MG4, Zappi and Octopus Intelligent Go

[mikgle]

Energy companies aren't exactly known for their benevolence so may end up easier for them to scrap the compatible chargers and just go back to APIs.

I would hope Octopus are different, they do have several benevolent policies eg electric blankets they give out..

 

[Rolfe]

I emailed Octopus about this on 2nd Nov.
"
Hi,


I assumed that car charging scheduled outside the 7p window meant
only charging was at that rate. Someone has suggested to me that, say
Octopus scheduled to charge between 20:30 and 22:00, that the whole
house gets cheap(7p) rate. Which is correct please?"

They replied on 4th Nov.

"Thank you for your question!


To clarify, with your Intelligent Octopus Go tariff, the household energy benefits from the off-peak rate of 7p/kWh during the scheduled smart charging window, which is typically between 11:30pm and 05:30am.


If we schedule smart charging outside of this window, such as between 20:30 and 22:00, the energy used to charge your EV will indeed be charged at the 7p rate. However, any energy consumed in the household during that time will be charged at your standard peak rate.


If you have any further questions or need more assistance, feel free to reach out!


Kind regards,


Travis
Energy Specialist @ Octopus Energy"

I had a similar exchange many months ago. It didn't seem to be true then. My impression of Octopus from that exchange was that many of their staff, including Greg, don't know how their own system works. I had a lot of trouble getting an answer to my question (which wasn't about that) and had three different answers from five different people.

 

[GaryMG4]

A good case of using AI for monitoring..

They do have some kind of filtering in place, 6 months ago if smart charge gave you a bonus hour or two it would be an extra day before the estimated price would show on the app (at full price) then another day or so before it was corrected down include the extra 7p slots. I currently have 3 days 'pending' probably due to them being high consumption charges (brought about by signing up for greener nights and therefore doing less longer charges), the oldest of these has been pending for almost 2 weeks.

 

[Les burrows]

There is no way Octopus can monitor where the electricity is going within the schedule time slots,the can only control the on/off functions of the Evse.

This is how people are able to play the systems and switch on heavy use appliances during the same period of time, i have been guilty of this myself I hold my hands up, by running a tumble dryer while the car is charging but on my bil/print out from Octopus there are not 2 or more different charges within the same time periods all electricity used in that time slot all are 7p no matter what time of day it is or where the power has gone to I can assure you of that.
Les

 

[LenEV2016]

it's people putting larger % amounts than the car needs or can take, on the charger app, so that they get periods out with the core hours and use heavy use appliances on them then they car stops charging far sooner than IOG expects during the core hours

 

[raynard]

That's what Octopus doesn't like.

Octopus are stamping down on thison

Experimenting after making this thread I'll tell you something that isn't debatable for us.
If I put the exact amount of charge I want and plug the car in I get a really bad schedule and a couple of times it's said "from 1am".
If I put 80% on the App it will start from 8:30pm so we get cheap house electric.

 

[aardvark5]

Octopus are stamping down on thison

After a few more days every time we charge Octopus will take our CHARGE To down to 40% or lower where we get a bad schedule, change it to 80% and a nice schedule comes back.
I know you said they are stamping down on it but if they really want to do that why don't they just say 'Your car won't start charging until 11.30 so no cheap house or EV electricity until then'?
Seems a simple fix.

 

[GaryMG4]

Lately I have been requesting 50% by 8am and the schedule has been after midnight to around 6am, but I'll get 2 or 3 random half hour slots during the afternoon/early evening plus it seems to think 50% is around 35kWh.

