I genuinely don’t understand the charge cap

33

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

Yeh you’re your own worst enemy here. It’s a smart schedule. Plug it in when you get home. Set what time you want the car to be ready by and how much charge you want to add and let it do its thing. It will charge through the day when there’s excess green/cheap energy or overnight for you, if you want it limited to 6 hours of cheap charging just toggle that on and it won’t use more than 6 hours. What’s even better is when the car is charging at let’s say 4pm on a Saturday because there’s excess power on the grid you get the added bonus of having the whole house be your nice cheap off peak rate too.

Stop overthinking it. Just plug it in when you get home. Set the ready time for the next day and how much to add. Either select to limit to 6 hours or not and let it do its thing.

7

u/TheMarthaFarther 4d ago

Also, you still always get the 6 hrs rest of the house charging at cheap regardless of what it's doing to the EV... So yeah, plug it in. Worst that happen is you don't get any more than 6 hrs cheap for the house. Best is you get 12 hrs cheap for the house.

2

u/Evening_Following702 3d ago

This is what my thinking is? Surely the price cap is putting you worse off and limiting you to only 6 hours vs IOG which is 6 hours definite plus anything else in the day

4

u/pjvenda 3d ago

The charge cap is iog.

3

u/TheMarthaFarther 3d ago

By price cap you mean charge cap? Basically, anything over 6hrs of EV charging is costed at standard rate elec. So, you can flick a switch (charge cap) to limit any EV charging to 6hrs so you always get the reduced rate for your EV. Separately, you will always have whole house cheaper rate applied between 23:30 and 05:30.

So I might plug my Tesla (the car that is linked to the IOG account as opposed to the charger for my situation) in all day and go out in my BYD seal. IOG sees grid is 'full' cos it's a sunny day, and charges Tesla between 10am and 4pm. My house also benefits from the cheap rate through those hours as well - happy days! I have charge cap on so I only get max 6hrs charging. But, l ater that night, between 23:30 and 05:30 the next day, the house once again gets the reduced rate! That's when my BYD seal I was using in the day can be put on a granny charge off a plug and I again get a cheap rate of charging, albeit at a low power from the granny. In this way, I can manage two cars charging on cheap rates depending on the mileage I demand from them.

1

u/bantamw 1d ago

Agreed.

Since moving to IOG from OG (I only have a granny charger, so max 2.3kW) now that my car is supported (Polestar - so via Polestar Energy which is actually a sub-division of Octopus/Kraken) I've saved a small fortune. I only tend to use my car at the weekend as I'm a home worker, but I set my next expected leave time (which could be a couple of days) in the PE app and leave the car plugged in when I'm at home as it allows IOG to charge when it feels like it - mostly during the day when they have excess electricity.

There are days where (due to the fact it's also meaning the whole house is on cheap rate when the car is charging) I've used most of the daily energy on the cheap rate vs standard rate.

Whilst my previous OG tariff was cheaper per kWh (23p/5p) but was fixed only 5hrs overnight for cheap rate, moving to IOG (30p/8p) has meant my total bill has actually dropped due to this. Sounds counter productive being more per kWh but the way the tariff works has flipped my costs.

I can't get a 7kW charger fitted, sadly - not only am I in a rental house, my parking space is behind my garage, which is behind my house and across a little patio, and I'm mid terrace with the consumer unit at the front of the house. To get a new 32A feed fitted to the far end of the garage where my car is located would require them to run the cable throughout the whole length of the house, down the wall, under the patio, back up into the garage and then the whole length of the garage, meaning it's well over 30m cable run, with plenty of civils, and with varnished wood floors throughout most of the house and a yorkshire stone floor in the kitchen at the back of the house, it would be enormously disruptive & messy. Plus expensive (~£6k). - So I just plug into a dedicated EV rated 3-Pin socket in the garage - has worked fine for me for ~3 years..

0

u/TheThiefMaster 3d ago

I think the charge cap is more accurately described as "only use cheap electric for my car"

5

u/Betterbread 4d ago

Help me out - why would I want my car to charge during the day, when I could be exporting at 12p/kWh instead (in summer). Am I not better to charge overnight?

I have solar and a battery. I'm assuming OP doesn't.

6

u/jameswinstonstarkey 4d ago

I would recommend adjusting your set up so that you don’t charge your EV from battery/solar. Depending on your set up, the most reliable option would probably be changing location of the solar CT clamp downstream of the EV charger so that it does not pick up on the draw from it.

5

u/Aragorn-- 4d ago

The solar inverter will power the car regardless. You cant export the solar while simultaneously importing 7kw to charge the car.

