We've saved a fortune! Is Intelligent Octopus Go the best tariff for EV drivers?

[@MrEV]

How much have you saved with your tariff? If you want to join Octopus, use this link to get us both £50: share.octopus.energy/free-sage-191

[@philwilliams23]

I use a sprinter diesel van that averages 28mpg. I'm planning on getting a well depreciated 1 owner EV and not having to spend £2k+ a year on fuel, probably LFP technology. Can't wait to change my electric energy tariff! Great video - thank you! 👍🙂

[@benhanson3228]

We've also been on Intelligent Octopus Go for a full year. In that time I drove an EV for 16,000 miles, and paid around £350 in electric for the privilege. For contrast, we used to spend £350 PER MONTH in petrol to do the same journeys.

[@MrEV]

That’s absolutely amazing!

[@change2023now]

That's great but I have a genuine concern surrounding EVs/EV tariffs. I know for sure the bait and switch protocol is in play. The masses will and are praising the cheap energy but this will soon turn into a dystopian nightmare when the government and big tech have full control over your transportation and energy data. Don't get too excited.

[@ziggarillo]

​@@change2023now Don't worry, tin foil hats are cheap and easy to make 😂

[@change2023now]

@@ziggarillo 🐑

[@ziggarillo]

@@change2023now That's rich, coming from a bacofoiled turkey 🤣

[@chrisyates399]

Just bought a Tesla model Y and switched from British Gas to Octopus. Paid £899 for an Ohme e-pod charger which they are due to install in 2 weeks - I'll then switch in the app to the intelligent tariff and be filling up for around £4!! I can't wait!

[@antoniopalmero4063]

I’m on the basic GO tariff , 00:30 - 05:30 is 8.5p and peak is 24.8p . So far so good , I have Solar and 7kwh of storage so it’s working out quite well for me .

[@howieb2001]

We have a caravan in Devon, 100 miles away. Our last trip, 275 miles including local journeys, cost £5. Model Y Long Range covering 4 miles per kWh at £0.07 on Intelligent Octopus Go. They don't seem to mention these sorts of results in the Telegraph.

[@S2KGAY]

@@howieb2001 the amount of frankly bullshit out there from most wings is staggering. This is from someone who still considers himself a ‘petrolhead’ at heart despite having an ev as a daily. IMO they certainly make vastly more sense with a home charging set up just because of the ridiculous price differential between home and public charging. So many people who drive ice cars have no grasp of this. Some might say the longer the better!

[@WolfiesWheels]

we've also had Octopus Go Intelligent for some time, and 2 EVs. it works brilliantly for us when combined with the solar and 13.2kw battery. We charge the battery overnight using the 7p rate, normally only about 10 kw to fill it so that's 70p. then in the day we export all the solar at 15p per kw so even running 2 EVs our electric bills in the summer are negative. So far this year we have around £350 charges in electricity and £426 back for exports. And around 8,000 miles done between the cars on home charging included in those numbers! It is of course all a bit man maths as I've not taken into account the cost of solar and battery installation !

[@chrisdanmorris88]

In terms of comparison with Agile, I've found the best way to tell if it's worthwhile staying on Intelligent Go is to look at the average kWh price for all consumption on the bill. For us, the average last month was 10.9p/kWh, 10.3p/kWh the month before that. So very much working for us!

[@nervousfrog101]

Do you have a home battery or solar? I considered Agile but I managed an average of 7.27p in September on 939kWh which I think will be pretty hard to beat on Agile.

[@chrisdanmorris88]

No solar or battery, so not going to be able to match your 7.27p!

[@gregcooper2719]

I’d never considered Octopus until my employer announced the end of company cars, but moved to a car allowance and the option of Octopus Salary Sacrifice. No obligation to go on the IG tariff but I have done and run my dishwasher and washing machine overnight to save pennies. I do a lot of miles but mainly within the Midlands so charging overnight at home is more than sufficient. I’ve gone from putting £250-£300 petrol a month into an Octavia to spending around £20 a month on electric, cost to my employer is around £80 per month for mileage, so we’re all saving

[@StephenButlerOne]

Im some one that's been watching tour old stuff. I only found you about a month ago. Alot of good stuff, roadtips and info.

[@MrEV]

Thank you!

