I use a sprinter diesel van that averages 28mpg. I'm planning on getting a well depreciated 1 owner EV and not having to spend £2k+ a year on fuel, probably LFP technology. Can't wait to change my electric energy tariff! Great video - thank you! 👍🙂
Just bought a Tesla model Y and switched from British Gas to Octopus. Paid £899 for an Ohme e-pod charger which they are due to install in 2 weeks - I'll then switch in the app to the intelligent tariff and be filling up for around £4!! I can't wait!
I’d never considered Octopus until my employer announced the end of company cars, but moved to a car allowance and the option of Octopus Salary Sacrifice. No obligation to go on the IG tariff but I have done and run my dishwasher and washing machine overnight to save pennies. I do a lot of miles but mainly within the Midlands so charging overnight at home is more than sufficient. I’ve gone from putting £250-£300 petrol a month into an Octavia to spending around £20 a month on electric, cost to my employer is around £80 per month for mileage, so we’re all saving
We have a caravan in Devon, 100 miles away. Our last trip, 275 miles including local journeys, cost £5. Model Y Long Range covering 4 miles per kWh at £0.07 on Intelligent Octopus Go. They don't seem to mention these sorts of results in the Telegraph.
@@howieb2001 the amount of frankly bullshit out there from most wings is staggering. This is from someone who still considers himself a ‘petrolhead’ at heart despite having an ev as a daily. IMO they certainly make vastly more sense with a home charging set up just because of the ridiculous price differential between home and public charging. So many people who drive ice cars have no grasp of this. Some might say the longer the better!
@@S2KGAYthe amount of disposable income wasted by drivers, companies and home owners on expensive, inefficient fossil fuels (only 30% is energy, 70% is waste) is staggering. Imagine if all that money could be spent in the local communities instead of making multinationals stinking rich. 😢
we've also had Octopus Go Intelligent for some time, and 2 EVs. it works brilliantly for us when combined with the solar and 13.2kw battery. We charge the battery overnight using the 7p rate, normally only about 10 kw to fill it so that's 70p. then in the day we export all the solar at 15p per kw so even running 2 EVs our electric bills in the summer are negative. So far this year we have around £350 charges in electricity and £426 back for exports. And around 8,000 miles done between the cars on home charging included in those numbers! It is of course all a bit man maths as I've not taken into account the cost of solar and battery installation !
I’ve used 6720kwh this year so far 2 EV’s, heat pump and home battery (no gas) cost circa £500. I’ve exported everything my solar has generated (4509kwh) for 15p per kwh £676 so I’ve made nearly £200 this year so far. I only pay £1 per month as Octopus won’t let me pay zero I hope to break even over the year which for about 22k miles of driving, all my hot water, heating and house use I think that’s incredible.
We've also been on Intelligent Octopus Go for a full year. In that time I drove an EV for 16,000 miles, and paid around £350 in electric for the privilege. For contrast, we used to spend £350 PER MONTH in petrol to do the same journeys.
That's great but I have a genuine concern surrounding EVs/EV tariffs. I know for sure the bait and switch protocol is in play. The masses will and are praising the cheap energy but this will soon turn into a dystopian nightmare when the government and big tech have full control over your transportation and energy data. Don't get too excited.
I’m on the basic GO tariff , 00:30 - 05:30 is 8.5p and peak is 24.8p . So far so good , I have Solar and 7kwh of storage so it’s working out quite well for me .
@@MrEV youre welcome. If youre running low on ideas, could I suggest covering plug and charge for the supported cars. I'm not sure if yours is supported so it may be impossible for you to do. The main question is once you register your car with Tesla, will the charger auto detect on plug in if you currently have a Tesla membership for discount or not. I hear you just drive in plug in, un plug and drive off, then you get a ping with your receipt. No card or app needed
In terms of comparison with Agile, I've found the best way to tell if it's worthwhile staying on Intelligent Go is to look at the average kWh price for all consumption on the bill. For us, the average last month was 10.9p/kWh, 10.3p/kWh the month before that. So very much working for us!
Do you have a home battery or solar? I considered Agile but I managed an average of 7.27p in September on 939kWh which I think will be pretty hard to beat on Agile.
@@nervousfrog101You're not wrong. My October average was 11p on Agile so similar to the other person. I choose Agile though because although we have an EV, it doesn't do regular trips and so I'm not regularly charging to use IOG slots. I do have a storage battery and during the peak of the energy pricing, was running off that all day. However, the current integration of the battery is smart enough to charge on cheapest slots and discharge at the worst, I'm not fully cycling the battery each day, which feels better for longevity.
Really great video, Andrew! You've given me the push I needed to finally finish a video on OG and IOG that I'd started ages ago but let slip as other things took over. I'll refer to your video at the end of mine if that's ok as an example of just how good IOG is in practice 👍
I been on Octopus Go for 3y changed to Intelligent and saved around 30£/ month.. 2 Evs now and 2.5months done 3.2k with the new one - showing 500£ saving compared to Petrol car. Just amazing how you can use this Intelligent in your favour.
Hello and thank you for your calm and honest video. I live in British Columbia about 4 hours north of Vancouver. ... heating your next place. Find someone creative to help you install the Heat Pump yourself. Put it in a place away from the wind. Don't over size the unit and it will probably pay for itself in a year or two. 15:58
i've had my Ohme Home Pro now for nearly a year, of which I m very pleased with it. Since getting a Megane E tech, it knows and can set the charge percentage. Something that it couldn't do with my Ford Kuga Phev. Like you, the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble are all on night shift.
We are on old fashioned Octopus Go, we have 2 EVs and it works fine for us. I did 12k miles last year, my wife did 3k in hers. In 2 years I've saved over £2000 on fuel and the better half is happy as she never needs to go to the petrol station. Would love to be on Intelligent Go but neither our cars or charger is compatible. The pay back on a new charger would be several years so just going to wait until this one breaks.
I've been with Octopus energy since February with their intelligent Go tariff, I work nights so my Renault Zoe GT line gets plugged in at around 6.30am week day mornings. Typically Octopus will charge the car between 6.30 & 7.30am pause for an hour and then start again finally finishing at 11am or occasionally even midday. This means I get a 7p/kWh rate from 11.30pm until 5.30am followed by another 3 1/2 hours each morning. Add in my solar and storage battery to the equation and the result is truly staggering, my energy costs have halved compared to what I was previously paying British gas.
My average rate is 11.9p on Intelligent Go. So much cheaper than Agile. I generally save about £160 a month on normal rate, probably £300 on petrol prices!!
Great video. I'm on IOG too and it's working very well for me. I've got am MG4 and a Zappi, the car isn't compatible but that's no problem because I set my account for charger integration. I'm saving a lot of money because I also charge my home battery . Now all our electricity is at 7p/Kwh including the heat pump
Andrew they have added a lot more chargers from the 1st of October. I have a Hypervolt version 3 pro and this works with this. So with my solar and battery I'm always running of the 7p rate.
Due to lost records by electricity north west my house hasn’t yet been permitted a proper charger. This means that I’ve been using the granny for our extended range Mach e. The down side of this is it take days to charge. The up side is that while the car is charging I’m getting way more cheap house electricity than I otherwise would. I’ve occasionally even gone so far as to not plug in or tell the car to not charge overnight so I can get cheap rate at the weekend day time while all the washing and drying is being done. I do feel a bit dirty gaming the system like this though (sometimes) I just worked it out and my average price per kWh for the whole of last month was 14.7p
I’ve been on Octopus go and now on their intelligent go tariff since its inception we also have solar panels two Powerwalls and since last year Octopus heat pump. We only ever buy electrons at the cheap rate of 7p per kw and our bill for heating, hot water and the EV is now just £30 per month over the year and we get a fit payment so really our outgoings are nearer to £15 per month We made a very large investment to get where we are today but as interest on our saving was minimal we felt it better to put the cash into our home. Doing that has increased its value made in a better buy if we wanted to sell and reduced our energy cost to a pittance compared to when we first bought the house. For us it’s a win win. 🥇
I was with Intelligent Octopus Go but now transferred over to E.on Next Drive. 6.7p for 7 hours and 24p the rest of the time (West Mids price, might be different elsewhere). I did it because the payments for solar are better at 16.5p and it's fixed where as Octopus is variable. Negatives are the reporting is not as good and the bills are not as detailed
We're also on Eon Next Drive V4. This gives 7 hours at 6.7p for the whole house. The standard rate is 24.4p, with a 68p daily standing charge. We can put about 180 miles of range in the car in a 7 hour session, and we put the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer on at night. Eon Next also give us 16.5 Pence per kWhr on SEG, so it's much better for us to use the night rate, rather than consume our solar. The bonus for Eon is they fix all their tariffs in 12 month increments.
I didn’t appreciate that the night rate would be used throughout the day when the grid is cheap, not just during the night! that really IS excellent! Thanks for the video. Off to switch my tariff 😅 (already on octopus sorry 😅)
We are also on Intelligent Go. Like you, our entire house is electrified - we have solar PV, a Tesla Powerwall, a heat pump for heating, and 2 EVs - a 30 kWh Nissan Leaf and a 61 kWh MG5. Our savings in terms of running costs have been in the thousands of pounds each year compared with running two ICE cars, and heating our house and cooking with an oil fired Rayburn. Our annual electricity bill is around £1000, but since this covers all our household energy consumption, including hot water and heating, as well as 20,000 miles of driving it’s fantastic value for money.