 

[Tig170]

.... at lot of interesting discussion on this (Q & A at around 38mins)



... they want you to plug in as much as possible so that they can schedule those charge slots effeciently depending on demand / use home assistant to detect when your car is charging to charge home battery etc, so that they can better balance the grid. As I understand it the problem is caused (as I best understand it) as when charging at home they dont know what your SOC, so they have to assume that you want 100% charge every time you plug in (unless you tell them that you only want a partial top up)

 

[Les burrows]

.... at lot of interesting discussion on this (Q & A at around 38mins)



... they want you to plug in as much as possible so that they can schedule those charge slots effeciently depending on demand / use home assistant to detect when your car is charging to charge home battery etc, so that they can better balance the grid. As I understand it the problem is caused (as I best understand it) as when charging at home they dont know what your SOC, so they have to assume that you want 100% charge every time you plug in (unless you tell them that you only want a partial top up)

Yes I watched this yesterday very interesting but around 40 minutes into he mentioned about some diagrams on his website about how to stop OIG draining you home batteries with the Zappi and others by moving CTs around and some wiring changes to stop this happening but I have been unable to find these diagrams on his website so far as anyone else found them is so can you post a link thanks.
Les

 

[mikgle]

Yes I watched this yesterday very interesting but around 40 minutes into he mentioned about some diagrams on his website about how to stop OIG draining you home batteries with the Zappi and others by moving CTs around and some wiring changes to stop this happening but I have been unable to find these diagrams on his website so far as anyone else found them is so can you post a link thanks.
Les

If you have a ct around your battery wire, it therefore has a sensor for current charge and discharge.. there is an option on the zappi settings to avoid battery drain. Unless they've changed it. A query to Myenergi may solve this conundrum. Do you have a battery symbol showing on the myenergi app display? (It won't show on the zappi display).

 

[mikgle]

Ah I forgot, I think you need to wire the battery ct to the zappi also.. if theres an ethernet cable going to it there may be a spare twisted pair you could use..

 

[raynard]

After a few more days every time we charge Octopus will take our CHARGE To down to 40% or lower where we get a bad schedule, change it to 80% and a nice schedule comes back.
I know you said they are stamping down on it but if they really want to do that why don't they just say 'Your car won't start charging until 11.30 so no cheap house or EV electricity until then'?
Seems a simple fix.

Think it's on 7kw home charge the max in off peak is around 40 kW, some people have been regularly scheduling a lot higher ,I don't think they mind the odd occasion but regular is taking the piss

 

[Tig170]

Yes I watched this yesterday very interesting but around 40 minutes into he mentioned about some diagrams on his website about how to stop OIG draining you home batteries with the Zappi and others by moving CTs around and some wiring changes to stop this happening but I have been unable to find these diagrams on his website so far as anyone else found them is so can you post a link thanks.
Les

On mine the EV installer did it (or was it the Smart meter installer? - it was all done at a similar time), it was simply a case of moving the CT clamp from the right (new circuit from main isolator switch) to the left (existing consumer unit) of the Brown Henley block. The bottom wire from the henley block goes to the EV charger consumer unit.

 

[Les burrows]

Thank you mingle no I don’t have a battery showing in the myenergi app I have spoken to myenergi about this issues several months ago when my Powerwall was installed they told me to go back to my installer and ask them to reconfigure the battery and Zappi wiring and thier reply was a cost of £400 to do so which I have refused to pay the way I get around it to stop the battery discharging while the EV is plugged in
Les

 

[mikgle]

Thank you mingle no I don’t have a battery showing in the myenergi app I have spoken to myenergi about this issues several months ago when my Powerwall was installed they told me to go back to my installer and ask them to reconfigure the battery and Zappi wiring and thier reply was a cost of £400 to do so which I have refused to pay the way I get around it to stop the battery discharging while the EV is plugged in
Les

I see, that's a lot of money to run a twisted pair to the zappi, so I can understand doing it manually.

 

[Tig170]

Yes I watched this yesterday very interesting but around 40 minutes into he mentioned about some diagrams on his website about how to stop OIG draining you home batteries with the Zappi and others by moving CTs around and some wiring changes to stop this happening but I have been unable to find these diagrams on his website so far as anyone else found them is so can you post a link thanks.
Les

Cars, solar panels, batteries, CT Clamps and Henley Blocks

On a Sunday evening you get one of these to exercise your brain.The issue here is that if you want to charge an electric car using any energy supplier's smart tariff low rate period often the wiring means the car will first draw energy from the home battery rather than the grid as the battery is...

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