[@StephenButlerOne]

@@MrEV youre welcome. If youre running low on ideas, could I suggest covering plug and charge for the supported cars. I'm not sure if yours is supported so it may be impossible for you to do. The main question is once you register your car with Tesla, will the charger auto detect on plug in if you currently have a Tesla membership for discount or not. I hear you just drive in plug in, un plug and drive off, then you get a ping with your receipt. No card or app needed

[@iantaylor1172]

I'm averaging 8.67p kWh peak/off-peak. Saving a fortune

[@DrTofutybeast]

Hello and thank you for your calm and honest video. I live in British Columbia about 4 hours north of Vancouver. ... heating your next place. Find someone creative to help you install the Heat Pump yourself. Put it in a place away from the wind. Don't over size the unit and it will probably pay for itself in a year or two. 15:58

[@terrymackenzie6784]

I hope "gaming the system" like you do doesn't spoil it for all of us, I also have 2 EV and a Zappi and all you have to do is adjust the requested charge by the relative capacity of the cars. I've had the tariff for a year now and have spent £325 on electricity for the house and cars but I do have a home storage battery so the vast majority of electric only cost the IO Go rate I also have solar and that returned £346 in the same period 😊 this tariff is the best for EV charging. If it would work for a heat pump I don't know

[@cingramuk]

Octopus are monitoring it, so if the abuse becomes widespread we may well see the end of this, or at least them not giving house electric at the same rate as charging, which would be a massive shame, because people feel asking for 100% every time is harmless. Octopus are participating in grid balancing now, so that will claw back some of the potential losses as they will turn the charger up/down during the charge window, or even move half hour slots around. So you really need to be on it if you want to try and use the cheap slots to their max, as you could find they move them while you're not looking and suddenly what you thought was cheap leccy is now full peak rate!

[@scottwills4698]

I’ve used 6720kwh this year so far 2 EV’s, heat pump and home battery (no gas) cost circa £500. I’ve exported everything my solar has generated (4509kwh) for 15p per kwh £676 so I’ve made nearly £200 this year so far. I only pay £1 per month as Octopus won’t let me pay zero I hope to break even over the year which for about 22k miles of driving, all my hot water, heating and house use I think that’s incredible.

[@PeterCc5u]

Looking forward to the Italy roadtrip, seconda parte

[@MrEV]

It should be the next video.

[@BalintGulyas]

I been on Octopus Go for 3y changed to Intelligent and saved around 30£/ month.. 2 Evs now and 2.5months done 3.2k with the new one - showing 500£ saving compared to Petrol car. Just amazing how you can use this Intelligent in your favour.

[@wobby1516]

I’ve been on Octopus go and now on their intelligent go tariff since its inception we also have solar panels two Powerwalls and since last year Octopus heat pump. We only ever buy electrons at the cheap rate of 7p per kw and our bill for heating, hot water and the EV is now just £30 per month over the year and we get a fit payment so really our outgoings are nearer to £15 per month We made a very large investment to get where we are today but as interest on our saving was minimal we felt it better to put the cash into our home. Doing that has increased its value made in a better buy if we wanted to sell and reduced our energy cost to a pittance compared to when we first bought the house. For us it’s a win win. 🥇

[@clivepierce1816]

We are also on Intelligent Go. Like you, our entire house is electrified - we have solar PV, a Tesla Powerwall, a heat pump for heating, and 2 EVs - a 30 kWh Nissan Leaf and a 61 kWh MG5. Our savings in terms of running costs have been in the thousands of pounds each year compared with running two ICE cars, and heating our house and cooking with an oil fired Rayburn. Our annual electricity bill is around £1000, but since this covers all our household energy consumption, including hot water and heating, as well as 20,000 miles of driving it’s fantastic value for money.

[@malcolmpinnell3920]

My average rate is 11.9p on Intelligent Go. So much cheaper than Agile. I generally save about £160 a month on normal rate, probably £300 on petrol prices!!

[@MrEV]

That's amazing! Thank you!

[@MrDAVIDATKIN]

We are on old fashioned Octopus Go, we have 2 EVs and it works fine for us. I did 12k miles last year, my wife did 3k in hers. In 2 years I've saved over £2000 on fuel and the better half is happy as she never needs to go to the petrol station. Would love to be on Intelligent Go but neither our cars or charger is compatible. The pay back on a new charger would be several years so just going to wait until this one breaks.