I charge using a 16 amp dedicated lead from a blue socket just like yours. We don't need 200 miles a day or even 100 for that matter so this setup is more than sufficient for our needs. I'm not shelling out a grand for a 7kW charger just to save 4p/kWh over 7 hours at night.
We have just bought a second-hand e-Niro and are now on Octopus Go. We also have a second e-Niro battery (with a high-voltage hybrid inverter) powering the house as well as solar panels contributing. We have a heat pump providing the majority of our heating. Previously, we were on Agile, scheduling charging when it was cheapest (very little charging during the peak of summer due to no heat pump and solar). For the 9 months we've been using this setup, our end bill is £490 (inc export). The year prior, we were paying £290 per month. Unfortunately, we cannot get onto iGo right now because the e-Niro has been removed after the integration was blamed for flattening peoples 12v battery. We are getting a smart charger soon.
Great video and thank you for sharing this. We have been on the same tariff as yourself since March this year. We have an Ioniq 5 standard range and Ohme charge point. Like yourselves, we have saved a lot of money. It really is a no brainer and charging at home is the key. There needs to be more investment on low cost destination chargers for those who don't have ready access to home charging. Some of the tariffs charged on public chargers whether high or low speed is a scandal.
our ageing leaf usually needs an average of about 50% top up each night at home on octopus go tariff so we get the 8.5p for 5 hours each night which generally covers it - that's about 10kwh so under £1 a day to run our leaf normally and we do between about 30 and 50 miles each day generally; call it 200 miles a week for a fiver - beat that gas guzzlers!
Andrew. Good vid on principles of IOG but….I assume 🐙 can see when charge finishes🤔 and “Gaming the System” at 100% when significantly less required is really not on (given 🐙 more socially minded approach than other supplier’s if no other reason🤔) Too many “gaming the system” will kill it ☹️
We have also been on IOG for a while. Its hard to say what we have saved as we have changed our usage pattern and have gone from 1 phev + 1 petrol car to 2 EVs and still haven't increased our standing order to octopus for 3+ years and are in credit going into the winter. We too 'milk the octopus' some days and run eveything when the car is charging! Keep up the good work!
Nice informative video.... "I feel you", as the cool kids would say. I worked in IT for 20 years, just been able to get out and do something I enjoy. No more API's for me 🙂
Having had my EV, Tesla Powerwall Battery, solar PV and ASHP, I have very much saved huge amounts from being on Intelligent Octopus Go. I only plug my car in when it is needed to charge and tell it what to charge. It then plans a charge out to be ready at the stated time. I don't usually need my car first thing and I have found it will schedule past the usual hours and that is then extra times that my home use is cheap. My bill is now around £90 per month for all of my heating, cooking and around 10,000 miles per year in my EV. We use around 25-30kWh most days as I have lots of tech! This excludes ASHP or EV!
It'd be especially handy with a home battery or a V2H equipped vehicle, although that may run foul of that fair use provision. Here in south eastern Australia a few retailers have plans which are 0c/kWh for a couple of hours in the middle of the day.
Love IOG. Only two issues I have is those random day time cheap hours as it will drain the battery (unless I notice it and swap it to charge). I’ll be glad when Octopus can manage the whole system. The other, is hoping they introduce the ability to add a second device (car).
I'm on Octopus Agile. One charge will usually last me a couple of weeks so I'm usually able to charge for 1 or 2p/kWh, or even negative rates. I think I was paid 37p to charge my car up last time I did a big charge. When I see a cheap or negative rate coming along I will generally discharge my house batteries (15p/kWk export rate) and charge them whilst the price has dropped. I also take the opportunity to heat a tank of water. I can have a massive over night consumption but usually it costs less than 10 p in total, and is often negative. This wouldn't work if you do a lot of miles as the gap between the price drops would likely be too large meaning you have to charge at around 17p/kW (the usual'ish' overnight rate, although tonight there is plenty of 10-12p slots). Sounds complicated but my gas (heating is on) and electric, including charging the car was combined was £36.74 for the past month.
The house can have cheap electricity all day round if you install home battery. Diy seplos battery 15KWh kit was just £1500 its then saving on all electric bills.
OIG is really good but sometimes it causes us issues with storing cheap electricity in our battery. Our system finds it tough to handle pulling 12kW ( 7 for the car and 4.5 for the battery ) at the same time. The addition of Eddi to heat water is going to add an extra 3 kW pushing the demand to over 14kW if all are drawing down at the same time.
we have IOG and charge our EVS and 19.5 kwh batteries overnight. have it linked to the Tesla to prevent day time charging, this summer despite being home 24/7 as a disabled and retired household due to solar and exporting we were actually making around £60 profit a month on the electric bill (still on gas sadly heat pump going in this Nov)
You really need a home battery last February I used 1243.7kWh my bill for that period was £135.53. In theory if you are a full on geek you could use the Home Assistant integrations for you car and Intelligent Octopus integration to check which car is plugged and what the SOC is and automatically adjust the required charge.
Personally I don't feel it is "gaming" because firstly Octopus have no way of knowing that you genuinely don't need to charge to 100% and secondly you can only take advantage by using the scheduled excess renewable energy which THEY make available to you by schedule. If it's not available you won't be able to do it, sometimes it may not work in your favour. Octopus also have no way of knowing how exactly you're using the electric once it enters your house (I'm thinking, might be wrong). If they don't like how you're using it they need to have further control on the excess distribution (which they don't appear to have). I think a lot of people didn't grasp the crucial part of this video judging by the comments and assumed it was just about cheap charging. VERY interesting golden nugget there, thanks 👍🤔 P.S. I think the chances of octopus implementing fair use policy on a single customer are extremely low to zero. They just want volume (customers) and out of those this particular scenario applies to a very small percentage who can take advantage. In reality how many people you will make an effort to do this? Very few, most people simply don't have the foresight or time. (but I'll give it a go 👍)
@@VikPaints the equipment measures and reports back how much has been delivered. If that happens waay quicker than expected then they could potentially build a picture up if you are doing it regularly. ie If you say you need a 100% charge of a 64kWh (8hrs charging) pack and upon plugging in a half full LEAF the charge reports back complete after 3hrs; I think they’d figure out you were telling porkies about needing 100%
Currently you are correct, Octopus are very unlikely to implement any kind of fair use. But if videos like this go viral then they will. I know from being on the IOG beta for Zappi, they can monitor whats been delivered. We've also seen it recently with the half price charges which applied to what the charger used. So if you're constantly asking for 100% and only ever taking a small percentage, always during the day, this will get logged/flagged. They do, in the T&C's say that they can move you off the tariff. I've not heard of it happening to anyone yet though. At the moment there's not enough abuse to warrant doing it, and often, they'll actually get paid for your charging as part of grid balancing. So dont think they aren't aware of it, its just for now, they are trying out new things and letting it slide. FWIW, it totally is gaming the system to ask for more than you need. Otherwise why would they have an option? They are trying to optimise grid usage and keep costs low for everyone but also are generous enough to say 'if you need 100% right now, lets see what we can do'. If everyone did it, do you really think they could sustain it? I'm all for using extra slots when they come up but you shouldnt be asking for 100% charge every time thinking its not an issue.
if it's connected to the charger only then I think the value you set in the Octopus app is how much additional charge you want, rather than a target SOC. Not ideal as you have to set the value every time you plug in. You can leave it at 100% but that won't be optimal for the scheduling algorithm as it'll be requesting a lot of redundancy. I have a Leaf and use Home Assistant to bridge the gap as it has access to both my Octopus account and Leaf. I set a target SOC in Home Assistant (which I rarely change) and Home Assistant works out the difference and sends this to Octopus for scheduling
Big fan of the channel. Just another point that you sort of alluded to right near the beginning, you don’t necessary need a dedicated charger as such providing Octopus can communicate with your vehicle. I run a BMW i3 on a ‘granny’ charger only. Providing you don’t need more than 70 miles (ish) per day then this is adequate. You also get the benefit of extended cheap rate beyond the core hours as Octopus ‘tries’ to get you to your target charge (not always achievable) but at a slower rate, if that makes sense.
I'm on the same Tariff and quite often get a few hours of cheap rate in the day or early evening. Having 2 EVs helps with that as it doesn't know what car you are plugging in each time. In the last 3 billing months i've used over 3000kWh of leccy, averaging about 9.2p/kWh cost. My wife runs a massage therapy business and we rent our spare room on Airbnb so our washing and drying usage is very large -- maxing out the cheap rate is hugely advantageous, especially as we don't yet have solar or batteries.
I've been on IOG since it started. I have a Zappi and a Model 3. At the start it worked well, but then it started failing to charge. I contacted Octopus, but they were unable to fix whatever the problem is. I am still on IOG tariff, but I just set the car to charge between 11:30 and 5:30. I'm not to concerned about this as I have solar and a battery so I am mostly running on the battery during the day and charging the car and the battery at the cheap rate.
Had to change from Octopus to British Gas EV tariff. Charger very old school and not compatible with Octopus (neither is the car but can schedule the car to charge between specific times) and payback to upgrade charger would be over 3 years, so currently not work it for me. Currently paying .079p per Kw/h between 12 & 5. Had a few issues with BG compared to Octopus but needs must
I live in Munich and I'm looking into switching to an electricity supplier that provides intelligent tariffs like Octopus. Also, I'll be changing from an Kia eNiro to a Kia EV3 80kWh battery. Also may be moving away from oil central heating to a heat pump system. So let's see how it will work out.
