Any plans to support Intelligent Octopus?

I’ve just switched to Intelligent, the tariff works just fine with the Givenergy integration but it doesn’t understand the timed charging slots. When the car is scheduled to charge outside the normal cheap rate times then that slot also becomes cheap rate. In this case you need to stop the car charging the from battery and ideally charge the battery as well as the car to take advantage of the extra slot.

I could probably do this with some of my own code and the API but ideally Givenergy would understand this.

You might be able to ask Octopus if they can take control of the battery, so they charge it ( a bit like agile automation I guess). Not sure if it's a currently available option, but sure I've heard it mentioned.

Otherwise I guess it's write your own automation

Currently on Octopus Go which works well for me as I know the low rate period during which I charge the car perhaps a couple of times a week, additionally I top up the battery at this time of year and run washing machine and dishwasher to maximise the use of the low rate. My Go rate lasts to mid March so then I will need to make a choice. But just at the moment I don't understand Intelligent Octopus. What I believe is that the charging of the car is in the hands of the app providing you have a supported car/charger. I have a Tesla Model 3 so I think that that will work OK. But what I don't know is how I will need to adapt to top up the battery and run the white goods, is there still a fixed period of lower rate supply which is between known hours . And when the car is charging as controlled by IO how do I protect the charge on the battery so that it does not use that stored supply to push into the car and exhaust the GE Battery.
Any advice and insight would be gratefully received.

GrahamShaul On Intelligent you get the night rate between 11:30pm and 5:30am which is great for topping up your home battery and running things like the tumble dryer.

The car itself is scheduled to charge via the Octopus app, it normally does it during the 11:30pm-5:30pm period but sometimes it will try to charge outside this time, but will give you night rate during that period as well.

Right now I’m preventing it from charging outside the time I charge my home battery by saying I need my car charged by 5:30am and keeping my car charger disabled during 11:30pm. I need to do this or it will discharge my home battery into the car.

What would be better is if the Givenergy system understood the extra car charging periods and automatically charged the battery during this time as well.

Been looking at this, but to apply, you have to enter a car / car charger. Just emailed octopus as to how I can take advantage with my solar/battery system. Do I need some form of automation?
I assumed I'd just set a charge time that corresponds with the 6 hour period?

Roberto

They won't let you onto Intelligent without an EV, and I think even then only some specific EV's.

I am on Octopus Go without an EV currently as you could switch yourself to it, and there hasn't always been a requirement for an EV, but the new T & C's for that state you also need one, at least in theory.

As far as I'm aware there isn't a tariff yet specifically for solar + battery only customers. Octopus have ones for EV's (Go + Intelligent) and there is a new one for ASHP customers, but not one where battery is the main driver behind it as of now.

Octopus is, apparently, working on a GE tariff but no details released yet.

ToothyChris

Very interesting if it's good, I would also like to get paid better than 4.1p/kwh which Go limits you to, daylight robbery!

Any source for this? Can't see anything on a quick Google.

LordHippos
It was first mentioned by one of the GE guys (or a close accociate) on one of the FB groups. I then got direct confirmation from Octopus customer services. I wonder if it will be as 'managed' as the Octopus Tesla tariff? I hope it is more flexible, personally.

ToothyChris

I'm OK with them managing it so long as it ultimately gives me cheap bills, and doesn't disadvantage me by having my battery empty when I need it.

Goal with solar is really to help grid demand by shifting outside of peak and also myself for the same reason, get my average price per imported kwh down as low as possible.

Ideal world I'd be cost neutral on electric all year but I'd settle for low bills instead!

Re Givenergy Tariff
This was perhaps me. I found Givenergy hiding away in the Octopus Kraken API that runs intelligent Octopus (amongst heat pumps and some other interesting stuff)
When questioned GE said they were hoping on having a tariff with Octopus soon (who have had the ability to control GE inverters for years through the Octopus R&D App)

Intelligent Slot Reporting direct into GE is however unlikely. Their API works fine for cars directly controlled but those running via the Ohme get spoof/bogus times back which is of no use.
This API amongst all sorts of reverse engineered EV chargers I did was handed to GE a year back but is not being pursued.