[@VikPaints]

Personally I don't feel it is "gaming" because firstly Octopus have no way of knowing that you genuinely don't need to charge to 100% and secondly you can only take advantage by using the scheduled excess renewable energy which THEY make available to you by schedule. If it's not available you won't be able to do it, sometimes it may not work in your favour. Octopus also have no way of knowing how exactly you're using the electric once it enters your house (I'm thinking, might be wrong). If they don't like how you're using it they need to have further control on the excess distribution (which they don't appear to have). I think a lot of people didn't grasp the crucial part of this video judging by the comments and assumed it was just about cheap charging. VERY interesting golden nugget there, thanks 👍🤔 P.S. I think the chances of octopus implementing fair use policy on a single customer are extremely low to zero. They just want volume (customers) and out of those this particular scenario applies to a very small percentage who can take advantage. In reality how many people you will make an effort to do this? Very few, most people simply don't have the foresight or time. (but I'll give it a go 👍)

[@salibaba]

@@VikPaints the equipment measures and reports back how much has been delivered. If that happens waay quicker than expected then they could potentially build a picture up if you are doing it regularly. ie If you say you need a 100% charge of a 64kWh (8hrs charging) pack and upon plugging in a half full LEAF the charge reports back complete after 3hrs; I think they’d figure out you were telling porkies about needing 100%

[@cingramuk]

Currently you are correct, Octopus are very unlikely to implement any kind of fair use. But if videos like this go viral then they will. I know from being on the IOG beta for Zappi, they can monitor whats been delivered. We've also seen it recently with the half price charges which applied to what the charger used. So if you're constantly asking for 100% and only ever taking a small percentage, always during the day, this will get logged/flagged. They do, in the T&C's say that they can move you off the tariff. I've not heard of it happening to anyone yet though. At the moment there's not enough abuse to warrant doing it, and often, they'll actually get paid for your charging as part of grid balancing. So dont think they aren't aware of it, its just for now, they are trying out new things and letting it slide. FWIW, it totally is gaming the system to ask for more than you need. Otherwise why would they have an option? They are trying to optimise grid usage and keep costs low for everyone but also are generous enough to say 'if you need 100% right now, lets see what we can do'. If everyone did it, do you really think they could sustain it? I'm all for using extra slots when they come up but you shouldnt be asking for 100% charge every time thinking its not an issue.

[@VikPaints]

​@@salibabaYeah I can see that would flag up quite easily.

[@anthonysharp2522]

Andrew. Good vid on principles of IOG but….I assume 🐙 can see when charge finishes🤔 and “Gaming the System” at 100% when significantly less required is really not on (given 🐙 more socially minded approach than other supplier’s if no other reason🤔) Too many “gaming the system” will kill it ☹️

[@Jaw0lf]

Having had my EV, Tesla Powerwall Battery, solar PV and ASHP, I have very much saved huge amounts from being on Intelligent Octopus Go. I only plug my car in when it is needed to charge and tell it what to charge. It then plans a charge out to be ready at the stated time. I don't usually need my car first thing and I have found it will schedule past the usual hours and that is then extra times that my home use is cheap. My bill is now around £90 per month for all of my heating, cooking and around 10,000 miles per year in my EV. We use around 25-30kWh most days as I have lots of tech! This excludes ASHP or EV!

[@carlarrowsmith]

I was with Intelligent Octopus Go but now transferred over to E.on Next Drive. 6.7p for 7 hours and 24p the rest of the time (West Mids price, might be different elsewhere). I did it because the payments for solar are better at 16.5p and it's fixed where as Octopus is variable. Negatives are the reporting is not as good and the bills are not as detailed

[@MrEV]

That’s really interesting. Thank you!

[@johnnodge4327]

We're also on Eon Next Drive V4. This gives 7 hours at 6.7p for the whole house. The standard rate is 24.4p, with a 68p daily standing charge. We can put about 180 miles of range in the car in a 7 hour session, and we put the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer on at night. Eon Next also give us 16.5 Pence per kWhr on SEG, so it's much better for us to use the night rate, rather than consume our solar. The bonus for Eon is they fix all their tariffs in 12 month increments.

[@metalplaygrounds]

Veryn informative video. I can't take advantage of that offer here in the States but my 2-year-old loved the octopus.

[@MrEV]

Thank you! Do you have energy companies in the States similar to Octopus?