I've been with Octopus for 2 years and had a smart meter fitted in January. It can't connect to the Arqiva network though as there's big hills in the way between us and nearest 2 Arqiva towers. Driving my Tesla 90D, charged at home, costs about the same in 'fuel' as our diesel Tiguan and about 20% more than my son's Clio. Really hoping we could get a 'Southern' SMETS2 comms module like the Octopus customer in Glasgow on the Panorama programme, as we have excellent 2G,3G and 4G coverage.
It is quite hard to calculate exact numbers but I have travelled 32,000 electric miles for about £585 . I have solar , ripple shares, house batteries also adding to the mix so it will actually be cheaper than the estimate above. The house battery is over sized and I sell excess electricity back to octopus at 15p per unit so I actually don’t pay much for electricity anymore.
@@MrEV I did the cable/pipes request from the utilities and they came back in about 4 days with the plans so I know exactly what’s where and that I’m not looped. I just figured if we’ve got a lot going on I might as well go for it.
If I was moving to a house with electric radiators I think I would be looking to get them replaced as fast as possible! I realise this might not be practical for you, but perhaps some infra-red heating panels would be a better solution. I stayed in a holiday let in Germany that had them, and the heat they gave off was a bizarre sensation but they worked brilliantly. As for intelligent go, while I have an EV I don’t commute as I am unfortunately medically retired and my wife works from home, and I only have a small home battery. For now I’m sticking with Agile, but this was a very helpful and interesting look at a possible alternative.
Even if the octopus app is set to 100%, my charging stops at the limit set in the car which is usually 80%. We have MG4 Extended Range (77 kWh battery), Zappi charger and solar panels/6 kWh house batteries. We do a few long trips each year when i set the car to 100% and it charges to that no problem.
If you want to bump charge without the app you can actually just press the plus button on the zappi and it will boost charge as if you didn't have octopus intelligent go.
I love a full charge in my Mini Cooper at a cost of £2 from 0-100% 🤯 Even during winter. However, in the past 2-3 weeks the myenergi app doesn’t stick to the overnight charge time. So, if you plug in at 21:30, the charge immediately starts. I tried to delay it in the Mini app but it didn’t work.
I’ve been averaging between 8-9p per kWh per month since March 2023, thanks to being on IO and having a GivEnergy battery. We drive 10,000 miles a year, so all in all pretty good obviously I’m a few years from paying off the battery but the ability for that to arbitrage my energy costs across the day is a game changer especially as I can’t have solar (*I can technically have solar, but we have an aged Victorian slate roof that needs sorting prior to any solar, plus we are invested in Ripple so that is offsetting the lack of solar)
On same tariff as you, charging an EV, ASHP (£2.5 Octopus February this year) also solar/battery. Prior to this our annual electric/gas bill was £2-2.5k now just £500 or less. No gas of course too. House is more comfortable 24//7, downside is now very unused to not being warm all the time 😀 EV mileage is trivial cost to unnoticeable. We had family/dog 5k roadtrip in Tesla MY RWD across Europe & around Norwegian scenic routes all superchargers cost less than £300. Home charging not possible but still mega cheap. Easy, fun, brilliant!
I'm on IOG, and probably wont change, but there is now a cheaper alternative, from 5ppm (depending on area = ideal if you can be almost 100% at off-peak) - (is it a fruit/vegetable🤷♂) - the reviews are not great, but at the end of the day once set-up, and billing correctly you'll never need to contact them again anyway.
Just checked them out, interesting tariffs. It does remind me of the days prior to the energy crisis though, lots of new companies entering the market and look where it left us.
I have this and saves a fortune. The problem I have is that outside of the 6 hour window it dumps the power from my power walls into the car so I have to manually set the Tesla app not to go below where it is at that point. You would think Tesla car would talk through the gateway to the battery not to take energy from the battery if the car is charging. I’ve given them feedback on this but they haven’t done anything about it. I’m sure there are 3rd party solutions out there.
I’m on standard GO so only get the 5 hours of off peak at 8.5 pence at the moment, but also have solar and 30KW of GivEnergy battery storage, plus I’m on an export tariff that pays 8pence per KWh exported. Using GO to charge the car and the house batteries during off peak, solar to power the house and charge the batteries when there’s excess, and to top the car if the batteries are fully charged, I’m also balancing the overnight battery charge using home assistant and the predicted solar availability, so that the overnight target SOC for the batteries will be reduced if the following day is going to be a really strong solar day (cheaper to charge the batteries using solar than GO if available so I don’t want to charge them to 100% overnight if the following day has a lot of solar). My car fuel costs for the ZOE while I had it were 340GBP for almost 17,000 miles of driving. I don’t have numbers for the Tesla yet, but it’s tracking on similar lines (to within 6GBP of the cost of the ZOE at 3k miles). I’ve also been tracking how much we’ve used in Solar, and how much we’ve saved by charging the batteries using off peak and solar, then using them to power the house during the day instead of pulling from the grid at peak. In a typical month, we’ll use around 950 - 1050 KWh (high usage I know), but that will break down to around 50KWh of Peak and the rest split between Solar and off-peak (up to 700KW of Solar in the summer months and the other 200 or so KWh at off peak rates). So far, after 2 years of having solar and batteries, we’ve saved £6,000 GBP in electricity costs, which has pretty much paid for the panels and install, and I’d expect to have the costs for the three GivEnergy I.tKW batteries paid off in future savings in may be another 3 years or so. Another thing dropping the bills, is I used to have to put around £300 a month of diesel into a car to get to and from work, but now work from home, so as well as having the EV, my annual mileage has dropped by around 10K a year, but the EV is as cheap as chips to run! (Since we no offset most of our usage to off peak prices, and use less from the grid due to the solar, I’ve also currently got a £950 excess banked with Octopus which will more than cover the higher costs of heating the house over Winter, so need to get some of the paid back into the bank account)
I'm on IOG also and according to my data for 2024 so far I've used 2864 kWh of electricity to charge the car and that has cost me £195. That works out to less than £20 per month in driving costs from home charging alone (rapid charging not included, but it's rare for me). At around 3 to 3.6 mi/kWh for my EV depending on season, if I take 3.2 mi/kWh as conservative estimate that's about 2 pence per mile.
I am thinking of moving to eon as it’s 6.7 p for 7 hours and the normal rate is currently 1p cheaper than intelligent go. Plus export is 16.5p while intelligent go matching export is 15p. I don’t know why I have intelligent go as my car was removed from it a year ago and I don’t have a compatible charger. Btw I charge 3 EVs totaling over 50000 miles a year, heat pump, battery and solar. I think I am quids in but on my second smart meter and it’s stopped reporting months ago. My solar inverter is reporting really encouraging figures.
I've no experience of octopus, but have Eon Next drive V4. It's definitely a cheap tariff, and 7 hours cheap rate is very useful for adding a decent range in the cheap rate period.
We going to need this if one can get it as we are going to offset having to pay a lot in EV road tax they going bring in next year I believe. What with the high price of public charging and high insurance and now soon Road tax, getting pretty expensive to run a EV in uk.
It is a good tariff. Only thing that annoys me is when the app changes the charge times so it kicks in with the charging when you don't expect it as this often leads to energy being taken out of my giv energy battery when I don't want it too. Nothing major but would be good if the app would keep the times it comes up with when first plugging in instead of changing it's mind 😂
Imagine a time when it could all be done automatically, that would be an ideal use of AI. Of course it will either never happen, or be sold at such a premium price that I'd rather do it myself.
@@robertcollins1371 CT clamp feature yes, but it gets too complicated too quickly with a charger, solar and batteries; sometimes you want the batteries charging the car, sometimes you don't.
We are a low use household living in an 1870's kid terrace. I charge using a 16a commando charge cable across the pavement using a cable protector approved by the local authority. At present we have gas and electricity but we are plotting our migration to electricity only so have been working round the house adding internal, underfloor and of course loft insulation. The next decision is heating: we have a pre condensing combi boiler which is reliable and 7 radiafors fed by 8mm copper microbore from a central 22mm copper manifold. My thinking if we want a heat pump we will have to replace the radiator tails with 15mm which will be quite an upheaval. Proboem is, with a heat pump we will then require hot water storage of some kind and a battery would be sensible. Quite an expensive and hugely disruptive project and quite a challenge finding the best tariff if we achieve our goal.
HI, Octopus themselves now do a high temp heat pump that may work with your existing plumbing, google Cosy6, re a water tank, think of that as also being a battery (its storing energy) a water tank is the cheapest form of energy battery. A cheap solar diverter will dump any excess solar into your water tank as stored energy.
I use a 32amp commando socket and I'm on Octopus' Agile tariff because they won't give me Intelligent with a commando socket (currently). I let the car handle the smart features, such as timed charges etc. It's a similar tariff but the rates change per half an hour, lots of plunge pricing when it's windy - as you said Andrew. I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone is in a similar position to me and wants a tariff that is decent, if you play it right. It's sort of a manual version of Intelligent, you track the unit rates yourself using the app. You don't need a smart charger for Agile. I'd rather be on Intelligent, maybe when I get a smart charger!
We are on Octopus agile. Would like to work out one day what is the most cost saving tariff. Not using our EV every day means I can pick and choose when to charge. So usually when it drops below about 3pkwh I’ll charge the car. Done around 1600 miles and it’s cost me £35. Downside is that at peek times the rates are quite high, average is 18p kWh on agile according to my bills.