It can be done by using the Ohme API but I had their CTO come looking for me 2 years ago asking what I was upto - asked me to stop so that was that.

hoggy
CTO ?

positor1

Chief Technology Officer

Essentially the guy you probably don't want asking you questions 😆

LordHippos looking at no3 of their FAQs, it says

"The Intelligent Octopus tariff is for customers with low carbon technology at home, including electric vehicle home charging, heat pumps or home batteries. Any electricity used by low carbon technology as well as any other electricity used in your home during off-peak hours will be charged at the night rate."

Roberto

I don't believe that is the intent behind it, if you read the FAQ so much of it talks about EV's, and if you check the page https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/ where it says what you need to join, it specifically talks about having an EV or car charger (certain ones).

I don't think they'll let you onto it without that requirement fulfilled.

LordHippos sort of what I thought too. But, they specifically mention battery systems. I've sent them an email to confirm. Let's see what they say.

Roberto

They do, but it's currently a beta product as AFAIK it's limited to EV/hybrid owners.

I did see that the latest API mentions a number of different ASHP models which may indicate that they are readying it for their ASHP installations.

Before you can sign up and activate the service the app has to connect to and control a test charge to your vehicle. Without a suitable vehicle then you cannot pass that step.

Got a reply from Octopus late last night to say along the lines of " Intelligent is only available to customers who already have an EV....you cant proceed further without one"
I'll reply and quote their words at them as per above !

Roberto good luck with that! Maybe try Cosy Octopus instead as the 2 daily charging periods make far better use of the battery in winter months.

Their sandpit, their rules.

I'm not sure why you would want to insist that they bend the rules just for you.This is a beta program, released to allow them to test and see if they can move the market forward. There is no other power provider being as innovative or as forward thinking as Octopus. Yet, online forums are full of people trying to circumvent their rules and game the system, often for tiny monetary values.

If everyone acts like this then there is a much greater chance that they will limit the public access to their beta programs, which would be a great shame.

In essence, can everyone not be dickheads please and try and play by the rules?

Oh, and while you are busy cherry-picking quotes out of the T+Cs to argue your point you might also wish to consider these terms:

Which clearly states that the service is not compatible with all LCTs
and

the conditions of service require that you are able to answer the qualifying questions to get the service. Those questions include the make and model of your EV and the make and model of the charging unit. As you do not appear to have these then by definition you are precluded from joining the tariff.
Lastly, their integrations MAY include heat-pumps and home batteries, but there is nothing to say that it is obligatory.

tsouthwell Thanks. I was hoping that telling IO that the car was required by 5:30am would avoid the battery draining into the car so it is good to have that confirmed. However I am sorry that I did not understand your remark 'keeping my car charger disabled during 11:30pm' could you expand on that ?

I’m on IO and this is what I do to make it work with the batteries.
Removed all restrictions from the charger, it was previously set to only work on Octopus Go times.
I have set the car to charge off peak starting at 23:30, this stops the car charging immediately when it is plugged in, but IO can start it earlier if the schedule dictates. At the moment my batteries are normally empty by the time the schedule wants to start, in the summer this might be different but acceptable. This is set in the Tesla app under Schedule -> Charge -> Enable Scheduled Charging and set the time.
Setting the required by time to 0530, so that the batteries don’t get discharged to the car first thing in the morning.

GrahamShaul Effectively my cars wallbox charger is smart so I configured it to be disabled until 11:30pm

Hello all - newbie here!
I've been on Octopus Go Faster since I had my 9.5kWh installed in September and I'm hoping to change to Intelligent Octopus at the end of this month.
I have seen how to manually change the battery charge time to fit off-peak IO if required, but my question is - does the smart tariff automatically change on the battery dashboard or is there some way to do it myself?
Thanks in advance

L80MMM Which dashboard do you mean?
My current interest as an IO user is to automate around the way charging works as observed to date. Octopus seem to set multiple charge windows and update the app accordingly so it’s clear when these windows are to be. Then the charging happens in bursts in these time windows, so for example an Intelligent slot may be 00:30 to 01:30 but charging actually happens between 00:38 and 01:21 (making these times up here to try to articulate it but that’s the sort of thing that happens). My experience is that Octopus are pretty clever with this and it works fine but isn’t highly predictable beyond the stipulated time windows in the app.
The reason that this is of interest to me is in handling battery behaviour which is going to mean Home Assistant automation from my perspective to identify that the car is charging then change battery mode (e.g. charge or pause); with another automation to establish that car charging has ended and set mode again as required (e.g. Eco). All thoughts on this approach welcomed 🙂

As a Newby on Intelligent Octopus I've been struggling with Cheap Rate charging too.