[@metalplaygrounds]

@@MrEV none that I know of.

[@oleww50]

I didn’t appreciate that the night rate would be used throughout the day when the grid is cheap, not just during the night! that really IS excellent! Thanks for the video. Off to switch my tariff 😅 (already on octopus sorry 😅)

[@terryrigden4860]

Great video. I'm on IOG too and it's working very well for me. I've got am MG4 and a Zappi, the car isn't compatible but that's no problem because I set my account for charger integration. I'm saving a lot of money because I also charge my home battery . Now all our electricity is at 7p/Kwh including the heat pump

[@eddyd8745]

I'm on Octopus Agile. One charge will usually last me a couple of weeks so I'm usually able to charge for 1 or 2p/kWh, or even negative rates. I think I was paid 37p to charge my car up last time I did a big charge. When I see a cheap or negative rate coming along I will generally discharge my house batteries (15p/kWk export rate) and charge them whilst the price has dropped. I also take the opportunity to heat a tank of water. I can have a massive over night consumption but usually it costs less than 10 p in total, and is often negative. This wouldn't work if you do a lot of miles as the gap between the price drops would likely be too large meaning you have to charge at around 17p/kW (the usual'ish' overnight rate, although tonight there is plenty of 10-12p slots). Sounds complicated but my gas (heating is on) and electric, including charging the car was combined was £36.74 for the past month.

[@SILENCE_uk]

we have IOG and charge our EVS and 19.5 kwh batteries overnight. have it linked to the Tesla to prevent day time charging, this summer despite being home 24/7 as a disabled and retired household due to solar and exporting we were actually making around £60 profit a month on the electric bill (still on gas sadly heat pump going in this Nov)

[@michaelgoode9555]

I charge using a 16 amp dedicated lead from a blue socket just like yours. We don't need 200 miles a day or even 100 for that matter so this setup is more than sufficient for our needs. I'm not shelling out a grand for a 7kW charger just to save 4p/kWh over 7 hours at night.

[@MrEV]

Now we've moved house, we may do the same actually. Far cheaper to get a Commando socket installed than a 'proper' charger.

[@Milks808]

if it's connected to the charger only then I think the value you set in the Octopus app is how much additional charge you want, rather than a target SOC. Not ideal as you have to set the value every time you plug in. You can leave it at 100% but that won't be optimal for the scheduling algorithm as it'll be requesting a lot of redundancy. I have a Leaf and use Home Assistant to bridge the gap as it has access to both my Octopus account and Leaf. I set a target SOC in Home Assistant (which I rarely change) and Home Assistant works out the difference and sends this to Octopus for scheduling

[@zzebedee1419]

Due to lost records by electricity north west my house hasn’t yet been permitted a proper charger. This means that I’ve been using the granny for our extended range Mach e. The down side of this is it take days to charge. The up side is that while the car is charging I’m getting way more cheap house electricity than I otherwise would. I’ve occasionally even gone so far as to not plug in or tell the car to not charge overnight so I can get cheap rate at the weekend day time while all the washing and drying is being done. I do feel a bit dirty gaming the system like this though (sometimes) I just worked it out and my average price per kWh for the whole of last month was 14.7p

[@nervousfrog101]

You really need a home battery last February I used 1243.7kWh my bill for that period was £135.53. In theory if you are a full on geek you could use the Home Assistant integrations for you car and Intelligent Octopus integration to check which car is plugged and what the SOC is and automatically adjust the required charge.

[@richardeskins]

Love IOG. Only two issues I have is those random day time cheap hours as it will drain the battery (unless I notice it and swap it to charge). I’ll be glad when Octopus can manage the whole system. The other, is hoping they introduce the ability to add a second device (car).

[@peterbee8892]

Add a home battery and you can run the heatpump all day at its most efficient and save.

[@martyndavies1482]

That's a lot of battery capacity needed though, maybe 20kwh for the cold days of winter.

[@pmac6584]

It is quite hard to calculate exact numbers but I have travelled 32,000 electric miles for about £585 . I have solar , ripple shares, house batteries also adding to the mix so it will actually be cheaper than the estimate above. The house battery is over sized and I sell excess electricity back to octopus at 15p per unit so I actually don’t pay much for electricity anymore.