Hi, I have the ohme charger, which communicates with the car, so octopus knows what the current SOC is. Not sure if you were just referring to the Nissan being old and can't communicate with the car
Hi, large battery on my ioniq 5 ,we are moving in November, hopefully .as I'm retired we don't do loads of miles, I use the granny charger on octopus go this give me charging from 12.30m to 05.30 I woundering if octopus intelligent would me be better as you say it charges in day time. Great video. Regards Kev. I got engaged in Canterbury cathedral in 1975 Now living in Manchester 😂
Another great video. But more extensive than TOMATO ENERGY which is 4.76p/kWh overnight, 22.15p/kWh peak rate, with a 40.81p/day standing charge. The tariff also includes two further non-adjustable off-peak slots during the day at around 13p/kWh. So a big saving over Octopus. Unlike Intelligent Octopus Go, you are not restricted by the type of charger or your car. So a WIN-WIN changing to TOMATO ENERGY.
They sound great. I'd not heard of them before but just after editing this video I watched this good video from youtube.com/@everythinghome ua-cam.com/video/AKyaLo-VUXM/v-deo.html
I've been with Octopus since May-20 and have driven my Tesla model 3 SR+ for 45,000 miles and... wait for it... for only £816, including charging losses! Yes, that works out 1.8p/mile. If I had been driving a similar size ICE car that would have cost around £7,500.
Not as far as I know, but that’s a great point as my LEAF only charges at 3.3kW so I get cheaper electricity for longer with that. (Until its relatively small battery is full anyway!)
@@MrEV you can reduce the charging rate via the Kia infotainment under EV setting, normal, reduced and minimum. The charge point or octopus app may protest with" the car is charging slower than expected. Just ignore that and the car will try to charge for alot longer. 😂😂
You can limit the Zappi charge current. You can set the “Device Limit” Amps to whatever you like (between 6A/1.4kW and 32A/7.4kW I think) it’s in the Zappi front LCD menus). Sounds like unfair gaming though to me.
Yes you can. It may not be fair use so I definitely haven't done it, but a friend has, he had 70% charge and didn't really need to charge but has an electric shower which is expensive to run so he reduced the EV charger (hypervolt) to 6amps to get a slow trickle charge, set the Octopus app to charge it to 80% by 10am and plugged it in at 7:30am ish, the app scheduled to charge 8-9am and 9:30-10am, he then did his usual morning high energy tasks like showed and make tea/coffee in those hours the rascal.
Shame it doesn't work most of the time. Mine consistently fails to charge my car overnight when using the "Intelligent" scheduling in the Octopus app. After going on various forums, this appears to be a common problem for lots of people on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.
@@MrEV I'm using the Zappi too and just charging a Tesla model 3, with no other schedules set in the car or the charger - I've come across a lot of people who've had similar issues unfortunately.
@@gazzrobb2366 I'm just using a fast charge from the Zappi now and bypassing the Octopus app completely, and just starting it at 11:30pm to get the cheap rate.
Due to lost records by electricity north west my house hasn’t yet been permitted a proper charger. This means that I’ve been using the granny for our extended range Mach e. The down side of this is it take days to charge. The up side is that while the car is charging I’m getting way more cheap house electricity than I otherwise would. I’ve occasionally even gone so far as to not plug in or tell the car to not charge overnight so I can get cheap rate at the weekend day time while all the washing and drying is being done. I do feel a bit dirty gaming the system like this though (sometimes)
Your gaming the system and at some point Octopus will work out that its not worth keeping some customers. Octopus always aim to have your car charged by the amount you request by the time you set. 64Kwh = 9 hours. Its going to try and charge for 9 hours and it works out the lowest C02 slots, there is not an abundance of green energy every day. At some point, octopus are going to move gamers to the fixed 5-6 hours per day as intelligent gets subsidised by the fact they can balance the grid. Having a small battery in my vehicle, even when the CO2 is low though the day, it still wont give the extra slots only when it goes negative pricing.
I'll have to look into this again . Where I park is about 150 metres from my house, cable going to cost £1k , that's why I haven't fitted a charger, but althou I have go I'm missing out big time . Wonder if theirs any cheaper place to get cable. Where you moving to? Not Italy?
It's a fantastic smart tariff. My wife's PHEV needs charging during the day regularly. Octopus control the charging and because this would drain my home batteries, being able to import to the home battery at the 7p rate is great. Otherwise we'd have empty batteries for the evening I also don't get billed regularly, Octopus post debits and credits to my account, but it would be good to get a bill every month. Time to chase them again
@@martyndavies1482 sadly yes I do. If I was more IT literate I could set up Home Automation and get the inverter to charge them any time the charger was working. That's the next stage, I think I have a family member who can help
@@bill_heywood By all means try it, but after setting up HA I couldn't control the inverter or car, and the decision making was too complex - I decided I had better things to do with my life than save those few pounds.
@@bill_heywood Ha, I have a Solis too, the app does enough, just ask for the installer account so you can change the battery charging rate/times from your phone.
Does the same cheap overnight rate apply even if you don't have the car plugged in? We have batteries and which we'd normally charge every night - but would probably only actually need to charge the car once or twice a week.
Thanks Andrew. We have a Kia Soul EV with a Zappi charger and some solar PV, so thinking of changing our tariff to IG. Really useful to hear your experiences with Octopus IG. You seem to suggest that the EV has to be plugged in ready for charging, before the whole house can benefit from the cheaper rate. Is this really the case, as I would have thought that the smart meter would have a role to play?
Been on IO for just over a year. 2 EV's. Our average unit cost a month is 14p over the year, bear in mind that our peak rate is 24.67p (Oct 24 rate) was less over summer. So a average saving of 10p over peak rate. Never yet had a daytime charge declined, even last winter. Just under £200 in actual EV charge costs & 10,000 miles covered. Paying the same a month now, as we did pre EV on variable tariff.
When you move to your new place, get some underfloor heating installed. It's far more efficient than electric radiators. But you probably already know that :)
The Hypervolt 3.0 and above is now part of the IOG family of charging points, earler versions will come on board later. One caveat is, as you point out, IOG does not know the SOC of the car. Confusingly the app appears to offer a charge to limit, making you think you can limit the charge to say 80%, as a way of protecting the battery long term. In my case that isn't how it works. You have to say what % you want to add. For example if the SOC is 60% and you wish to charge to 80% you have to put 20% in the Charge Limit box, not the intuitive 80% you would be forgiven for thinking. Not only is that box confusing but you now need to be more active in "programming" the app than you should be. This is not explained to Hypervolt owners. I have been told that IOG can only control either the car or the charge point. If your car is also compatible with IOG you can elect to have the car as the interface with IOG and that would then enable charging to a given % as IOG will be able to see the current SOC %. Hope that helps.
How much have you saved with your tariff?
If you want to join Octopus, use this link to get us both £50: share.octopus.energy/free-sage-191
I use a sprinter diesel van that averages 28mpg. I'm planning on getting a well depreciated 1 owner EV and not having to spend £2k+ a year on fuel, probably LFP technology. Can't wait to change my electric energy tariff! Great video - thank you! 👍🙂
What car are you considering? 😊
Ioniq classic 28. Can't beat it.
Up until 1 month ago, I drove a BMW 545i, which when driven carefully, gave me 21mpg. 😢 I now drive a BYD Seal, and laughing all the way. 😀
Just bought a Tesla model Y and switched from British Gas to Octopus. Paid £899 for an Ohme e-pod charger which they are due to install in 2 weeks - I'll then switch in the app to the intelligent tariff and be filling up for around £4!! I can't wait!
I’d never considered Octopus until my employer announced the end of company cars, but moved to a car allowance and the option of Octopus Salary Sacrifice. No obligation to go on the IG tariff but I have done and run my dishwasher and washing machine overnight to save pennies.
I do a lot of miles but mainly within the Midlands so charging overnight at home is more than sufficient. I’ve gone from putting £250-£300 petrol a month into an Octavia to spending around £20 a month on electric, cost to my employer is around £80 per month for mileage, so we’re all saving
We have a caravan in Devon, 100 miles away. Our last trip, 275 miles including local journeys, cost £5. Model Y Long Range covering 4 miles per kWh at £0.07 on Intelligent Octopus Go. They don't seem to mention these sorts of results in the Telegraph.
@@howieb2001 the amount of frankly bullshit out there from most wings is staggering. This is from someone who still considers himself a ‘petrolhead’ at heart despite having an ev as a daily. IMO they certainly make vastly more sense with a home charging set up just because of the ridiculous price differential between home and public charging. So many people who drive ice cars have no grasp of this. Some might say the longer the better!
@@S2KGAYthe amount of disposable income wasted by drivers, companies and home owners on expensive, inefficient fossil fuels (only 30% is energy, 70% is waste) is staggering.
Imagine if all that money could be spent in the local communities instead of making multinationals stinking rich. 😢
@@WanderingDutchman Yes and nearly 50% of diesel isn't refined in the UK so its all money leaving the country by the billion££££
@@waynecartwright-js8tw that just about everything nit just cars (EV)
Are you saying you visit your caravan or tow your caravan for 100 miles with your model Y
we've also had Octopus Go Intelligent for some time, and 2 EVs. it works brilliantly for us when combined with the solar and 13.2kw battery. We charge the battery overnight using the 7p rate, normally only about 10 kw to fill it so that's 70p. then in the day we export all the solar at 15p per kw so even running 2 EVs our electric bills in the summer are negative. So far this year we have around £350 charges in electricity and £426 back for exports. And around 8,000 miles done between the cars on home charging included in those numbers! It is of course all a bit man maths as I've not taken into account the cost of solar and battery installation !
kWh
Great video 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉I've just received my 1st EV & joined Octopus Go?
