I have been told by Octopus that I cannot buy electricity overnight to charge the battery (13kwh All-in-One battery and Gateway). As the solar doesn't fully charge the battery (rarely above 30% - but they aren't brilliantly sited), I would like to get some power cheaper overnight to top up use of solar in the day. I am a complete novice on this so would love some advice. Have waited over 20 mins for Givenergy to answer the phone today so hope someone in the community can help!
SLGW Strange advice from Octopus. Did they install your All in one or are they your energy supplier.
Whoever installed your all in one should have walked you through this, but you can use the GivEnergy app or the Portal to charge your battery at any time. If you haven’t been shown how to do this, do go back to your installer and get them to show you how to do this.
You do incur conversion losses when charging and discharging the battery so its better to charge when your electricity supplier is charging you a cheap rate, and then use the stored electricity when it would otherwise be more expensive.
You absolutely can buy electricity overnight to charge the battery, the price you pay will depend upon the tariff you are on. Most of the best deals require you to have a smart meter, but even if you don’t, you can get your meter swapped for a twin rate meter and go onto the Economy 7 tariff which gives you 7 hours of cheap electricity overnight in return for a more expensive day rate. You’d run whatever high usage devices such as washing machine and tumble dryer overnight on the cheaper rate and charge your all in one up, then during the day the AIO discharges, supplying the stored electricity to your home.
SLGW I have been told by Octopus that I cannot buy electricity overnight to charge the battery (13kwh All-in-One battery and Gateway).
Doesn't really have much to do with Octopus, unless you're on Octopus Intelligent Flux tariff, in which case they are correct. Which import tariff are you on ?
Technically, it's easy to implement - don't waste your time waiting to speak to GivEnergy, we should be able to help you here.
In the app or at portal.givenergy.cloud (my inverter web page)
Set eco to on
Set timed charge to on
Set the time the time charge needs to start (when your off peak electricity starts) and stop (end time of off peak).
Set the charge level to 100% or 70% or something else as preferred.
Don't worry if the house runs off mains after the battery is charged. It's cheaper to run off mains during off peak and hold the battery for when the peak rate price starts.
What octopus tariff are you going to choose?
Go and Intelligent go can be good for those with electric vehicles.
Flux and intelligent flux good for batteries, although probably avoid October-March as there's not much solar and therefore there are better tariffs for those times.
Agile is quite complicated and would need some form of automation to manage it best. E.g. PredBat or WonderWatt or similar.
Cosy can be good for heat pump users.
Or move from octopus if you want, there's other suppliers.
I personally wouldn't move away from octopus, but others I think use EON? Next drive is it (car not required).
Avoid Scottish power and British Gas for customer service reasons - and because they dont like people charging their battery to later sell back to the grid aka brown energy
TX200 EON? Next drive is it (car not required).
I think that has changed with the V5 tariff
Thank you all so much! I am currently on Flexible Octopus, happy with them generally and was about to change to Octopus Flux or Octopus Intelligent Flux - hence having a row with them about the way to buy cheaper overnight electricity to charge the battery. We don't have an electric vehicle so not an issue for us. Will now look at how to set eco and will get back to the installer. Any ore tips gratefully received - and I'll come back to you if there are issues as I am not tech savvy. Once again, many thanks
The CS teams don't know enough about the niche tariffs.
Sometimes have to email smart@octopus.energy to get the right people, although they are often quite busy.
Intelligent flux can be a pain to sign up for - if you have multiple inverters it won't work. Hopefully it works with the newer all in one kit, not sure, but certainly works if you have one Hybrid or one AC3.
It also doesn't like people who have MFA/2FA turned on on their givenegy account. How it copes with this new givenegy SSO who knows!
But it's certainly good if you generate more than 1.4 x your consumption each month. Search for Tim and Kat's Green walk on YouTube for more info on tariff break even points.
I'm hoping to go back onto intelligent flux in March. Doesn't seem worth moving off agile just yet, need more sun.