[@joejones3434]

I'm on IOG also and according to my data for 2024 so far I've used 2864 kWh of electricity to charge the car and that has cost me £195. That works out to less than £20 per month in driving costs from home charging alone (rapid charging not included, but it's rare for me). At around 3 to 3.6 mi/kWh for my EV depending on season, if I take 3.2 mi/kWh as conservative estimate that's about 2 pence per mile.

[@ar6904]

On OVO anytime. Prefer to have the option to charge at 7p whenever i want. Unlike the restrictions with these overnight tariffs

[@randomjasmicisrandom]

If I was moving to a house with electric radiators I think I would be looking to get them replaced as fast as possible! I realise this might not be practical for you, but perhaps some infra-red heating panels would be a better solution. I stayed in a holiday let in Germany that had them, and the heat they gave off was a bizarre sensation but they worked brilliantly. As for intelligent go, while I have an EV I don’t commute as I am unfortunately medically retired and my wife works from home, and I only have a small home battery. For now I’m sticking with Agile, but this was a very helpful and interesting look at a possible alternative.

[@martinwray7001]

Saved an enormous sum since 2019 on octopus go and it's variations.

[@phlomisjason]

"Looking at APIs that I don't really understand..." LOL!!

[@Pedelorean]

When you move to your new place, get some underfloor heating installed. It's far more efficient than electric radiators. But you probably already know that :)

[@Banyan314]

OIG is really good but sometimes it causes us issues with storing cheap electricity in our battery. Our system finds it tough to handle pulling 12kW ( 7 for the car and 4.5 for the battery ) at the same time. The addition of Eddi to heat water is going to add an extra 3 kW pushing the demand to over 14kW if all are drawing down at the same time.

[@MrMannakin]

Even if the octopus app is set to 100%, my charging stops at the limit set in the car which is usually 80%. We have MG4 Extended Range (77 kWh battery), Zappi charger and solar panels/6 kWh house batteries. We do a few long trips each year when i set the car to 100% and it charges to that no problem.

[@rigel1632]

Will be moving to Intelligent once we move house in Jan/Feb. Going whole nine yards with solar, batteries and hopefully 3 phase.

[@MrEV]

Oh wow! Three phase will be amazing. I'd be tempted to look into that too, but I rarely need to charge that fast at home.

[@rigel1632]

@@MrEV I did the cable/pipes request from the utilities and they came back in about 4 days with the plans so I know exactly what’s where and that I’m not looped. I just figured if we’ve got a lot going on I might as well go for it.

[@mrpugster]

Nice informative video.... "I feel you", as the cool kids would say. I worked in IT for 20 years, just been able to get out and do something I enjoy. No more API's for me 🙂

[@MrEV]

You lucky person!

[@gedtierney374]

Good video. The cost of running your EV’s compared with running similar ICE vehicles is impressive. However, as I’m sure you already know, it’s only a matter of time before EV’s will start to be charged per mile as ICE vehicles are already charged per mile in the tax they pay as part of the fuel cost at the pumps.

[@EverydayLife621]

I'm on IOG, and probably wont change, but there is now a cheaper alternative, from 5ppm (depending on area = ideal if you can be almost 100% at off-peak) - (is it a fruit/vegetable🤷‍♂) - the reviews are not great, but at the end of the day once set-up, and billing correctly you'll never need to contact them again anyway.

[@martyndavies1482]

Just checked them out, interesting tariffs. It does remind me of the days prior to the energy crisis though, lots of new companies entering the market and look where it left us.

[@deanstyles2567]

It'd be especially handy with a home battery or a V2H equipped vehicle, although that may run foul of that fair use provision. Here in south eastern Australia a few retailers have plans which are 0c/kWh for a couple of hours in the middle of the day.

[@johnw65uk]

Octopus Agile goes to negative about once a week or so. So occasionally they pay us to charge our car or wash the clothes etc.

[@blairfalconer915]

It is a good tariff. Only thing that annoys me is when the app changes the charge times so it kicks in with the charging when you don't expect it as this often leads to energy being taken out of my giv energy battery when I don't want it too. Nothing major but would be good if the app would keep the times it comes up with when first plugging in instead of changing it's mind 😂

[@martyndavies1482]

Imagine a time when it could all be done automatically, that would be an ideal use of AI. Of course it will either never happen, or be sold at such a premium price that I'd rather do it myself.

