GivEnergy EV Charger Functionality

I have a solar system which was installed in the summer of 2023 that includes GivEnergy inverter and battery. I'm currently on a very reasonable tariff which comes to an end in March this year. As I had a good tariff I was simply charging my car at any time, although have been experimenting with charging at night as I'm looking at switching to one of Octopus energy's smart tariffs that give me cheap off peak electricity.

I currently control that via my car app which simply allows me charge the car in the time window and I've been changing whenever I see that I am exporting electricity. It works but not an elegant solution.

I'm considering the GivEnergy EVV charger that I see allows you to time your charging and allows for excess electricity from the solar panels to do the same with a CT clamp. I am wondering if I can do both at the same time.. For example, can I set the timer on the EV Charger to charge from 23:30 to 5:30 but also have any excess electricity during the day also charge the car?

Thanks for any advice and apologies if this is silly question.

Bikeboy Sorry, I can't answer your question (which doesn't seem silly at all). But is your car compatible with Intelligent Octopus tariff? You can qualify if either your car is compatible, or if your chargepoint is compatible (the GE chargepoint is not, currently).

IOG changes the economies of solar completely around: pointless to charge car from solar when you can instead charge overnight for 7.5p/kWh, and export all your solar for 15p/kWh.

DD Thanks DD,

Yes my car is compatible with the Intelligent Octopus Tariffs, I'm considering Octopus Go (rather than Flux) which, if I understand it correctly, is simple a cheap rate from 23:30 to 5:30. My solar performs very well and even at this time of year my battery can be fully charged by early afternoon and rather than export any additional power I'd like to use that to charge the car rather than wait for the 23:30 time slot.

Bikeboy I'm considering Octopus Go (rather than Flux) which, if I understand it correctly, is simple a cheap rate from 23:30 to 5:30.

There are two tariffs: standard Go is 9p for 4 hours overnight, with 8p export. Intelligent Go is 7.5p for 6 hours overnight, with 15p export; but for the latter you are expected to "smart-charge" your car: ie you let Octopus choose exactly when during the night the car charges (which can extend outside the usual 6 cheap hours - last night, my car started charging at 11pm, and the night before it charged from 5:30 to 6:30. Any extra slots where the car charges, the whole house gets charged for import at the cheap rate.)

A possible complication with using the car-based integration for IOG: it will require that the chargepoint always makes power available, and Octopus will tell the car when to draw power. I'm not quite sure how that will work for solar charging, since this way round, you want the car to be always willing to accept power, and the chargepoint chooses when and how much to offer. (A lot of people just seem to ignore the "requirement" to smart-charge, and just charge during the cheap hours, treating it like a better version of standard Go.)

[I use a Zappi, with the chargepoint-based IOG integration. This does allow solar charging, since the charger is left in solar-charging mode, and Octopus invoke "boosts" overnight to implement charging from grid. I had to take steps to prevent charging from excess solar. Instead, I disable battery-charging from solar during the day, and just export everything I generate (less the house consumption)]

Interesting, it sounds like the Octopus tariff may give me everything I want. I have no desire to export any energy and would be happy if I use exactly the same as I generate.

My ultimate goal is charge my car from solar as much as possible, then top up to full charge during the cheap night rate. I've got an older "non-intelligent" charger so hoping that the GivEnergy charger can be set up to charge my car with any excess solar generation, and then top up at night.