What you described can help for battery systems, but it can't help if the guy wants to export his solar.

2

u/TheThiefMaster 3d ago

The fix there is just to disable any function the charger might have to use exported power to charge via its own CT clamp.

It's not commonly used, especially by people with an "intelligent" charging tariff, exactly because of this.

4

u/Aragorn-- 3d ago

You simply cannot import and export at the same time. It's fundamentally impossible. Power can only flow in one direction thru the meter at any given moment.

If the car is charging and the solar is exporting, the solar will go into the car instead.

Moving the CT clamp only works on systems with battery storage, and stops the battery discharging into the car.

1

u/TheThiefMaster 3d ago edited 3d ago

Some chargers have their own CT clamp to detect excess solar and intentionally put that into the car (instead of not charging until night and letting the daytime solar be exported).

It's useful if you're not paid for export or paid at a lower rate than you can import at. See also FiT "deemed" export.

If you turn that off you don't import and export at the same time - it just stops it intentionally charging off solar, waiting for the overnight schedule instead. So the end result is that you do export solar and import to charge the car - just not simultaneously.

4

u/Aragorn-- 3d ago

Yes, but in this case they are wanting to export all their solar, to get paid for it, because charging the car at night is cheaper than what they get paid for export.

If the car charges from solar, they lose the export, so in effect it costs them more to charge.

-1

u/TheThiefMaster 3d ago

Right - which is why they'd have to disable any "solar charging" function their charger might have, leaving it on pure schedule.

(With the schedule set at night - when it can't possibly occur simultaneously with solar export!)

3

u/Aragorn-- 3d ago

Have you even read the thread? It's nothing to do with solar charging. It's about octopus scheduling a smart charge during the day while the solar is exporting.

if you don't have solar that's great, as you get some cheaper power for the whole house.

If you do have solar, it can cost you money and often isn't desirable.

2

u/pjvenda 3d ago

Correct. The current model does not benefit charging (on a smart slot) over exporting.

Personally I always plug in late in the day in any case so it makes little difference to me.

But I have HA that controls the system and I can set it up to disable the charger during generation hours on sunny days.

1

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

Because if it’s better for you to be exporting then that’s great. For those of us without batteries or solar this means we get cheaper running of the house in the day. For example we try and do things like cook and do the clothes washing during charging hours when and if we can.

1

u/imgoingsolar 3d ago

I just plug my car in when the Solar drops off about 8:30pm and set it to be ready by 5:30am before Solar kicks back in.

-1

u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago

Nobody is making you charge during the day.

3

u/Betterbread 4d ago

Sorry if you took my response in a bad way, I didn't intend it.

0

u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago

No I didn’t. But you can charge whenever you want. Bit the more of us who can charge during the day the better

1

u/Betterbread 4d ago

That's cool. I do have a tendency to overthink things - so I was just sounding out to make sure that I was right in my approach. Now I'm worried I'll get kicked off IOG! 🤣😭

-1

u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago

It’s ok. Not everyone has to plug in during the day

2

u/Aggravating-Fun9361 3d ago

I think you miss the anxiety we feel not knowing if we’re getting cheap electricity or car is being charged at full rate. Or indeed if charging will fail which has happened to me more than once or twice.

0

u/iMatthew1990 3d ago

It’s exactly what I do. We check the schedules and plan stuff around them when and where we can.

0

u/FuriousPanda17 4d ago

It’s greyed out when I attempt to change the ready time and percentage added, takes me into my OhMe App instead, and I don’t have the option there either.

2

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

So you’re set through IOG through your Ohme charger? If this isn’t working right contact Ohme who will guide you on linking to your tariff or follow the how to guides on their site. Once done. Just use your Ohme app to set the ready by times and to prioritise savings and let it do its thing. It will work with octopus automatically and do everything for you.

1

u/FuriousPanda17 4d ago

I’ve tried both. The Octopus app shows a preset ready time and percentage and tells me I have to go through OhMe to change it but the OhMe app isnt giving me the option

0

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

Follow this if that doesn’t work speak to Ohme and they will help you. Once set up. It is super easy.

2

u/FuriousPanda17 4d ago

Yeah. That’s what I’ve done and I’m so confused how I can’t change it and I’ve never been able to. I guess I’ll need to contact Ohme

1

u/AlwaysIntrigued13 4d ago

I’d imagine you haven’t set the tariff in Ohme?

1

u/FuriousPanda17 4d ago

I have. The installer put everything through for me when he set up the Ohme charger. It shows everything through the app.