I think its Amazing 👏
Congratulations!
I’ve used 6720kwh this year so far 2 EV’s, heat pump and home battery (no gas) cost circa £500. I’ve exported everything my solar has generated (4509kwh) for 15p per kwh £676 so I’ve made nearly £200 this year so far. I only pay £1 per month as Octopus won’t let me pay zero I hope to break even over the year which for about 22k miles of driving, all my hot water, heating and house use I think that’s incredible.
We've also been on Intelligent Octopus Go for a full year. In that time I drove an EV for 16,000 miles, and paid around £350 in electric for the privilege. For contrast, we used to spend £350 PER MONTH in petrol to do the same journeys.
That’s absolutely amazing!
That's great but I have a genuine concern surrounding EVs/EV tariffs. I know for sure the bait and switch protocol is in play. The masses will and are praising the cheap energy but this will soon turn into a dystopian nightmare when the government and big tech have full control over your transportation and energy data. Don't get too excited.
@@change2023now Don't worry, tin foil hats are cheap and easy to make 😂
@@ziggarillo 🐑
@@change2023now That's rich, coming from a bacofoiled turkey 🤣
I’m on the basic GO tariff , 00:30 - 05:30 is 8.5p and peak is 24.8p . So far so good , I have Solar and 7kwh of storage so it’s working out quite well for me .
I suggest you look at EOn next drive. It is a cheaper night rate at 6.7p for 7 hours rather than 5 and a SEG export of 16.5p rather than 8p.
@@paulhetherington969 But I wanted a British supplier . Not German of French .
Im some one that's been watching tour old stuff. I only found you about a month ago. Alot of good stuff, roadtips and info.
Thank you!
@@MrEV youre welcome. If youre running low on ideas, could I suggest covering plug and charge for the supported cars. I'm not sure if yours is supported so it may be impossible for you to do.
The main question is once you register your car with Tesla, will the charger auto detect on plug in if you currently have a Tesla membership for discount or not.
I hear you just drive in plug in, un plug and drive off, then you get a ping with your receipt. No card or app needed
In terms of comparison with Agile, I've found the best way to tell if it's worthwhile staying on Intelligent Go is to look at the average kWh price for all consumption on the bill. For us, the average last month was 10.9p/kWh, 10.3p/kWh the month before that. So very much working for us!
Do you have a home battery or solar? I considered Agile but I managed an average of 7.27p in September on 939kWh which I think will be pretty hard to beat on Agile.
No solar or battery, so not going to be able to match your 7.27p!
@@nervousfrog101You're not wrong. My October average was 11p on Agile so similar to the other person.
I choose Agile though because although we have an EV, it doesn't do regular trips and so I'm not regularly charging to use IOG slots.
I do have a storage battery and during the peak of the energy pricing, was running off that all day. However, the current integration of the battery is smart enough to charge on cheapest slots and discharge at the worst, I'm not fully cycling the battery each day, which feels better for longevity.
Really great video, Andrew! You've given me the push I needed to finally finish a video on OG and IOG that I'd started ages ago but let slip as other things took over. I'll refer to your video at the end of mine if that's ok as an example of just how good IOG is in practice 👍
Thanks so much, Gary!
Looking forward to the Italy roadtrip, seconda parte
It should be the next video.
I been on Octopus Go for 3y changed to Intelligent and saved around 30£/ month.. 2 Evs now and 2.5months done 3.2k with the new one - showing 500£ saving compared to Petrol car. Just amazing how you can use this Intelligent in your favour.
Hello and thank you for your calm and honest video. I live in British Columbia about 4 hours north of Vancouver.
... heating your next place. Find someone creative to help you install the Heat Pump yourself. Put it in a place away from the wind. Don't over size the unit and it will probably pay for itself in a year or two. 15:58
i've had my Ohme Home Pro now for nearly a year, of which I m very pleased with it. Since getting a Megane E tech, it knows and can set the charge percentage. Something that it couldn't do with my Ford Kuga Phev. Like you, the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble are all on night shift.
Veryn informative video. I can't take advantage of that offer here in the States but my 2-year-old loved the octopus.
Thank you! Do you have energy companies in the States similar to Octopus?
@@MrEV none that I know of.
We are on old fashioned Octopus Go, we have 2 EVs and it works fine for us. I did 12k miles last year, my wife did 3k in hers. In 2 years I've saved over £2000 on fuel and the better half is happy as she never needs to go to the petrol station. Would love to be on Intelligent Go but neither our cars or charger is compatible. The pay back on a new charger would be several years so just going to wait until this one breaks.
I've been with Octopus energy since February with their intelligent Go tariff, I work nights so my Renault Zoe GT line gets plugged in at around 6.30am week day mornings. Typically Octopus will charge the car between 6.30 & 7.30am pause for an hour and then start again finally finishing at 11am or occasionally even midday. This means I get a 7p/kWh rate from 11.30pm until 5.30am followed by another 3 1/2 hours each morning. Add in my solar and storage battery to the equation and the result is truly staggering, my energy costs have halved compared to what I was previously paying British gas.
My average rate is 11.9p on Intelligent Go. So much cheaper than Agile. I generally save about £160 a month on normal rate, probably £300 on petrol prices!!
That's amazing! Thank you!
Cheaper than Agile? I'm averaging less than 10p/KWh on Agile
Great video. I'm on IOG too and it's working very well for me. I've got am MG4 and a Zappi, the car isn't compatible but that's no problem because I set my account for charger integration. I'm saving a lot of money because I also charge my home battery . Now all our electricity is at 7p/Kwh including the heat pump
Andrew they have added a lot more chargers from the 1st of October. I have a Hypervolt version 3 pro and this works with this. So with my solar and battery I'm always running of the 7p rate.
He does not name Hypervolt
Due to lost records by electricity north west my house hasn’t yet been permitted a proper charger. This means that I’ve been using the granny for our extended range Mach e.
The down side of this is it take days to charge.
The up side is that while the car is charging I’m getting way more cheap house electricity than I otherwise would.
I’ve occasionally even gone so far as to not plug in or tell the car to not charge overnight so I can get cheap rate at the weekend day time while all the washing and drying is being done.
I do feel a bit dirty gaming the system like this though (sometimes)
I just worked it out and my average price per kWh for the whole of last month was 14.7p
I’ve been on Octopus go and now on their intelligent go tariff since its inception we also have solar panels two Powerwalls and since last year Octopus heat pump. We only ever buy electrons at the cheap rate of 7p per kw and our bill for heating, hot water and the EV is now just £30 per month over the year and we get a fit payment so really our outgoings are nearer to £15 per month We made a very large investment to get where we are today but as interest on our saving was minimal we felt it better to put the cash into our home. Doing that has increased its value made in a better buy if we wanted to sell and reduced our energy cost to a pittance compared to when we first bought the house. For us it’s a win win. 🥇
Interesting. I’ll investigate these options.
I'm averaging 8.67p kWh peak/off-peak. Saving a fortune
I was with Intelligent Octopus Go but now transferred over to E.on Next Drive. 6.7p for 7 hours and 24p the rest of the time (West Mids price, might be different elsewhere). I did it because the payments for solar are better at 16.5p and it's fixed where as Octopus is variable. Negatives are the reporting is not as good and the bills are not as detailed
That’s really interesting. Thank you!
We're also on Eon Next Drive V4. This gives 7 hours at 6.7p for the whole house. The standard rate is 24.4p, with a 68p daily standing charge. We can put about 180 miles of range in the car in a 7 hour session, and we put the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer on at night.
Eon Next also give us 16.5 Pence per kWhr on SEG, so it's much better for us to use the night rate, rather than consume our solar.
The bonus for Eon is they fix all their tariffs in 12 month increments.
I didn’t appreciate that the night rate would be used throughout the day when the grid is cheap, not just during the night! that really IS excellent! Thanks for the video. Off to switch my tariff 😅 (already on octopus sorry 😅)
We are also on Intelligent Go. Like you, our entire house is electrified - we have solar PV, a Tesla Powerwall, a heat pump for heating, and 2 EVs - a 30 kWh Nissan Leaf and a 61 kWh MG5. Our savings in terms of running costs have been in the thousands of pounds each year compared with running two ICE cars, and heating our house and cooking with an oil fired Rayburn. Our annual electricity bill is around £1000, but since this covers all our household energy consumption, including hot water and heating, as well as 20,000 miles of driving it’s fantastic value for money.
Interesting. I’ll investigate these options.
I charge using a 16 amp dedicated lead from a blue socket just like yours. We don't need 200 miles a day or even 100 for that matter so this setup is more than sufficient for our needs.
I'm not shelling out a grand for a 7kW charger just to save 4p/kWh over 7 hours at night.
Now we've moved house, we may do the same actually. Far cheaper to get a Commando socket installed than a 'proper' charger.
We have just bought a second-hand e-Niro and are now on Octopus Go. We also have a second e-Niro battery (with a high-voltage hybrid inverter) powering the house as well as solar panels contributing.
We have a heat pump providing the majority of our heating. Previously, we were on Agile, scheduling charging when it was cheapest (very little charging during the peak of summer due to no heat pump and solar).
For the 9 months we've been using this setup, our end bill is £490 (inc export). The year prior, we were paying £290 per month.
Unfortunately, we cannot get onto iGo right now because the e-Niro has been removed after the integration was blamed for flattening peoples 12v battery. We are getting a smart charger soon.