But for you, moving to flux or intelligent flux is probably better than being on the standard tariff, save a bit on overnight electric and try to avoid peak rate usage.
geoffreycoan You’d run whatever high usage devices such as washing machine and tumble dryer overnight on the cheaper rate and charge your all in one up, then during the day the AIO discharges, supplying the stored electricity to your home.
Quoting you, but for @SLGW - This is what I do - load shift dishwasher/tumble/washer to cheap hours and also charge the AIO up as well. Currently I use EON Next Drive V4 (which supported battery only) and is 7 hours long. So a full 7 hours of cheap electricity and the AIO usually will last the entire day, so effectively running the house of cheap electric.
If you don't have an EV (like I don't), I would personally look around for a good Economy 7 tariff and use that. You can set up the AIO to automatically charge up over the 7 hour period (I would also adjust the charge rate to attempt to charge the battery up over all that time to keep the cells warm) and then to revert to supply house load.
Depending on which version of the AIO you have (3.6 or 6 kW) you should be able to run most stuff during the day without going back to the grid for "extra" (you will always get a spike when something switches on as the inverter takes a moment or two to play catchup) and if you are mindful of how many heavier use devices you have running at the same time you can reduce drawing from the grid during the day. For instance when cooking, I will boil the kettle, then turn on the electric hob (if the oven is running) to ensure that the power draw stays within the AIO inverter limit
The Flux tariffs are good if you have lots of excess solar, but if your panels aren't brilliantly sited, might not be greate at the moment. And they have an expensive period 4pm to 7pm.
What's your typical daily electricity usage? If 13kWh is enough to power your house for the whole day, then filling your battery for cheapest possible price is one approach. In my region, plain old eco-7 is 13.17p overnight, whereas Flux is 14.99p overnight. (Eco7 has a very slightly higher standing charge, though.)
If your daily usage is significantly below 13kWh, then you might look to export the excess from battery, as well as any generated solar, which does tend to make Flux a bit more attractive - exporting during the peak (in my region) would earn you 26.6pkWh. (Though if it's a new install, you may not yet be set up for export.)
CW I think that has changed with the V5 tariff
seems to suggest that, until "Next Solar Boost" becomes available, they will accept solar-battery-only onto Eon Next Drive V5
DD That is really good news. From my perspective, a static battery is just the same as a mobile one, and we should all be encouraged to shift our energy 😃
Edit: And that is the main reason I moved from Octopus Energy
CW I agree both uses should be encouraged to draw energy overnight but there is a difference between a mobile and a static domestic one and that is size. A lot of EVs will be 50-60kWh plus but a domestic one 10-15kWh potentially. The energy companies model their prices by what they think the average consumer is going to use and an EV owner is going to draw more energy overnight on average than a person just charging a domestic battery.
I expect this is why they are intending to create tariffs for each use type.
For clarity I am an Eon customer and have an EV and a solar/domestic battery system.
Wnen contemplating Octopus tariff changes, can I recomend OCTOPRICE https://octopriceuk.vercel.app/
Once set up, this looks at your actual usage and allows you to compare the different tariffs.
As said earlier, I consider Intelligent Octopus Flux to be a summer only tariff - Octoprice recommends April to October for me, It then recommends Intelligent Octopus Go for the winter months.
DD As soon as Solar Boost comes out Octopus can shove Agile where the sun doesn't shine 😃
SLGW I too am on Flexible Octopus, having been kicked off GO after 2yrs since we don't have an EV. But the night rate is less than half the day rate, so I am happy with that. The problem I had was establishing the timing of the night rate which doesn't seem to be published, even on the bills. But currently it is 0030 to 0730 changing to 0130 to 0830 during summer time, presumably to tie in with night storage heaters.
Since we have 2x 8.2kWh batteries, they need the full 7 hrs to recharge and luckily they and our Gen 1 AC 3.0 is in the garage and doesn't have any temp issues limiting the charge rate.
Vestas I think they have said that you can cut over to Drive V5 without an EV whilst you wait for the Solar Boost tariff to exit testing
CW I read that but I'll wait for now. I suspect Solar Boost will arrive after the price rises in April so I may as well leave it until then.