Octopus Intelligent - can't get full charge

[MikeJL]

If you have a SMET2 smart meter you can sell your excess solar for more than IO’s off-peak rate. The difference won’t make you rich, but it’s one less thing to complicate your charging regime.
If you don’t have the right meter, Octopus will provide one, but it might take forever for it to be installed.

[ComicGeek]

Thanks ComicGeek.

I know the only charger compatible with IO is the Ohme. Without an Ohme IO only works with a handful of cars of which the Enyaq is one. Now you mention it it does make sense that I should set a schedule in the car itself. I will try that. The downside is that it's a pain to have to go to the car everytime I want an overnight charge.

Does anyone have a contact number for Octopus and specifically where I might get well informed advice on Intelligent Octopus?

If you set up the schedule for every night, you can then just plug in the car when you want it to charge. It will do it automatically then. Doesn't matter if the schedule is set up and you don't plug it in.

It does say on the IO FAQ (see the link in a previous reply) that you need to tell them when you want it charged by - so there has to be a schedule in the car to do this, it's just that IO may adjust when/how quickly it charges up to this end time.

[MikeJL]

You give the time to complete charging in the Octopus app, not the car.

[philipstaniford]

If you have a SMET2 smart meter you can sell your excess solar for more than IO’s off-peak rate. The difference won’t make you rich, but it’s one less thing to complicate your charging regime.
If you don’t have the right meter, Octopus will provide one, but it might take forever for it to be installed.

Actually, the only feed in rate Octopus will give you when on IO is is just over 4p making a net cost of around 3.4p.

[MikeJL]

Actually, the only feed in rate Octopus will give you when on IO is is just over 4p making a net cost of around 3.4p.

Yes, but you can sell your excess to any supplier, it doesn’t have to be the one that supplies your energy. I’m with IO, but I export to Scottish Power & they pay me £0.12 a KWH.

[philipstaniford]

Actually, the only feed in rate Octopus will give you when on IO is is just over 4p making a net cost of around 3.4p.

Yes, but you can sell your excess to any supplier, it doesn’t have to be the one that supplies your energy. I’m with IO, but I export to Scottish Power & they pay me £0.12 a KWH.

Oh. I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.

[philipstaniford]

If anyone is interested I have established a successful workaround. I concluded that the problem lies with Octopus turning the charge off via the car.

If I want to charge the car with the excess generated by my solar panels then I set the Zappi to ECO+ and plug the car in. A short while later Octopus will detect the car is charging, set a Smart Charge Plan and then turn the charge off via the car if the charge plane does not include the current time, obviously. I then, through the Octopus App, set a Boost Charge and, hey presto, the car charges using the excess. Nothing comes from the grid because the Zappi ECO+ mode won’t allow it. Wonderful!

If I want to charge the car on the 7.5p IO overnight tariff, then I set the Zappi to FAST and plug the car in. The car will charge for a short time until Octopus detects the charge, sets a Smart Charge Plan and turns the charge off via the car. Octopus will then charge the car via its control over the car at times it has set in its Smart Charge Plan. No other schedules should be set in the car or on the myenergie app. Because the Zappi is in FAST mode it will allow the full 7.4kW of charge power. There is an added complication with the house batteries and a hybrid inverter in this mode because the house batteries will discharge into the car at a rate of 3.68kW. The remaining 3.7kW or so will come from the grid. This is a good option in the summer as all of the house battery charge is free having come off the solar panels during the day. Through the hybrid inverter app I can stop the batteries discharging over a given time period. In the winter I will probably set them not to discharge into the car and may even set them to charge from the grid during this very low tariff period as there may not be enough solar generation to charge them during the day.

So, this seems to be a useable workaround until myenergie convince Octopus to allow the Zappi to work properly with their Intelligent Octopus tariff

[MikeJL]

Solar energy isn't 'free' when you can sell it back to the grid. You can sell to any energy supplier (it's not connected in any way to your incoming supply) & currently in my area Scottish Power pay me £0.12 per kwh exported. So it cheaper for me to send all excess solar energy to the grid & charge home batteries & car overnight on IO at £0.075 kwh.

[Ken3966]

I do set a time when car should charge in mine between 23:30 and 10:00.
This is set on the location option.
This prevents any charging whilst octopus detects car is plugged in, sets a schedule and pauses the charging.
Typically about 1kWh is charged at full price otherwise until Octopus stops it in peak time.
I just have to remember before plugging in to change on the charging screen from charge now to charge in set time period.
Octopus still detects the plug in and sets a schedule correctly.

[Panagon]

Has anyone actually got zappi and octopus intelligent working. I am pretty sure my zappi crashes during the turn on sequence from octopus.

All goes well untill the scheduled charge starts, the Zappi immediately drops out, even the car thinks it's not plugged in.