[@simux008]

The house can have cheap electricity all day round if you install home battery. Diy seplos battery 15KWh kit was just £1500 its then saving on all electric bills.

[@paguk2000]

Andrew they have added a lot more chargers from the 1st of October. I have a Hypervolt version 3 pro and this works with this. So with my solar and battery I'm always running of the 7p rate.

Hypervolt - like it said on the screen at 2:25.

[@paguk2000]

He does not name Hypervolt

@@paguk2000 ..which is WHY there is an onscreen caption: "Hypervolt supported now as well"

[@001ml]

I've been on IOG since it started. I have a Zappi and a Model 3. At the start it worked well, but then it started failing to charge. I contacted Octopus, but they were unable to fix whatever the problem is. I am still on IOG tariff, but I just set the car to charge between 11:30 and 5:30. I'm not to concerned about this as I have solar and a battery so I am mostly running on the battery during the day and charging the car and the battery at the cheap rate.

[@TrevHutt]

I live in Munich and I'm looking into switching to an electricity supplier that provides intelligent tariffs like Octopus. Also, I'll be changing from an Kia eNiro to a Kia EV3 80kWh battery. Also may be moving away from oil central heating to a heat pump system. So let's see how it will work out.

[@rhencullen]

I’m on standard GO so only get the 5 hours of off peak at 8.5 pence at the moment, but also have solar and 30KW of GivEnergy battery storage, plus I’m on an export tariff that pays 8pence per KWh exported. Using GO to charge the car and the house batteries during off peak, solar to power the house and charge the batteries when there’s excess, and to top the car if the batteries are fully charged, I’m also balancing the overnight battery charge using home assistant and the predicted solar availability, so that the overnight target SOC for the batteries will be reduced if the following day is going to be a really strong solar day (cheaper to charge the batteries using solar than GO if available so I don’t want to charge them to 100% overnight if the following day has a lot of solar). My car fuel costs for the ZOE while I had it were 340GBP for almost 17,000 miles of driving. I don’t have numbers for the Tesla yet, but it’s tracking on similar lines (to within 6GBP of the cost of the ZOE at 3k miles). I’ve also been tracking how much we’ve used in Solar, and how much we’ve saved by charging the batteries using off peak and solar, then using them to power the house during the day instead of pulling from the grid at peak. In a typical month, we’ll use around 950 - 1050 KWh (high usage I know), but that will break down to around 50KWh of Peak and the rest split between Solar and off-peak (up to 700KW of Solar in the summer months and the other 200 or so KWh at off peak rates). So far, after 2 years of having solar and batteries, we’ve saved £6,000 GBP in electricity costs, which has pretty much paid for the panels and install, and I’d expect to have the costs for the three GivEnergy I.tKW batteries paid off in future savings in may be another 3 years or so. Another thing dropping the bills, is I used to have to put around £300 a month of diesel into a car to get to and from work, but now work from home, so as well as having the EV, my annual mileage has dropped by around 10K a year, but the EV is as cheap as chips to run! (Since we no offset most of our usage to off peak prices, and use less from the grid due to the solar, I’ve also currently got a £950 excess banked with Octopus which will more than cover the higher costs of heating the house over Winter, so need to get some of the paid back into the bank account)

[@S2KGAY]

Big fan of the channel. Just another point that you sort of alluded to right near the beginning, you don’t necessary need a dedicated charger as such providing Octopus can communicate with your vehicle. I run a BMW i3 on a ‘granny’ charger only. Providing you don’t need more than 70 miles (ish) per day then this is adequate. You also get the benefit of extended cheap rate beyond the core hours as Octopus ‘tries’ to get you to your target charge (not always achievable) but at a slower rate, if that makes sense.

[@rjmunro]

I can confirm this. My brother gets intelligent octopus go with a Tesla model 3 and a granny charger.

[@MrEV]

Thank you. I thought I’d made that clear but obviously not!

[@robertcollins1371]

But is the cheap rate applied to all household electricity or just the bit used by the car?

[@S2KGAY]

@@robertcollins1371 whole house I believe as it’s just plugged into a 3 pin, so not sure it’s possible for the supplier to differentiate (?).