Great video and thank you for sharing this. We have been on the same tariff as yourself since March this year. We have an Ioniq 5 standard range and Ohme charge point. Like yourselves, we have saved a lot of money. It really is a no brainer and charging at home is the key. There needs to be more investment on low cost destination chargers for those who don't have ready access to home charging. Some of the tariffs charged on public chargers whether high or low speed is a scandal.
our ageing leaf usually needs an average of about 50% top up each night at home on octopus go tariff so we get the 8.5p for 5 hours each night which generally covers it - that's about 10kwh so under £1 a day to run our leaf normally and we do between about 30 and 50 miles each day generally; call it 200 miles a week for a fiver - beat that gas guzzlers!
Andrew. Good vid on principles of IOG but….I assume 🐙 can see when charge finishes🤔 and “Gaming the System” at 100% when significantly less required is really not on (given 🐙 more socially minded approach than other supplier’s if no other reason🤔)
Too many “gaming the system” will kill it ☹️
I’m guessing that Octopus can spot those who are requesting implausible EV charging?
We have also been on IOG for a while. Its hard to say what we have saved as we have changed our usage pattern and have gone from 1 phev + 1 petrol car to 2 EVs and still haven't increased our standing order to octopus for 3+ years and are in credit going into the winter. We too 'milk the octopus' some days and run eveything when the car is charging! Keep up the good work!
Nice informative video.... "I feel you", as the cool kids would say. I worked in IT for 20 years, just been able to get out and do something I enjoy. No more API's for me 🙂
You lucky person!
Having had my EV, Tesla Powerwall Battery, solar PV and ASHP, I have very much saved huge amounts from being on Intelligent Octopus Go. I only plug my car in when it is needed to charge and tell it what to charge. It then plans a charge out to be ready at the stated time. I don't usually need my car first thing and I have found it will schedule past the usual hours and that is then extra times that my home use is cheap. My bill is now around £90 per month for all of my heating, cooking and around 10,000 miles per year in my EV. We use around 25-30kWh most days as I have lots of tech! This excludes ASHP or EV!
It'd be especially handy with a home battery or a V2H equipped vehicle, although that may run foul of that fair use provision.
Here in south eastern Australia a few retailers have plans which are 0c/kWh for a couple of hours in the middle of the day.
Octopus Agile goes to negative about once a week or so. So occasionally they pay us to charge our car or wash the clothes etc.
Love IOG. Only two issues I have is those random day time cheap hours as it will drain the battery (unless I notice it and swap it to charge). I’ll be glad when Octopus can manage the whole system. The other, is hoping they introduce the ability to add a second device (car).
I'm on Octopus Agile. One charge will usually last me a couple of weeks so I'm usually able to charge for 1 or 2p/kWh, or even negative rates. I think I was paid 37p to charge my car up last time I did a big charge. When I see a cheap or negative rate coming along I will generally discharge my house batteries (15p/kWk export rate) and charge them whilst the price has dropped. I also take the opportunity to heat a tank of water. I can have a massive over night consumption but usually it costs less than 10 p in total, and is often negative. This wouldn't work if you do a lot of miles as the gap between the price drops would likely be too large meaning you have to charge at around 17p/kW (the usual'ish' overnight rate, although tonight there is plenty of 10-12p slots). Sounds complicated but my gas (heating is on) and electric, including charging the car was combined was £36.74 for the past month.
The house can have cheap electricity all day round if you install home battery. Diy seplos battery 15KWh kit was just £1500 its then saving on all electric bills.
"Looking at APIs that I don't really understand..." LOL!!
OIG is really good but sometimes it causes us issues with storing cheap electricity in our battery. Our system finds it tough to handle pulling 12kW ( 7 for the car and 4.5 for the battery ) at the same time. The addition of Eddi to heat water is going to add an extra 3 kW pushing the demand to over 14kW if all are drawing down at the same time.
we have IOG and charge our EVS and 19.5 kwh batteries overnight. have it linked to the Tesla to prevent day time charging, this summer despite being home 24/7 as a disabled and retired household due to solar and exporting we were actually making around £60 profit a month on the electric bill (still on gas sadly heat pump going in this Nov)
Hi Andrew, I am on Eon Drive, Rates are 6.57p/kw between 12:00am to 7:00am and 27.202p/kw outside of that. standing charge 67.813/day😎
You really need a home battery last February I used 1243.7kWh my bill for that period was £135.53.
In theory if you are a full on geek you could use the Home Assistant integrations for you car and Intelligent Octopus integration to check which car is plugged and what the SOC is and automatically adjust the required charge.
Personally I don't feel it is "gaming" because firstly Octopus have no way of knowing that you genuinely don't need to charge to 100% and secondly you can only take advantage by using the scheduled excess renewable energy which THEY make available to you by schedule. If it's not available you won't be able to do it, sometimes it may not work in your favour.
Octopus also have no way of knowing how exactly you're using the electric once it enters your house (I'm thinking, might be wrong).
If they don't like how you're using it they need to have further control on the excess distribution (which they don't appear to have).
I think a lot of people didn't grasp the crucial part of this video judging by the comments and assumed it was just about cheap charging. VERY interesting golden nugget there, thanks 👍🤔
P.S. I think the chances of octopus implementing fair use policy on a single customer are extremely low to zero. They just want volume (customers) and out of those this particular scenario applies to a very small percentage who can take advantage.
In reality how many people you will make an effort to do this? Very few, most people simply don't have the foresight or time. (but I'll give it a go 👍)
@@VikPaints the equipment measures and reports back how much has been delivered. If that happens waay quicker than expected then they could potentially build a picture up if you are doing it regularly.
ie If you say you need a 100% charge of a 64kWh (8hrs charging) pack and upon plugging in a half full LEAF the charge reports back complete after 3hrs; I think they’d figure out you were telling porkies about needing 100%
Currently you are correct, Octopus are very unlikely to implement any kind of fair use. But if videos like this go viral then they will. I know from being on the IOG beta for Zappi, they can monitor whats been delivered. We've also seen it recently with the half price charges which applied to what the charger used. So if you're constantly asking for 100% and only ever taking a small percentage, always during the day, this will get logged/flagged. They do, in the T&C's say that they can move you off the tariff. I've not heard of it happening to anyone yet though. At the moment there's not enough abuse to warrant doing it, and often, they'll actually get paid for your charging as part of grid balancing. So dont think they aren't aware of it, its just for now, they are trying out new things and letting it slide.
FWIW, it totally is gaming the system to ask for more than you need. Otherwise why would they have an option? They are trying to optimise grid usage and keep costs low for everyone but also are generous enough to say 'if you need 100% right now, lets see what we can do'. If everyone did it, do you really think they could sustain it? I'm all for using extra slots when they come up but you shouldnt be asking for 100% charge every time thinking its not an issue.
@@salibabaYeah I can see that would flag up quite easily.
Add a home battery and you can run the heatpump all day at its most efficient and save.
That's a lot of battery capacity needed though, maybe 20kwh for the cold days of winter.
if it's connected to the charger only then I think the value you set in the Octopus app is how much additional charge you want, rather than a target SOC. Not ideal as you have to set the value every time you plug in. You can leave it at 100% but that won't be optimal for the scheduling algorithm as it'll be requesting a lot of redundancy.
I have a Leaf and use Home Assistant to bridge the gap as it has access to both my Octopus account and Leaf. I set a target SOC in Home Assistant (which I rarely change) and Home Assistant works out the difference and sends this to Octopus for scheduling
Big fan of the channel. Just another point that you sort of alluded to right near the beginning, you don’t necessary need a dedicated charger as such providing Octopus can communicate with your vehicle. I run a BMW i3 on a ‘granny’ charger only. Providing you don’t need more than 70 miles (ish) per day then this is adequate. You also get the benefit of extended cheap rate beyond the core hours as Octopus ‘tries’ to get you to your target charge (not always achievable) but at a slower rate, if that makes sense.
I can confirm this. My brother gets intelligent octopus go with a Tesla model 3 and a granny charger.
Thank you. I thought I’d made that clear but obviously not!
But is the cheap rate applied to all household electricity or just the bit used by the car?
@@robertcollins1371 whole house I believe as it’s just plugged into a 3 pin, so not sure it’s possible for the supplier to differentiate (?).
Saved an enormous sum since 2019 on octopus go and it's variations.
I'm on the same Tariff and quite often get a few hours of cheap rate in the day or early evening. Having 2 EVs helps with that as it doesn't know what car you are plugging in each time. In the last 3 billing months i've used over 3000kWh of leccy, averaging about 9.2p/kWh cost. My wife runs a massage therapy business and we rent our spare room on Airbnb so our washing and drying usage is very large -- maxing out the cheap rate is hugely advantageous, especially as we don't yet have solar or batteries.
I've been on IOG since it started. I have a Zappi and a Model 3. At the start it worked well, but then it started failing to charge. I contacted Octopus, but they were unable to fix whatever the problem is. I am still on IOG tariff, but I just set the car to charge between 11:30 and 5:30. I'm not to concerned about this as I have solar and a battery so I am mostly running on the battery during the day and charging the car and the battery at the cheap rate.
Had to change from Octopus to British Gas EV tariff. Charger very old school and not compatible with Octopus (neither is the car but can schedule the car to charge between specific times) and payback to upgrade charger would be over 3 years, so currently not work it for me. Currently paying .079p per Kw/h between 12 & 5. Had a few issues with BG compared to Octopus but needs must
I live in Munich and I'm looking into switching to an electricity supplier that provides intelligent tariffs like Octopus. Also, I'll be changing from an Kia eNiro to a Kia EV3 80kWh battery. Also may be moving away from oil central heating to a heat pump system. So let's see how it will work out.
