Charging on ohme/octopus

[s jordan]

hi , I have just had installed an ohme home pro with octopus when I set it to charge to 80% via app it says it can only charge to 53%/120 miles ( battery is on 42%109 Miles remaining already) I thought a 7kw charger charged at 25miles per hour charge, so that would give 6pff peak hours /120miles . Guess I’ll see in the morning what actually happened

 

[mg4mc]

With the Ohme/MG/Octopus combination: in Ohme you set the percentage you want to ADD to the battery, not the target you want to reach. You set the cutoff target in the car via the infotainment screen or the app.

 

[Jomarkh]

Is this on IO for 6 hours as Go is only 4 hours?
If IO set the schedule before you plug in and you may get more than 6 hours.

 

[s jordan]

Seeems to have charged to 80%/211 miles so all ok apart from the ohme says it charged the 6 hours total cost 3.26 but smart meter reads it at £9. Will speak to octopus to check

 

[mg4mc]

You haven't said if this is on IO or Go?

I don't think the smart meter display can cope with IO accurately, it just uses fixed bands.

Octopus also say the Ohme value may not be accurate either (again if using IO), you need to see the actual bill. But they are rough guides.

If on IO you can amend the Ohme schedule after you plug in and it may still charge outside the cheap rate hours at the cheap rate if it needs to.

 

[s jordan]

I’m on IO and what you say makes sense thanks , new to this and two platforms and me being thick

 

[mg4mc]

A bit of further info on how it works....

For lots of other cars, on the Ohme you would set a schedule, and say I want the car to be at 80% charge by 9am tomorrow (say).

When you plug in the car, the Ohme would talk to the car and see it currently has 42%, so figure out it needs to add 38% to reach the 80% target.

38% of your 64kWh battery capacity is 24.3kWh. The Ohme then sends to Octopus a message saying "Hey! We need 24.3kWh by 9am tomorrow".

Octopus then does its stuff and sends back a schedule to the Ohme telling it when it can start and stop the charging (it may be more than one period, and if you need a big charge some of it may be outside the 11:30-05:30 hours).

You wake up and the car is charged!

But because the Ohme cannot (yet) talk to MGs, you must do the first bit of the calculation for it.
So, with the MG rather than saying I want reach 80% by 9am, you must tell it I want to add 38% by 9am (actually, I'd round it up to 40% myself). You have already told the Ohme what car you have so it knows the battery capacity and can then follow the process above from that point.

I hope that helps.

[edited to use your 42% starting SoC]

 

[MartinSEsr]

A bit of further info on how it works....

For lots of other cars, on the Ohme you would set a schedule, and say I want the car to be at 80% charge by 9am tomorrow (say).

When you plug in the car, the Ohme would talk to the car and see it currently has 42%, so figure out it needs to add 38% to reach the 80% target.

38% of your 64kWh battery capacity is 24.3kWh. The Ohme then sends to Octopus a message saying "Hey! We need 24.3kWh by 9am tomorrow".

Octopus then does its stuff and sends back a schedule to the Ohme telling it when it can start and stop the charging (it may be more than one period, and if you need a big charge some of it may be outside the 11:30-05:30 hours).

You wake up and the car is charged!

But because the Ohme cannot (yet) talk to MGs, you must do the first bit of the calculation for it.
So, with the MG rather than saying I want reach 80% by 9am, you must tell it I want to add 38% by 9am (actually, I'd round it up to 40% myself). You have already told the Ohme what car you have so it knows the battery capacity and can then follow the process above from that point.

I hope that helps.

[edited to use your 42% starting SoC]

That’s great detail and how I use my ohm and IO.

If it’s at 60% and I want it at 100 (it’s a short range SE so ok) I tell it to add 45%, better over than under.

Do you know what would happen if I asked it to add say 80% in those circumstances? I suspect it would just add 40% to get it 100%, do a bit of balancing, then cut out?

I.e. if you want to charge to 100% is it any problem to tell it to add far more percentage that it actually needs to?

 

[mg4mc]

No, other than Octopus will schedule a lot more time than is required. I guess if thousands (tens even) of people did that then some who really needed it may miss out?

The car will stop (LR models anyway) at the target you set on the car.

 

[fatboyfat1981]

A bit of further info on how it works....

For lots of other cars, on the Ohme you would set a schedule, and say I want the car to be at 80% charge by 9am tomorrow (say).

When you plug in the car, the Ohme would talk to the car and see it currently has 42%, so figure out it needs to add 38% to reach the 80% target.

38% of your 64kWh battery capacity is 24.3kWh. The Ohme then sends to Octopus a message saying "Hey! We need 24.3kWh by 9am tomorrow".

Octopus then does its stuff and sends back a schedule to the Ohme telling it when it can start and stop the charging (it may be more than one period, and if you need a big charge some of it may be outside the 11:30-05:30 hours).

You wake up and the car is charged!