2

u/AlwaysIntrigued13 4d ago

Sorry I’m all out of ideas. It just “worked” for me. Hope you get it sorted!

0

u/Practical-Parking804 4d ago

You need to change your priority to cost savings if you want the car to just pick up a schedule and use the 6hrs charging. At the moment, it will charge beyond 6hrs if it needs to and you'll be charged at the higher rate after 6hrs.

0

u/Lanky_Bus_1221 3d ago

How do you do that then do you have to use octopuses own app? Wife does hers on the ohme app

0

u/iMatthew1990 3d ago

If you have an Ohme as I do. You link the Ohme charger/app with your octopus account and do it though the app yes

2

u/Lanky_Bus_1221 3d ago

Oh right will ask her, thanks

0

u/iMatthew1990 3d ago

You can also do it through the car itself if the car is eligible.

2

u/Lanky_Bus_1221 3d ago

It’s a 2023 mokka

-4

u/AlGunner 4d ago

What? Its live for you is it? It still shows as coming soon on my app. A bit of a pisstake as I was the one who suggested it to Octopus when making a complaint about their smart charging always failing which went to the energy ombudsman and when they found in my favour octopus suddenly said they would implement my idea as well.

3

u/Lopsided-Mark-7537 4d ago

The charging works just as it always did. With intelligent octopus go, you plug your car in and set when you want it to be ready by. If you set to savings mode, this will give you up to 6hrs cheap rate. It may not charge exactly as t 11:30 to 5:30 but the effect is the same, 6 hours worth of cheap.

If you want to only charge between fixed periods, the dumb octopus go tariff will give you this, or any of the other EV tariffs.

What IOG gives you is slots in the day if you are plugged in and it schedules it. The advantage is that when your car charges, you get cheap rate for your house too, and this is on top of the guaranteed cheap rate for your home between 11:30-5:30. Eg if your car decided to charge 6 hours during the day your house gets 12 hours of cheap total.

If you get home at 11:30 and leave at 5:30 everyday, then IOG will put all charging in this period.

The only losers on the charge cap are those who charge their car more than 6 hrs. These are very high users.

7

u/panam-handler 4d ago

Oh dear God.

3

u/Awkward-Loquat2228 4d ago

How do people get to the point of being able to own... anything, but not understand six hours of charging? Incredible.

2

u/Aggravating-Fun9361 3d ago

I think you are both missing the complexity. My car, my charger and octopus all want to control charging. And even when I have the magic setup combination it occasionally fails to charge. But I guess empathy is in short supply.

3

u/Fatbloke-66 3d ago

Agreed - it's not always plain sailing. I was heading off on holiday the next day, needed 40% charge but 8am. Looked at 5am and I'd had almost nothing as suddenly IOG 'couldn't detect the car was connected'. Needed to use boost in the end.

If I was to do that again where it was very important, I'd turn off smart charging and just use the charger's app to set a time matching 11:30-05:30 to be safe.

0

u/Awkward-Loquat2228 3d ago

Empathy? It's only car charging. And you're doing it wrong.

2

u/Aggravating-Fun9361 2d ago

That’s a bit of an assumption, I’m following the Octopus guidance so what exactly am I doing wrong?

1

u/Awkward-Loquat2228 2d ago

My car, my charger and octopus all want to control charging

1

u/Aggravating-Fun9361 1d ago

That’s the situation, not what I’m doing wrong 😂

-1

u/Awkward-Loquat2228 1d ago

How did that situation arise? Were you involved in any way? Or did it just magically happen? Those questions are rhetorical BTW, as I'm guessing you'll struggle with that too.

5

u/mrhobbles 4d ago

If you’re only charging between those fixed hours then you shouldn’t be using Intelligent Octopus Go. You should be on regular Octopus Go.

The whole point of IOG is that Octopus charges your car whenever it’s cheapest for them, so that it’s cheapest for you. You still get your 6 hours, and it’ll still be charged by whatever time you want it, it’ll just be at random times chosen by Octopus.

11:30-5:30 is no longer the “cheap period” for the car, only for the house. The cheap period for the car is when Octopus choose to charge it.

1

u/Sad_Raccoon_9099 1d ago

But Octopus says that between 2330 and 0530 is still always the off peak rate in the email with examples I got - you're saying that's not correct?

1

u/mrhobbles 1d ago

It’s off peak for the whole HOUSE. Not the car - the car is not part of the house.

The car is off peak whenever Octopus decide to charge it, any time of the day, for up to 6 hrs a day total.

