Hi, when i plug the car in to charge octopus sets a schedule. This is fine except my home battery kicks in as well to help charge the car which of course i do not want. Short of plugging the car in at night i cant seem to stop this happening. Any ideas on how to resolve this. Car always connects to octopus with no issues whne i plug it in …..cheers
Assuming you have GE charger and batteries, I thought there was a toggle to prevent this in the charger settings?
If you have another brand of charger, as I do (Zappi) then it's into the realms of Home Assistant to prevent this, which I am exploring currently.
You're on Intelligent Go by the sounds of it, as are we. If I charge our car during the day or outside the off peak window, I just charge the battery as well, as ALL electric bought in that slot will be at the cheap rate, as long as you've allowed Octopus to set the charging schedule. You cannot just set a boost charge, it must be an Octopus controlled schedule.
If you have a GE charger then you could set a schedule in the EVC section of the app e.g. 23:30 to 05:30 if you're on Intelligent Octopus Go. Also set it to Standalone (Grid Charging only) under Change EV Configuration. In the Octopus app turn of Smart Control which avoids potential repetative notifications from Octopus which they send when Octopus create a schedule. The downside of this is that you won't get any cheap rate slots outside of the 23:30 to 05:30 window which Octopus Smart Control might give you but you will be able to plug your car in at anytime and forget about it and during the 23:30 to 05:30 GE schedule you will get cheap rate for charging the car, the house battery and house load.
As well as the home assistant/EV settings route, the other way to resolve this is to ensure that the CT clamps are positioned such that the inverter cannot 'see' the EV load, e.g.
Grid supply -- Meter --- EV CT clamp and connection -- Givenergy CT clamp -- fusebox
An electrician can rearrange your fusebox like this for you
Ade p WonderWatt provides a simple and reliable solution to this through its Octopus Intelligent Go integration. Works very well with my Zappi and AC3.
SteveClubley In the Octopus app turn of Smart Control which avoids potential repetative notifications from Octopus which they send when Octopus create a schedule.
Surely that's not just turning off notifications - it's disabling smart charging completely, which is the entire point of IOG.
DD
Yeah agreed. If a GE schedule is set then it over rides the Octopus schedule so might as well turn off the Octopus one (therefore turning off its notifications). As I said the disadvantage is you will loose some Octopus slots earlier in the evening if Octopus tried to provide them. In my experience this has been rare. I made the suggestion as a way of stopping home battery discharge into EV. Like everything it’s down to individual system setup and personal preference.
SteveClubley DD
As I said the disadvantage is you will loose some Octopus slots earlier in the evening if Octopus tried to provide them. In my experience this has been rare.
I think you missed my point - IOG is contingent on giving Octopus full control over your charging. It's not just about missing out on a few bonus slots.
Just do the ct clamp thing and make sure your charger is IOG compatible to get extra cheap periods - came in handy with our new heat pump
DD IOG is contingent on giving Octopus full control over your charging
That's not quite correct. You don't have to use Smart Charging to be an IOG user. The only ongoing requirement is that you have an active authorisation for integration with a supported vehicle or charge point and you keep any period of disconnection under 30 days.
In fact I emailed Octopus last year and said I didn't want to use Smart Charging, and they replied "We completely understand your preference regarding smart charging."
Seems to be the case. My IOG integration is with the EV and not the GE charger. My bills reflect the 7p rate for the 6 hours.
That was my point of getting a compatible charger as we got noticeably longer 7p times now we have a Hypervolt 3, sometimes plugging in mid afternoon we were getting late afternoon with a break for teatime then from 7pm all night. This was handy with the heat pump and lack of solar. When we used the ev it hardly ever gave any extra time