Home Charging Methods & Tariffs in the UK

[D00notD00d]

No vehicle to grid dependency.

No EVSE dependency.

No smart meter dependency.

Car must be online so that Charge Anytime servers can communicate as and when in order to adjust profile / timer remotely for lowest tariff slot within your schedule.

Normal behaviour to initially start charging before pausing (still at the lowest rate). Cycle will continue until charge level and / or departure time has been reached.

Note that the only other dependency is that this only works at a home location where you have an OVO account.

I like not being dependent on lots of dependencies

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[W1NGE]

I like not being dependent on lots of dependencies

Now there's an independent thought!

 

[rb33gl]

Thanks for the reply Richard.

Not sure how you could know otherwise, but my garage does have a separate 32amp fused supply for the car charger, downstream from the main consumer unit, which in turn has a a separate RCD breaker for the garage cable. The overall supply is 100 amp. Overloading isn’t really a threat, particularly since charging occurs overnight when nothing else is in operation. The upgrade work was done by a qualified electrician, including EVs, sourced from the gov.Uk site.

40 amp supplies for electric showers (we don’t have one) & cooking predated Smart Meters. No one needs a Smart Meter to load balance inside their home? Load balancing via Smart Meters is optional and more for upstream purposes?

You’ve said that Octopus don’t need to connect to the charger but the data cabling requirement for Smart Meter driven load balancing seems to contradict that? If I’ve misunderstood please explain further.

If a new cable could be implemented cheaply and unobtrusively fine, but for me it would have required cabling through 200 year old 2ft thick walls, cabling along the wall outside the house, digging up the drive, and cabling through the garage wall. Unlike OI, the OVO solution doesn‘t require that.

It is possible that the data cable isn’t mandatory and Octopus misadvised me, or that they were upscoping to meet their own compliance bar.

I was wrong - I think load balancing is done by my charger using the data wire in the Doncaster cable to a flow sensor on the incoming supply to the house.

I can see why you wouldn't want such extensive works. Ours was pretty straightforward.

 

[bn8959]

You should consider a Zappi with the Harvi.
The chargers require a Current Transformer aka Clamp around the grid feed cable to monitor overall grid use. This allows the charger to scale back its charging rate if house use goes up and risks overloading incoming supply (80a, 100a etc). These CTs are connected via a twisted pair data cable. Hence this requirement for a ‘data’ connection (it isn’t data, just a very low voltage analogue connection that works best on a twisted pair data cable).
The Harvi is a passively powered box that wirelessly transmits the current info to the Zappi EVSE, which would save you the need for extra cabling.

OI and OVO etc require EITHER a compatible charger OR car, so if your car is on the list, it doesn’t matter what ESVE you have.

 

[D00notD00d]

You should consider a Zappi with the Harvi.
The chargers require a Current Transformer aka Clamp around the grid feed cable to monitor overall grid use. This allows the charger to scale back its charging rate if house use goes up and risks overloading incoming supply (80a, 100a etc). These CTs are connected via a twisted pair data cable. Hence this requirement for a ‘data’ connection (it isn’t data, just a very low voltage analogue connection that works best on a twisted pair data cable).
The Harvi is a passively powered box that wirelessly transmits the current info to the Zappi EVSE, which would save you the need for extra cabling.

OI and OVO etc require EITHER a compatible charger OR car, so if your car is on the list, it doesn’t matter what ESVE you have.

My supply & usage doesn’t result in an overloading threat.

Octopus advised me only that, for OI compatibility, they needed a ‘data’ connection from the Smart meter. I assume that’s primarily for their upstream load management, - https://www.smartme.co.uk/load-control.html - rather than to prevent overloading downstream from the meter. The news of their data cabling requirement ended my conversation with Octopus. They didn’t offer another option, they said there wasn’t a wireless alternative.

I assume the Octopus ‘data‘ cable from the smart meter must connect to a compatible charger, so don’t understand the assertion that OI needs only a compatible car and is agnostic as to the charger. Happy to be corrected on that. The OVO solution definitely requires only a compatible car.

Are you saying that together, a Zappi and, a Harvi satisfy the Octopus requirement to be able to talk (wirelessly) to a charger via your Smart Meter? Are you using that solution for OI eligibility, or a self generation purpose?

Thanks for your help, I like to know how stuff works. Mostly to avoid being sold stuff that i don’t need, which doesn’t work, or which will soon be made redundant by the next product to come along.

 

[bn8959]

My supply & usage doesn’t result in an overloading threat.

Octopus advised me only that, for OI compatibility, they needed a ‘data’ connection from the Smart meter. I assume that’s primarily for their upstream load management, - https://www.smartme.co.uk/load-control.html - rather than to prevent overloading downstream from the meter. The news of their data cabling requirement ended my conversation with Octopus. They didn’t offer another option, they said there wasn’t a wireless alternative.