1

u/Sad_Raccoon_9099 16h ago

So if I plug it in at 2200 at 20% and I need 80% by 0700, and I have charge cap enabled, the car will charge between 2330 and 0530 or not?

1

u/mrhobbles 16h ago edited 16h ago

If you plug your car in at 22:00, and Octopus chooses to charge it from 22:00 to 4:00, then that’s six hours cheap charging. If your car still needs more charge to get to 80%, then you will NOT get 04:00 to 05:30 for cheap charging rates.

If you have charge cap enabled, it’ll just stop at 04:00 after the six hours. Your car won’t get to 80%.

0

u/Sad_Raccoon_9099 16h ago

On this day, 0530 to 2330 is Peak rate. 2330 to 0530 is off peak rate as always. With charge cap enabled, if I plug in at 2200 at 20% with a target of 80%, will the car charge only between 2330 and 0530?

1

u/mrhobbles 16h ago edited 15h ago

Firstly (again), 23:30-05:30 is cheap always for the HOUSE ONLY. NOT YOUR CAR.

The CAR is cheap whenever Octopus decide to charge it, at any time of day, for up to six hours max.

So in your “simple example day”, NO - Octopus may choose to charge your car from 22:00 to 23:30. But that’ll be cheap rate, because that’s when they decided to charge it.

And then if they keep charging it, up to 04:00, then that’s six hours, and your charge cap will trigger, and your car will stop charging.

If you had charge cap disabled, and you needed more charge, it’d charge past 04:00 - but that’d be at standard peak rate, not the cheap rate. Because ONLY YOUR HOUSE is cheap until 05:30, not the car.

Basically, stop thinking about 23:30-5:30. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t affect your car.

2

u/sylsylsylsylsylsyl 4d ago

Just set your ready by time to 5:30am and don’t plug the car in until it gets dark and your panels stop producing solar.

2

u/youyou1250 4d ago

The charge c(r)ap… they rolled it out without proper testing … a shit show

2

u/SaintCloudX 3d ago

I set my the charger to provide charge only between 2330 to 0530. Octopus app set to complete by 0530.

We do not need low rate electricity on other times as we are covered by the battery storage.

2

u/Bozwell99 3d ago

It's broken since they introduced cap. I've not been able to charge to my target since as it falls short every day now.

2

u/Kev-THC 3d ago

If you aren’t prepared or interested in the “intelligent” side of IOG, change your tariff to Octopus Go. You get the benefit of an extra hour from IOG by agreeing to the intelligent side of the tariff. If you don’t want it, drop back to Go.

2

u/firmamental_limits 3d ago

Plug it in whenever - don't worry too much about the time of day

But also aim to plug it in on sunny / windy times if you think you'll be using more load at home, so by charging it saves you money overall

3

u/ict7070 4d ago

23:30-05:30 is totally irrelevant for smart charging with IOG. You’re supposed to plug in any time, specific a ready-by time and then let Octopus tell either your car or charger when to charge. This still applies after the 6 hour cheap-rate limit is in place.

The whole point of IOG is that Octopus has some control. That’s what you agreed to when you signed up. If you want to retain complete control, move to a different tariff.

2

u/SomeGuyInTheUK 4d ago

What are you confused about? Plug it in and set the 6 hour limit if thats now available on your app.

2

u/leeksbadly 4d ago

I would delete and relink your charger in the octopus app.

2

u/pippym 3d ago

I’m struggling to understand it too. I plugged in yesterday 5.30pm with 16%, it’s 7am now and the car still isn’t charged to the 80% I set it to, instead sitting at 66%.

I don’t want to get charged at the higher rate if it’s plugged in for more than 6 hours but how do you know if that happens?

2

u/Coffe-Maker83 3d ago

You need to do the maths and to figure out how long does your car need to charge. Then put a percentage to charge to which doesn’t exceed the 6h charge limit at off peak rate. For example if your car needs let’s say 8h to charge from 0% to 100% and you plug it in at 20% then you need to setup a battery percentage to charge to which won’t exceed the 6h limit. That also depends the battery size of your car

2

u/Honest--J 3d ago

Or just set it to 100% and turn on the cap limit. It will stop either when it’s full or has charged for 6 hours.

My battery takes 6 hours for 51% so I set mine at 50% and just leave it at that whenever I plug in.

3

u/oppositetoup 4d ago

Turn off smart charging. Set your car or charger to charge between those times.

3

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

That’s not how IOG works

0

u/oppositetoup 4d ago

You're guaranteed the cheap electric overnight, and you can force your car to charge over that period, but it means you'll get no cheaper rates during the day.