I've been with Octopus for 2 years and had a smart meter fitted in January. It can't connect to the Arqiva network though as there's big hills in the way between us and nearest 2 Arqiva towers.
Driving my Tesla 90D, charged at home, costs about the same in 'fuel' as our diesel Tiguan and about 20% more than my son's Clio.
Really hoping we could get a 'Southern' SMETS2 comms module like the Octopus customer in Glasgow on the Panorama programme, as we have excellent 2G,3G and 4G coverage.
It is quite hard to calculate exact numbers but I have travelled 32,000 electric miles for about £585 . I have solar , ripple shares, house batteries also adding to the mix so it will actually be cheaper than the estimate above. The house battery is over sized and I sell excess electricity back to octopus at 15p per unit so I actually don’t pay much for electricity anymore.
Will be moving to Intelligent once we move house in Jan/Feb. Going whole nine yards with solar, batteries and hopefully 3 phase.
Oh wow! Three phase will be amazing. I'd be tempted to look into that too, but I rarely need to charge that fast at home.
@@MrEV I did the cable/pipes request from the utilities and they came back in about 4 days with the plans so I know exactly what’s where and that I’m not looped. I just figured if we’ve got a lot going on I might as well go for it.
If I was moving to a house with electric radiators I think I would be looking to get them replaced as fast as possible! I realise this might not be practical for you, but perhaps some infra-red heating panels would be a better solution. I stayed in a holiday let in Germany that had them, and the heat they gave off was a bizarre sensation but they worked brilliantly.
As for intelligent go, while I have an EV I don’t commute as I am unfortunately medically retired and my wife works from home, and I only have a small home battery. For now I’m sticking with Agile, but this was a very helpful and interesting look at a possible alternative.
Even if the octopus app is set to 100%, my charging stops at the limit set in the car which is usually 80%. We have MG4 Extended Range (77 kWh battery), Zappi charger and solar panels/6 kWh house batteries. We do a few long trips each year when i set the car to 100% and it charges to that no problem.
I have a 51kwh MG4 with an Ohme and Intelligent Octopus Go, 6k miles for £109.
If you want to bump charge without the app you can actually just press the plus button on the zappi and it will boost charge as if you didn't have octopus intelligent go.
Great tip, thank you!
I love a full charge in my Mini Cooper at a cost of £2 from 0-100% 🤯 Even during winter. However, in the past 2-3 weeks the myenergi app doesn’t stick to the overnight charge time. So, if you plug in at 21:30, the charge immediately starts. I tried to delay it in the Mini app but it didn’t work.
I’ve been averaging between 8-9p per kWh per month since March 2023, thanks to being on IO and having a GivEnergy battery. We drive 10,000 miles a year, so all in all pretty good obviously I’m a few years from paying off the battery but the ability for that to arbitrage my energy costs across the day is a game changer especially as I can’t have solar (*I can technically have solar, but we have an aged Victorian slate roof that needs sorting prior to any solar, plus we are invested in Ripple so that is offsetting the lack of solar)
On same tariff as you, charging an EV, ASHP (£2.5 Octopus February this year) also solar/battery. Prior to this our annual electric/gas bill was £2-2.5k now just £500 or less. No gas of course too. House is more comfortable 24//7, downside is now very unused to not being warm all the time 😀 EV mileage is trivial cost to unnoticeable. We had family/dog 5k roadtrip in Tesla MY RWD across Europe & around Norwegian scenic routes all superchargers cost less than £300. Home charging not possible but still mega cheap. Easy, fun, brilliant!
Amazing to hear!
I'm on IOG, and probably wont change, but there is now a cheaper alternative, from 5ppm (depending on area = ideal if you can be almost 100% at off-peak) - (is it a fruit/vegetable🤷♂) - the reviews are not great, but at the end of the day once set-up, and billing correctly you'll never need to contact them again anyway.
Just checked them out, interesting tariffs. It does remind me of the days prior to the energy crisis though, lots of new companies entering the market and look where it left us.
Eon Next Drive gives you 7 hours off-peak per night, and you don’t need to piss about with remote scheduling.
What is their day rate?
@@Thetyrerepairer i have it and its 30p during the day 0.069p off peak
@@Thetyrerepairer 25.4p peak, 6.7p off-peak
I have this and saves a fortune. The problem I have is that outside of the 6 hour window it dumps the power from my power walls into the car so I have to manually set the Tesla app not to go below where it is at that point. You would think Tesla car would talk through the gateway to the battery not to take energy from the battery if the car is charging. I’ve given them feedback on this but they haven’t done anything about it. I’m sure there are 3rd party solutions out there.
That's really interesting, thank you! Especially as I'm hoping to get a Powerwall at some point.
@@MrEV you’re welcome to come and look at my setup. I’m only down at the top end of Eastbourne.
I’m on standard GO so only get the 5 hours of off peak at 8.5 pence at the moment, but also have solar and 30KW of GivEnergy battery storage, plus I’m on an export tariff that pays 8pence per KWh exported.
Using GO to charge the car and the house batteries during off peak, solar to power the house and charge the batteries when there’s excess, and to top the car if the batteries are fully charged, I’m also balancing the overnight battery charge using home assistant and the predicted solar availability, so that the overnight target SOC for the batteries will be reduced if the following day is going to be a really strong solar day (cheaper to charge the batteries using solar than GO if available so I don’t want to charge them to 100% overnight if the following day has a lot of solar).
My car fuel costs for the ZOE while I had it were 340GBP for almost 17,000 miles of driving. I don’t have numbers for the Tesla yet, but it’s tracking on similar lines (to within 6GBP of the cost of the ZOE at 3k miles).
I’ve also been tracking how much we’ve used in Solar, and how much we’ve saved by charging the batteries using off peak and solar, then using them to power the house during the day instead of pulling from the grid at peak.
In a typical month, we’ll use around 950 - 1050 KWh (high usage I know), but that will break down to around 50KWh of Peak and the rest split between Solar and off-peak (up to 700KW of Solar in the summer months and the other 200 or so KWh at off peak rates).
So far, after 2 years of having solar and batteries, we’ve saved £6,000 GBP in electricity costs, which has pretty much paid for the panels and install, and I’d expect to have the costs for the three GivEnergy I.tKW batteries paid off in future savings in may be another 3 years or so.
Another thing dropping the bills, is I used to have to put around £300 a month of diesel into a car to get to and from work, but now work from home, so as well as having the EV, my annual mileage has dropped by around 10K a year, but the EV is as cheap as chips to run!
(Since we no offset most of our usage to off peak prices, and use less from the grid due to the solar, I’ve also currently got a £950 excess banked with Octopus which will more than cover the higher costs of heating the house over Winter, so need to get some of the paid back into the bank account)
I'm on IOG also and according to my data for 2024 so far I've used 2864 kWh of electricity to charge the car and that has cost me £195. That works out to less than £20 per month in driving costs from home charging alone (rapid charging not included, but it's rare for me). At around 3 to 3.6 mi/kWh for my EV depending on season, if I take 3.2 mi/kWh as conservative estimate that's about 2 pence per mile.
I am thinking of moving to eon as it’s 6.7 p for 7 hours and the normal rate is currently 1p cheaper than intelligent go. Plus export is 16.5p while intelligent go matching export is 15p.
I don’t know why I have intelligent go as my car was removed from it a year ago and I don’t have a compatible charger.
Btw I charge 3 EVs totaling over 50000 miles a year, heat pump, battery and solar. I think I am quids in but on my second smart meter and it’s stopped reporting months ago. My solar inverter is reporting really encouraging figures.
I've no experience of octopus, but have Eon Next drive V4. It's definitely a cheap tariff, and 7 hours cheap rate is very useful for adding a decent range in the cheap rate period.
We going to need this if one can get it as we are going to offset having to pay a lot in EV road tax they going bring in next year I believe. What with the high price of public charging and high insurance and now soon Road tax, getting pretty expensive to run a EV in uk.
It is a good tariff. Only thing that annoys me is when the app changes the charge times so it kicks in with the charging when you don't expect it as this often leads to energy being taken out of my giv energy battery when I don't want it too. Nothing major but would be good if the app would keep the times it comes up with when first plugging in instead of changing it's mind 😂
Imagine a time when it could all be done automatically, that would be an ideal use of AI. Of course it will either never happen, or be sold at such a premium price that I'd rather do it myself.
Don't some chargers allow you to connect a CT clamp to the battery connection to prevent this
@@robertcollins1371 CT clamp feature yes, but it gets too complicated too quickly with a charger, solar and batteries; sometimes you want the batteries charging the car, sometimes you don't.
We are a low use household living in an 1870's kid terrace. I charge using a 16a commando charge cable across the pavement using a cable protector approved by the local authority.
At present we have gas and electricity but we are plotting our migration to electricity only so have been working round the house adding internal, underfloor and of course loft insulation.
The next decision is heating: we have a pre condensing combi boiler which is reliable and 7 radiafors fed by 8mm copper microbore from a central 22mm copper manifold. My thinking if we want a heat pump we will have to replace the radiator tails with 15mm which will be quite an upheaval.
Proboem is, with a heat pump we will then require hot water storage of some kind and a battery would be sensible. Quite an expensive and hugely disruptive project and quite a challenge finding the best tariff if we achieve our goal.