I assume the Octopus ‘data‘ cable from the smart meter must connect to a compatible charger, so don’t understand the assertion that OI needs only a compatible car and is agnostic as to the charger. Happy to be corrected on that. The OVO solution definitely requires only a compatible car.

Are you saying that together, a Zappi and, a Harvi satisfy the Octopus requirement to be able to talk (wirelessly) to a charger via your Smart Meter? Are you using that solution for OI eligibility, or a self generation purpose?

Thanks for your help, I like to know how stuff works. Mostly to avoid being sold stuff that i don’t need, which doesn’t work, or which will soon be made redundant by the next product to come along.

I’m confused by that! Smart meters don’t have any interface you can connect to, so what they say doesn’t make any sense at all.
If it’s about the EVSE monitoring grid use, then the Zappi and Harvi would satisfy that requirement (wirelessly).

 

[kurand]

When they say

they needed a ‘data’ connection from the Smart meter.

do they just mean that they need to be able to communicate successfully with the Smart Meter? I.E. They need to be able to establish a WAN connection from their servers to the Smart Meter so that they can interrogate the consumption?

 

[D00notD00d]

When they say

do they just mean that they need to be able to communicate successfully with the Smart Meter? I.E. They need to be able to establish a WAN connection from their servers to the Smart Meter so that they can interrogate the consumption?

I don’t know the purpose of the data connection requirement to the Smart Meter then the car. The link here gives some possible uses, not all of which directly relate to EV charging. They could be using that as a Trojan Horse for a future purpose.

https://www.smartme.co.uk/load-control.html

In comparison it seems that OVO haven’t over thought the solution and have kept it simple. They only connect to the car.

if any OI users understand the purpose of their requirement/ their solution I’d be interested to know.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

I suspect the data cable bit is for their Indra pro charger that will also integrate with solar panels so that it can tell what power is going where by using CT clamps

 

[D00notD00d]

When they say

do they just mean that they need to be able to communicate successfully with the Smart Meter? I.E. They need to be able to establish a WAN connection from their servers to the Smart Meter so that they can interrogate the consumption?

Octopus want a hard wire from the meter to the charger but also claim that only the car needs to be compatible. I don’t understand!
OVO only need connectivity to the Car.
Please also see my other reply and the link there.

 

[D00notD00d]

I suspect the data cable bit is for their Indra pro charger that will also integrate with solar panels so that it can tell what power is going where by using CT clamps

That may be relevant if you have solar panels & that charger, but isn’t for me.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

That may be relevant if you have solar panels & that charger, but isn’t for me.

Nor me! Or was Indra pro the Ovo one? Maybe it was actually. No idea why some people have this info from Octopus

 

[Edwos]

Hi,

My Hypervolt is installed and I’m about 2 weeks away from taking delivery of the long awaited 4S ST (Carmine, pan roof, side skirts, sports Chrono, Bose, black badges, etc)

Currently with Shell Energy so it’s a no brainier for me to move to Octopus, however here is the total newbie question… And sorry if covered elsewhere, but, can I join up with Octopus GO (as opposed to Intelligent) and purely control the charge of the car via the My Porsche app, as opposed to having to run the charging sequence via the Octopus app? If not, why not? And does it really matter?

I’ll be using the Porsche supplied PMC equipment at work where I have had a commando socket installed, noting that work does not use Octopus for it’s electricity supply.

Basically, at with via PMC I will be using the My Porsche app for charging, so can i do the same at home with Hypervolt and Octopus Go..?

Thanks!

 

[bn8959]

As far as I understand with OI, you just need to do at least one ‘Intelligent’ charge, then you can disable the Octopus control and just benefit from the 6 hours cheap and use the car to schedule or your EVSE. I plan to move to OI once I get my GTS ST in September (hopefully!) and plan to use Zappi for scheduling and PV integration. I believe I can still get OI due to it supporting the car directly. But I don’t believe there is an ongoing requirement to let Octopus manage your charging (if you don’t want).

 

[Midlifecrisis]

As far as I understand with OI, you just need to do at least one ‘Intelligent’ charge, then you can disable the Octopus control and just benefit from the 6 hours cheap and use the car to schedule or your EVSE. I plan to move to OI once I get my GTS ST in September (hopefully!) and plan to use Zappi for scheduling and PV integration. I believe I can still get OI due to it supporting the car directly. But I don’t believe there is an ongoing requirement to let Octopus manage your charging (if you don’t want).

This is exactly right. We are not currently using the smart charging, just the cheap electricity ?

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