[Scrooge]

I've got to make the switch from Go Faster to Intelligent [Ohme Charger] on the 15th Jan which is a Sunday. Unsure if best to do an online switch on the Friday before or the Monday after?

 

[Scrooge]

Oh - how does that work? AFAIK the simple comms between car charger and AC chargepoint doesn't allow the car to send that kind of information. Obviously when Octopus is speaking to the car directly, it can get that, but when controlled through the Ohme integration, for example, it surely has to do without?

Ah... it seems that Ohme can integrate with some car manufacturers to find the SOC from the car. So I guess it's Ohme doing that bit, rather than Octopus.
Charging with API Support

As far as my Ohme is concerned I have a dumb MG ZS. If I tell the truth and connect the Ohme to Nissan Carwings I want to throw it in the bin, lol.

 

[Scrooge]

Not through the existing primitive protocol between car and (AC) chargepoint.


I agree - while it would be nice to have, it turns out that the Ohme can get charge level from only some cars, so IO must be able to work without it. I'd be perfectly happy with being able to tell Octopus I want to charge for a total of 4 hours between now and noon on Saturday, for example. Though it's not much extra work for them if I ask for 40% to be added, once they know that my car is X kWh and my chargepoint is Y kW (taking charging losses into account). Except when I'm doing a 100% charge for balancing, which can be very slow. But that can just be done using the 6-hour timed slot.

Must do as there are people on the forum with Ohme/original MG ZS. So on the back of that my Leaf is actually an MG ZS on the Ohme, lol. Carwings integration does my head in hence running it dumb.

 

[Scrooge]

Ohme are able to speak to some cars via the manufactuer's back end. For others, it still works with IO, but you don't get the charge level feedback.

Building on what you are saying... Do you only get extra off-peak charge slots if Octopus can see your SOC? Cheers

 

[Scrooge]

I've re-enabled the Ohme to see the cars SOC which works fine but when plugging the car after 5PM in it always starts charging immediately so... turned the car's charge timer back on until 10mins before it is supposed to start charging at 11:30. Seems to work well with no usage before 11:30. Not seen any 10p random slots yet. Perhaps using the granny is a good shout but I would have to make up a 32A commando > 13A Socket.

 

[Scrooge]

Looking at a recent bill for Octopus Intelligent I can see the random 10p slots. The car was not plugged in. I guess if it was the car/Ohme would trigger and any other household load is just a welcome bonus.

 

[Scrooge]

An interesting experiment might be to see if those correlate with cheap agile slots.

It certainly makes it easier to understand if Octopus simply make cheap slots available unconditionally on whether the car is plugged in and charging (on the assumption that if the car is plugged in, the Ohme will take advantage of such cheap slots automatically).

Can't see any link with Agile unfortunately.

 

[Scrooge]

That's my understanding as well. It doesn't matter if Ohme read the SoC or not because if not the user is responsible for asking a specific amount of kWh by setting the '+XX% added range' in the charge schedule.



If you're preventing the car from charging when Octopus (via Ohme) tells it to, you're missing out on any cheap slots outside of the default off-peak hours...



...which would explain this...



...but not this 🤔 it looks like a bug in the system, but of course one that works in your favour. I've never had such luck



That's the first time I hear of that happening to anyone, and I'm pretty sure Octopus would swiftly act to change that behaviour if it was widespread!

Yep, my ramblings are all over the place as I try to figure out this tariff, lol.

 

[Scrooge]

On another recent thread about IO, it has been mentioned that it is normal behaviour to start charging immediately, but that only lasts a few minutes before it stops and waits for a cheap slot.

I'll give it a go but at 40p kWh

 

[Scrooge]

Apperently the Ohme is correctly setup but charges immediately when plugged in which is not what I want being 40p peak!

So... the car's charge timer will have to remain enabled to stop this behaviour and I've renamed the tariff to Octopus Dumb-ass Intelligent.

I can't be bothered spending anymore time on this, lol.

===========================

Thank you for your email. Your vehicle is registered on the account which would imply the test charge was completed. Alongside this the charger will automatically charge the vehicle once plugged in but intelligent octopus should stop the charge within 30 minutes so that it can be set to the right times for the tariff.

============================

On the Intelligent Octopus tariff, as long as you charge the car on a 'Charge Schedule' (set in the Ohme app) with a 'departure time' for the next morning, all charging will be considered 'Smart Charging' and will be billed at off-peak rates.

This is the case whether the charge took place inside the 23h30-5h30 window or outside of it.

Before plug-in, make sure your charger is online. You can check this in the Ohme app under My Charger, check status.

After plug-in, check that the Ohme app dashboard background stays blue and says 'Smart Charging' at the top, together with the name of your Charge Schedule. This will be the reassurance that all used timeslots for the current session will be billed at the off peak rates.

 

[Scrooge]

There's another thread talking about IO. As far as I can tell, when IO is using the car API directly, it has to allow the car to start charging so that it can get notified that the car is plugged in. They stop the charge as soon as they have noticed.

For the Ohme charger, it ought to be possible in principle to discover from the chargepoint that the car is plugged in without actually starting to charge - the chargepoint can know from simple signalling between car and chargepoint. Whether it's actually implemented that way is another matter, of course.

Variable pricing worked with Agile without issue.

 

[Scrooge]

But the point is that it WON'T be 40p peak! As long as you aren't explicitly requesting to charge immediately, you'll always be billed at the cheap rate for any half-hour slot where the car is charging.

I’m just to chicken… 🤣

 

[Scrooge]

But the point is that it WON'T be 40p peak! As long as you aren't explicitly requesting to charge immediately, you'll always be billed at the cheap rate for any half-hour slot where the car is charging.

Following your advice decided to pull up my big boy pants and it works! 👍

 

[Scrooge]

Hmm... does mean that simply plugging in your car at the same time as you turn on your oven for your evening meal, you get all that energy at cheap rate ?

No, just talking about the ohme plug-in sequence, cheers

 

[Scrooge]

Yes, I got that. I thought you meant that when you first plugged in the car, it started charging, and that was cheap rate because it was part of the IO sequence.

Yeah sorry, I've put a note on the phone of when I plug in so there is a record to check against the next bill. Now I have the confidence to plug in I need to setup some smart gear to trigger other devices when random cheap slots come along...

 

[Scrooge]

Are you planning to automate that with a CT clamp around the Ohme feed-in cable?

That would seem to be the easiest way. Or the driveway cam could pick up on the dashboard charging lights flashing and trigger x 🤣

 

[Scrooge]

IO is a complete mystery to me so just use the timer in the car, lol. I mean what the heck is the stupid graph in the Ohme App for and why so many pointless settings that may conflict with each other?

 

[Scrooge]

But the point is that it WON'T be 40p peak! As long as you aren't explicitly requesting to charge immediately, you'll always be billed at the cheap rate for any half-hour slot where the car is charging.

In that scenario, Ohme said I'd be charged off peak whereas Octopus said the opposite, lol.

 

[Scrooge]

Probably another occurrence of being unlucky with the customer care lottery?

Point 5b of the terms & conditions clearly states:

If we schedule your electric vehicle to charge outside of the off-peak hours 23:30 to 05:30, we'll give you the night rate for your EV charging and any underlying household usage in any charging half hours.

So the key point is to make sure that it's them scheduling the charge - i.e. no price cap, no explicit request to switch to max charging, and no preconditioning (as that effectively means max charging) outside of the cheap hours.

I keep double-checking my bills and it's still all off-peak when the car charges 🤷‍♂️

Will certainly be interesting to see the first proper bill. Cheers!