But because the Ohme cannot (yet) talk to MGs, you must do the first bit of the calculation for it.
So, with the MG rather than saying I want reach 80% by 9am, you must tell it I want to add 38% by 9am (actually, I'd round it up to 40% myself). You have already told the Ohme what car you have so it knows the battery capacity and can then follow the process above from that point.

I hope that helps.

[edited to use your 42% starting SoC]

What he said- what I do with my Ohme Pro & Ovo Charge Anytime (with a schedule turned on)

 

[DangerousDoug]

We've had Ohme, Octopus and MG now for 3 1/2 years. We started off doing lots of maths as per above posts. However we very soon ended up with the simple "charge as full as you can during cheap rate". With Octopus Intellegent, we have 6hrs of cheap rate overnight, which is enough to put more than half a tank in the MG (we now have an MG4) - around 140 miles. To do this, in the Ohme charger app, go to "change target" then set "don't charge above XX.XXX p/kWh" - then set your charge schedule to "100% by 9am". This will then energise the charger during the full cheap rate period. The car will then charge as much as it can during that period, which is almost always full up (as we very rarely run the car down past 50% in one day). Then you simply stop thinking about it, plug the car in as soon as you get home and get on with your life!

 

[mg4mc]

Thats one way, and works if you just need top-ups - do you set the charge limit on the car?
It's not making use of the "Intelligent" bit though. So, you will start charging at full whack at 11:30, whereas Octopus often delay the start to earlier in the morning or reduce the charge rate until there is an excess available on the grid.

Doing it the way I do, I also get more than 6 hours at cheap rate if I need it, and it's not too hard to figure out I need xx%

 

[DangerousDoug]

To answer your question, I've started setting the charge time limit on the car, just in case the Ohme charger crashes and defaults to "always on" mode - it's done that a couple of times in the very hot weather we had in june (ours is mounted on a south-facing wall, in full sun, so it does get very hot). Our tarriff (intellegent) still fixes overnight cheap rate at a specific time period (11:30 - 5:30) so I've so far not seen any advantage (to me anyway) in the "intellegent" portion - I understand this is for the benefit of the grid, rather than me

 

[mg4mc]

Our tarriff (intellegent) still fixes overnight cheap rate at a specific time period (11:30 - 5:30) so I've so far not seen any advantage (to me anyway) in the "intellegent" portion - I understand this is for the benefit of the grid, rather than me

The guaranteed cheap rate on IO is between 11:30 and 05:30, but part of the intelligent bit is that Octopus will give you the cheap rate outside those hours if it is required to complete a charge. I've seen the charging start at 22:30 and had extra cheap rate slots around 08:00 and 09:30-10:30. I believe the cutoff to complete is 11:00. And of course, all your electricity in those extra slots is also charged at the cheap rate

 

[DangerousDoug]

The guaranteed cheap rate on IO is between 11:30 and 05:30, but part of the intelligent bit is that Octopus will give you the cheap rate outside those hours if it is required to complete a charge. I've seen the charging start at 22:30 and had extra cheap rate slots around 08:00 and 09:30-10:30. I believe the cutoff to complete is 11:00. And of course, all your electricity in those extra slots is also charged at the cheap rate

Interesting!! - did not know that!

 

[Jomarkh]

If you have don't charge above xxx set then you won't get extra slots.
This really should be off when on IO as should the screen shot below

 

[hardworker]

hi , I have just had installed an ohme home pro with octopus when I set it to charge to 80% via app it says it can only charge to 53%/120 miles ( battery is on 42%109 Miles remaining already) I thought a 7kw charger charged at 25miles per hour charge, so that would give 6pff peak hours /120miles . Guess I’ll see in the morning what actually happened

Have you checked your tariff rates as normal rates any time is 30.3 kw and meter day rate of 47.95 on ecomany 7 it is meter day rate is 48.05 with 38.27 kw day rate 15.92 kw night rate so to me if you are only charging at night and not doing washing ,drying ,cooking ect you are losing out
I am with British gas and they figures work out that I would lose £2 a year if I was on ev car rate

 

[mg4mc]

If you have don't charge above xxx set then you won't get extra slots.
This really should be off when on IO as should the screen shot below View attachment 19043

I don't think the charge preferences matter on IO when using IO controlled charging. Pretty sure it overrides whatever you set anyway.

 

[PhilT]

Seeems to have charged to 80%/211 miles so all ok apart from the ohme says it charged the 6 hours total cost 3.26 but smart meter reads it at £9. Will speak to octopus to check

I spoke to Octopus about the very thing. The smart meter is wrong they say it’s old technology that won’t give you the accurate reading which is the cheaper reading I.e £3.26

 

[s jordan]

I spoke to Octopus about the very thing. The smart meter is wrong they say it’s old technology that won’t give you the accurate reading which is the cheaper reading I.e £3.26

Yes , funny enough I did the same and got the same answer from them