HI, Octopus themselves now do a high temp heat pump that may work with your existing plumbing, google Cosy6, re a water tank, think of that as also being a battery (its storing energy) a water tank is the cheapest form of energy battery. A cheap solar diverter will dump any excess solar into your water tank as stored energy.
I use a 32amp commando socket and I'm on Octopus' Agile tariff because they won't give me Intelligent with a commando socket (currently). I let the car handle the smart features, such as timed charges etc. It's a similar tariff but the rates change per half an hour, lots of plunge pricing when it's windy - as you said Andrew. I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone is in a similar position to me and wants a tariff that is decent, if you play it right. It's sort of a manual version of Intelligent, you track the unit rates yourself using the app. You don't need a smart charger for Agile. I'd rather be on Intelligent, maybe when I get a smart charger!
That's odd. The Ohme commando is listed as an approved charger. Did you speak to customer services?
@@007silverwings it's not the Ohme charger. It's a literal 32 amp socket. Bought it from amazon
@@thathairyguy ah okay. Makes sense.
We are on Octopus agile. Would like to work out one day what is the most cost saving tariff. Not using our EV every day means I can pick and choose when to charge. So usually when it drops below about 3pkwh I’ll charge the car. Done around 1600 miles and it’s cost me £35. Downside is that at peek times the rates are quite high, average is 18p kWh on agile according to my bills.
Hi, I have the ohme charger, which communicates with the car, so octopus knows what the current SOC is. Not sure if you were just referring to the Nissan being old and can't communicate with the car
Hi, large battery on my ioniq 5 ,we are moving in November, hopefully .as I'm retired we don't do loads of miles,
I use the granny charger on octopus go this give me charging from 12.30m to 05.30 I woundering if octopus intelligent would me be better as you say it charges in day time. Great video. Regards Kev.
I got engaged in Canterbury cathedral in 1975
Now living in Manchester 😂
Another great video.
But more extensive than TOMATO ENERGY which is 4.76p/kWh overnight, 22.15p/kWh peak rate, with a 40.81p/day standing charge.
The tariff also includes two further non-adjustable off-peak slots during the day at around 13p/kWh. So a big saving over Octopus.
Unlike Intelligent Octopus Go, you are not restricted by the type of charger or your car. So a WIN-WIN changing to TOMATO ENERGY.
They sound great. I'd not heard of them before but just after editing this video I watched this good video from youtube.com/@everythinghome
ua-cam.com/video/AKyaLo-VUXM/v-deo.html
I've been with Octopus since May-20 and have driven my Tesla model 3 SR+ for 45,000 miles and... wait for it... for only £816, including charging losses! Yes, that works out 1.8p/mile. If I had been driving a similar size ICE car that would have cost around £7,500.
That’s an amazing saving.
Can you adjust the max output from the charger say 1 KWh so it takes longer? Would that give the whole house a longer periods of the cheap stuff?
Not as far as I know, but that’s a great point as my LEAF only charges at 3.3kW so I get cheaper electricity for longer with that. (Until its relatively small battery is full anyway!)
@@MrEV you can reduce the charging rate via the Kia infotainment under EV setting, normal, reduced and minimum. The charge point or octopus app may protest with" the car is charging slower than expected. Just ignore that and the car will try to charge for alot longer. 😂😂
You can limit the Zappi charge current. You can set the “Device Limit” Amps to whatever you like (between 6A/1.4kW and 32A/7.4kW I think) it’s in the Zappi front LCD menus). Sounds like unfair gaming though to me.
Yes you can. It may not be fair use so I definitely haven't done it, but a friend has, he had 70% charge and didn't really need to charge but has an electric shower which is expensive to run so he reduced the EV charger (hypervolt) to 6amps to get a slow trickle charge, set the Octopus app to charge it to 80% by 10am and plugged it in at 7:30am ish, the app scheduled to charge 8-9am and 9:30-10am, he then did his usual morning high energy tasks like showed and make tea/coffee in those hours the rascal.
Sold! i'm gonna sign up. but more importantly: where did you get that wooly jumper? Want one. : )
Fat Face or White Stuff I think! Years ago though. And it's a bit small after I washed it too hot. 😀
Shame it doesn't work most of the time. Mine consistently fails to charge my car overnight when using the "Intelligent" scheduling in the Octopus app. After going on various forums, this appears to be a common problem for lots of people on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.
That’s disappointing. I’ve not heard of those issues. Does it relate to any particular car or charger brand?
@@MrEV I'm using the Zappi too and just charging a Tesla model 3, with no other schedules set in the car or the charger - I've come across a lot of people who've had similar issues unfortunately.
Me too I’ve gone back to using the car timer and selecting charge now after I plug in OHME customer service has been terrible
@@gazzrobb2366 I'm just using a fast charge from the Zappi now and bypassing the Octopus app completely, and just starting it at 11:30pm to get the cheap rate.
Due to lost records by electricity north west my house hasn’t yet been permitted a proper charger. This means that I’ve been using the granny for our extended range Mach e.
The down side of this is it take days to charge.
The up side is that while the car is charging I’m getting way more cheap house electricity than I otherwise would.
I’ve occasionally even gone so far as to not plug in or tell the car to not charge overnight so I can get cheap rate at the weekend day time while all the washing and drying is being done.
I do feel a bit dirty gaming the system like this though (sometimes)
Your gaming the system and at some point Octopus will work out that its not worth keeping some customers.
Octopus always aim to have your car charged by the amount you request by the time you set. 64Kwh = 9 hours. Its going to try and charge for 9 hours and it works out the lowest C02 slots, there is not an abundance of green energy every day.
At some point, octopus are going to move gamers to the fixed 5-6 hours per day as intelligent gets subsidised by the fact they can balance the grid. Having a small battery in my vehicle, even when the CO2 is low though the day, it still wont give the extra slots only when it goes negative pricing.
the Givenergy charger works with the tariff as well.
Good to know. Thank you!
I'll have to look into this again . Where I park is about 150 metres from my house, cable going to cost £1k , that's why I haven't fitted a charger, but althou I have go I'm missing out big time . Wonder if theirs any cheaper place to get cable. Where you moving to? Not Italy?
In your new house look into mini air-conditioning system which works on a inverter is a heat pump an being air to air much more efficient.
It's a fantastic smart tariff. My wife's PHEV needs charging during the day regularly. Octopus control the charging and because this would drain my home batteries, being able to import to the home battery at the 7p rate is great. Otherwise we'd have empty batteries for the evening
I also don't get billed regularly, Octopus post debits and credits to my account, but it would be good to get a bill every month. Time to chase them again
Do you have to manually 'tell' your batteries to charge instead of draining to the car?
@@martyndavies1482 sadly yes I do. If I was more IT literate I could set up Home Automation and get the inverter to charge them any time the charger was working. That's the next stage, I think I have a family member who can help
@@bill_heywood By all means try it, but after setting up HA I couldn't control the inverter or car, and the decision making was too complex - I decided I had better things to do with my life than save those few pounds.
@@martyndavies1482 thanks, I would be in the same boat. I'll only try it if there's good community support for Solis inverters
@@bill_heywood Ha, I have a Solis too, the app does enough, just ask for the installer account so you can change the battery charging rate/times from your phone.
I registered with my EV and charger at the
Octopus energy eligibility page to get an update when I'm eligible
There is a counter to Octopus with Eon and Tomato energy .
Does the same cheap overnight rate apply even if you don't have the car plugged in? We have batteries and which we'd normally charge every night - but would probably only actually need to charge the car once or twice a week.
Yes. You always get the cheap overnight rate 11.30pm - 5.30am on IOG even when the car isn't plugged in.
Octopus works with Podpoint aswell. I have one
Thanks Andrew. We have a Kia Soul EV with a Zappi charger and some solar PV, so thinking of changing our tariff to IG. Really useful to hear your experiences with Octopus IG. You seem to suggest that the EV has to be plugged in ready for charging, before the whole house can benefit from the cheaper rate. Is this really the case, as I would have thought that the smart meter would have a role to play?
I would love to get this tariff but our smart meter has no signal in rural Cumbria 😡
Been on IO for just over a year. 2 EV's. Our average unit cost a month is 14p over the year, bear in mind that our peak rate is 24.67p (Oct 24 rate) was less over summer. So a average saving of 10p over peak rate. Never yet had a daytime charge declined, even last winter. Just under £200 in actual EV charge costs & 10,000 miles covered. Paying the same a month now, as we did pre EV on variable tariff.
On OVO anytime. Prefer to have the option to charge at 7p whenever i want. Unlike the restrictions with these overnight tariffs
When you move to your new place, get some underfloor heating installed. It's far more efficient than electric radiators. But you probably already know that :)
The Hypervolt 3.0 and above is now part of the IOG family of charging points, earler versions will come on board later. One caveat is, as you point out, IOG does not know the SOC of the car. Confusingly the app appears to offer a charge to limit, making you think you can limit the charge to say 80%, as a way of protecting the battery long term. In my case that isn't how it works. You have to say what % you want to add. For example if the SOC is 60% and you wish to charge to 80% you have to put 20% in the Charge Limit box, not the intuitive 80% you would be forgiven for thinking. Not only is that box confusing but you now need to be more active in "programming" the app than you should be. This is not explained to Hypervolt owners. I have been told that IOG can only control either the car or the charge point. If your car is also compatible with IOG you can elect to have the car as the interface with IOG and that would then enable charging to a given % as IOG will be able to see the current SOC %. Hope that helps.
What happens when the car battery is full. Does the rate go back to the standard tariff?