and vehicle configuration.‘
So you are being given 2290kWh, about £170 of electricity free of charge. What’s the standing rate, peak and off peak rates when your free amount is gone?