[stevelup]

The new rate you have been quoted is still better than i'm locked into with Octopus until September... Mine being 40.13pence peak /8.25 pence 5hrs off peak.
However my standing daily charge is somewhat lower at 37.65p.
Just have to look around and see what's available when the time comes

You're not locked into anything with Octopus, ever.

 

[stevelup]

@Icesingh Octopus don’t do any dodgy shenanigans. They are totally trustworthy, transparent and honest.

There must be an explanation or some kind of mistake or misunderstanding.

 

[stevelup]

Bear in mind with Eon Next Drive you only get the discount on the car charging. You don't benefit from other load shifting like you do with the Octopus tariffs. So it depends really how much you charge -vs- load shift.

It also really depends how much you actually need to charge each night. You get four hours on Octopus Go so you could be topping up your car with 28kWh every night. Is that not enough?

Octopus standing charge is lower than Eon Next Drive, as is the peak rate by about 3p.

 

[stevelup]

There can't be much science to it. I expect they just limit you to 7.2kWh per hour at the cheaper rate.

You could probably set your car to charge at 16A instead and then run the dishwasher / dryer etc at the same time

But then you would be back at the same number of effective 'hours' as Octopus.

 

[stevelup]

I'm talking about the Eon product.

 

[stevelup]

You chopped a bit off the bottom of that screenshot. The Go estimate was based on your actual usage. The Flexible quote is based upon 'industry average'.

Flexible is way more expensive than Go.

3161x30.6 = 967.26
3107x9.5= 295.16
365x47.95 = 175.01

Total on go £1437 as per their quote. You can see the maths works.

Now put the same numbers into Flexible...

3161x38.27 = 1209.71
3107x15.92 = 494.63
365x48.05 = 175.38

Total: £1879 - nothing like the estimate of £1388

It's not their fault, it's mandatory to quote like this, but they should make it clearer that the two quotes cannot be compared.

 

[stevelup]

More likely they never got the crazy and almost impossible task of separating the EV charging cost from the rest of the usage working in a meaningful manner.

 

[stevelup]

Yes, you can bump charge from the Octopus app.

Yes, solar excess charging will still work but actually you’re better off disabling it. Better to charge car overnight at 7.5p and then get max export during the day at 15p.

If you allow the car to soak up solar, it’s costing you 7.5p/kWh

 

[stevelup]

By the way, should you do this, there's a bit of a trick needed. The Zappi needs to be in Eco+ mode to work with Intelligent Octopus, which does of course mean it will export excess solar.

What you need to do on the Zappi is change the Export Margin to a number higher than the export limit set on your inverter. I've got an 8kW inverter so have my Zappi set to 8100W.

 

[stevelup]

Yes, they change the charge mode to Eco+ automatically.

The reason you haven't had to tweak anything is because you've set a schedule so your car can't charge during the day when it's sunny!

There are many ways of preventing the house battery powering the Zappi and they vary in complexity, and depends on your setup. Pretty sure this has already been extensively discussed elsewhere but a couple of options:-

- If your wiring arrangement permits it, position the inverter and Zappi CTs in a way that the inverter CT does not see the car charger as a load. This will only be possible if your charger is on a separate consumer unit to your house CU, and it's connected before the Solar CU. It's unlikely to be an option that wouldn't involve work by an electrician.

- Home Assistant etc... In my case, I monitor whether or not Octopus are 'dispatching' a cheap slot, and if they are automatically sets my house batteries to charge as well. This has the added benefit of shifting -all- overnight house consumption to the cheap rate and ensuring the house battery is completely full at the end of each charging window. This relies on your inverter having a workable API... many don't.

 

[stevelup]

What inverter do you have?

 

[stevelup]

That’s your generation, you must have a second inverter for your battery (or it’s an all-in-one)?

 

[stevelup]

Great - they have a local API where you can control forced charging of the battery. So with Home Assistant, you can do a really simple rule like:-

If Octopus are 'dispatching' then set Solax to force charge,

 

[stevelup]

You don't really need any 'code' - it's just a couple of automations.

'When' Octopus Energy Intelligent Dispatching Changes from Off to On
'Then Do' (whatever it is you do to tell your battery to force charge)

...

'When' Octopus Energy Intelligent Dispatching Changes from On to Off
'Then Do' (whatever it is you do to tell your battery to stop force charging)

You might want to add an 'And if' rule to make sure this stuff doesn't happen inside the 2330-0530 window.

 

[stevelup]

No problem here.

They get loads of logging and stuff from myenergi, so give them some time to investigate and you'll get a solid response.

Is the connectivity to your Zappi robust?