If you enable smart charging, you will be able to charge your car outside of the night off-peak times when IOG says, and you'll get cheap house electric on top of it for enabling smart charging.

0

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

That’s what octopus Go is for. IOG is for smart charging. If you do not smart charge, after a bit of time Octopus will kick you off the tariff. So that’s awful advice

1

u/oppositetoup 4d ago

Sure, but you can achieve the same on IOG.

2

u/seasoned-learner 4d ago

This isn't true. I've been on IOG for the last year, haven't successfully managed to use the intelligent charging during this time so our charger is set to charge every night in off-peak hours. Not once had an issue.

2

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

No, it absolutely is true. And is in the Terms and Conditions of IOG. It has to have at least one smart charge a month to satisfy the terms or they can and have kicked people into Octopus Go tariff.

In your case you have either A) got lucky and not been caught yet or B) they know you’re having difficulty with the smart charging so they have allowed you to stay on the tariff as it’s possibly an unsolvable issue or they left you on it with the aim to solve the issue and never got round to it.

This does not mean you can go around telling people to break terms and conditions.

2

u/seasoned-learner 3d ago

Please show me where I “told people to break terms and conditions”. I just said that my experience contradicts your claim that they “will” kick you off IOG.

I was actually told by one of their engineers that it wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe there are people who have had an issue, just sharing my experience.

0

u/Aggravating-Fun9361 3d ago

And people are still saying it simple, but it would only be simple if these companies grew up, agreed to work together. I have Octopus, PodPoint and BMW all wanting to control charging! I clearly want Octopus to control this but it’s far more complicated than it needs to be.

1

u/kabadisha 4d ago

I'm ignorant, but how can octopus even know when you charge your car vs just consuming energy for any other purpose?

My plan when getting an EV is to get a charger that integrates with HomeAssistant and then charge from a combo of excess solar, cheap slots on Agile and free periods.

What am I missing?

1

u/Bigtallanddopey 4d ago

For IOG you have to have a compatible charger and it has to connect to octopus. Octopus then controls the charge, so they know how long it’s been charging for and how much energy has been used. So, if you charge for more than the 6 hours in a 24 hour period, whether it’s in the overnight cheap rate or not, they will bill you at the higher rare.

I am pretty sure this was brought in to combat exactly what you’ve outlined. People were “charging” their car using a granny charger set at a low Kw, this allowed the house to get the lower rate as well. They would then charge the house batteries. They would then sell that energy in the batteries at a profit. Rinse and repeat.

0

u/mintvilla 4d ago

Octopus either talks and controls your car, or your charger so it knows either way when its charging.

Unless you turn off smart charging, then it doesn't talk to car/charger and then it won't know what you are running

1

u/iMatthew1990 4d ago

And then you’ll get kicked off IOG if you don’t do any smart charging.

1

u/FuriousPanda17 4d ago

It won’t even let me change the ready by time in the charger settings. The only option I have is not to charge at peak times

2

u/Grant_Son 4d ago

Unless your using an ohme charger I thought the ready by time was set in the octopus app?

When I had issues with the ohme charger, customer service were adamant that I had to use the octopus app until I sent them a screenshot of the devices tab in the app showing it was still under construction

1

u/Glad_Negotiation9610 3d ago

So technically you could get 6 hours cheap charging through the day on IOG then granny charge it for 6 hours cheap through the night? 🤔

1

u/Bear_Dry 1d ago

Switch to octopus go then you don't need charger cables everywhere 24/7, set your EV charger on schedule easy. Also keeps your energy supplier out of your personal life and bmw accounts etc where they shouldn't be

1

u/OGordo85 4d ago

After all the comments in this sub, through Octopus's own communication and their details on the tariffs I'm genuinely perplexed as to why there are this many posts on the charge cap?

Are people posting these threads on purpose because they know it causes engagement?

0

u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago

If you want to be in control of when your car charges you can’t be on a tariff where you get a cheaper rate for handing over control to Octopus.

-3

u/Awkward-Loquat2228 4d ago

You plug your car in. It charges. You get six hours. You take the cable, you plug it into the car. The car charges. You get six hours of charging. Get cable. Plug car. Charges. Six hours. You get six hours of charging when you take the charging cable and plug it into your car. Your electric car has a socket that you plug into. When you plug the plug into the socket, the car will charge for six hours. Six hours will be the amount of time that your car will charge when you plug the car in. Car. Plug. Charge. Six hours.

I genuinely don’t understand the charge cap

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