The IO EV charge works fine, and is approx 66% Grid and 34% Giv Battery. I need the battery to meet home demand in the morning until the PV kicks in, but there is a risk it will have insufficient charge.
The only workaround I can think of is to let the battery charge the car (I don't know how to stop it anyway) then to charge it at cheap rates. This does work, however, it is at risk of a late IO charge slot preventing the recharge in the cheap period.

Surely there is a more elegant solution than this?

Speedy You're facing the same problem as me and the solution set isn't abundant! You could set your battery to charge during part (or all) of the cheap rate window; if you have solar and expect some generation in the next day then set a percentage lower than 100%. If the battery is set to reach a target percentage it will not power your house or car charger during this period. In the app, go to Charge Mode and set 'Solar and Grid'; with Start and End Times; and Charge Up To.
I'm about 90% sure I know how to handle all time windows for battery using Home Assistant to help when these situations arise - just waiting on dismal weather to prove/disprove my theory 😄

My Ev charger is not part of the house load as far as the inverter knows. You just need to put the ct clamp in the right place (have to do a search for where). Therefore it never draws from the battery and just charges when Intelligent says so. Obviously this means you can’t charge from solar

SimonClarke technically you might still be able to.

If the car charger spots the export and it’s enough for the car charger to use, then… 🙂

TX200 I don’t think it can? It’s a hypervolt so on paper it can but the ct clamp is not where it needs to be for that to work or at least that’s what I understood from the installer

SimonClarke might depend on the brand of charger. Some can do it I believe. The car charger needs to monitor the house and car usage - so right before the electric meter, and would need to have some kind of mode that auto detects export and does something with it (e.g. zappi eco or eco+ I think). I’m not familiar with hypervolt so not sure if that can do it or what wiring arrangement is in place obviously!

TX200 it can definitely do it IF wired for it. I think it has a separate supply?

As long as the Hypervolt's CT clamp is on the cable coming out of the meter, it's able to sense when power is going out to the grid and charge the car accordingly. I have one and do this, as well as having the GE CT clamp 'after' the tap off to the separate consumer unit feeding the Hypervolt, so that the inverter doesn't see any power going to the car and discharge the battery to supply it. Been running like this for a year now.

SimonP yes that’s it

x5toledo @Speedy The overnight IO setup is similar to the one used for Octopus Go, just 6 hours instead of 4.

Set the battery charge period to match the overnight IO cheap rate and the target SoC to allow PV capture the following day. You can do this using HA with the GivTCP SmartTarget addon or run the same code as a standalone program, PALM, located at www.github.com/salewis38/palm

If the battery starts the night at a value above the next-day target it will discharge into any load, including the EV to get to the correct level, but no lower. This isn't a bad thing as it recognises that stored PV is the second-cheapest form of electricity after direct PV usage and ahead of off-peak.

Thanks Steve. I have observed that the battery discharges into the EV (When Octopus is EV charging) and that is what I want.
If I set the Battery Timed Charge SoC to 50% that should allow it to be recharged cheaply after the EV charge slot. Im guessing that I don't need to set the Timed Charge period to start immediately after the EV charge has completed. I was doing this to stop the Battery charging up to 100% at the start of the Timed Charge period. But with SoC set to 50% this isn't going to happen.

Many Thanks again.

If the GE battery was charged by solar and then discharged into the car, guess sensible.

If the GE battery is charged from the mains, and later discharged into the car battery, then it's probably not cost effective - due to AC/DC/AC conversion losses.

Maybe not an issue, but something to be aware of if not already.