[@michaelgoode9555]

We are a low use household living in an 1870's kid terrace. I charge using a 16a commando charge cable across the pavement using a cable protector approved by the local authority. At present we have gas and electricity but we are plotting our migration to electricity only so have been working round the house adding internal, underfloor and of course loft insulation. The next decision is heating: we have a pre condensing combi boiler which is reliable and 7 radiafors fed by 8mm copper microbore from a central 22mm copper manifold. My thinking if we want a heat pump we will have to replace the radiator tails with 15mm which will be quite an upheaval. Proboem is, with a heat pump we will then require hot water storage of some kind and a battery would be sensible. Quite an expensive and hugely disruptive project and quite a challenge finding the best tariff if we achieve our goal.

[@martinweston8147]

HI, Octopus themselves now do a high temp heat pump that may work with your existing plumbing, google Cosy6, re a water tank, think of that as also being a battery (its storing energy) a water tank is the cheapest form of energy battery. A cheap solar diverter will dump any excess solar into your water tank as stored energy.

[@tjw52x]

Shame it doesn't work most of the time. Mine consistently fails to charge my car overnight when using the "Intelligent" scheduling in the Octopus app. After going on various forums, this appears to be a common problem for lots of people on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.

[@MrEV]

That’s disappointing. I’ve not heard of those issues. Does it relate to any particular car or charger brand?

[@tjw52x]

@@MrEV I'm using the Zappi too and just charging a Tesla model 3, with no other schedules set in the car or the charger - I've come across a lot of people who've had similar issues unfortunately.

[@gazzrobb2366]

Me too I’ve gone back to using the car timer and selecting charge now after I plug in OHME customer service has been terrible

[@tjw52x]

@@gazzrobb2366 I'm just using a fast charge from the Zappi now and bypassing the Octopus app completely, and just starting it at 11:30pm to get the cheap rate.

[@ashleycarr1275]

The Hypervolt 3.0 and above is now part of the IOG family of charging points, earler versions will come on board later. One caveat is, as you point out, IOG does not know the SOC of the car. Confusingly the app appears to offer a charge to limit, making you think you can limit the charge to say 80%, as a way of protecting the battery long term. In my case that isn't how it works. You have to say what % you want to add. For example if the SOC is 60% and you wish to charge to 80% you have to put 20% in the Charge Limit box, not the intuitive 80% you would be forgiven for thinking. Not only is that box confusing but you now need to be more active in "programming" the app than you should be. This is not explained to Hypervolt owners. I have been told that IOG can only control either the car or the charge point. If your car is also compatible with IOG you can elect to have the car as the interface with IOG and that would then enable charging to a given % as IOG will be able to see the current SOC %. Hope that helps.

[@johniooi3954]

Been on IO for just over a year. 2 EV's. Our average unit cost a month is 14p over the year, bear in mind that our peak rate is 24.67p (Oct 24 rate) was less over summer. So a average saving of 10p over peak rate. Never yet had a daytime charge declined, even last winter. Just under £200 in actual EV charge costs & 10,000 miles covered. Paying the same a month now, as we did pre EV on variable tariff.

[@johnw65uk]

We are on Octopus agile. Would like to work out one day what is the most cost saving tariff. Not using our EV every day means I can pick and choose when to charge. So usually when it drops below about 3pkwh I’ll charge the car. Done around 1600 miles and it’s cost me £35. Downside is that at peek times the rates are quite high, average is 18p kWh on agile according to my bills.

[@richfixescars]

I have a 51kwh MG4 with an Ohme and Intelligent Octopus Go, 6k miles for £109.

[@shikoku14]

I’ve been averaging between 8-9p per kWh per month since March 2023, thanks to being on IO and having a GivEnergy battery. We drive 10,000 miles a year, so all in all pretty good obviously I’m a few years from paying off the battery but the ability for that to arbitrage my energy costs across the day is a game changer especially as I can’t have solar (*I can technically have solar, but we have an aged Victorian slate roof that needs sorting prior to any solar, plus we are invested in Ripple so that is offsetting the lack of solar)

[@kevinjohn725]

Hi, large battery on my ioniq 5 ,we are moving in November, hopefully .as I'm retired we don't do loads of miles, I use the granny charger on octopus go this give me charging from 12.30m to 05.30 I woundering if octopus intelligent would me be better as you say it charges in day time. Great video. Regards Kev. I got engaged in Canterbury cathedral in 1975 Now living in Manchester 😂

[@lookoutleo]

I'll have to look into this again . Where I park is about 150 metres from my house, cable going to cost £1k , that's why I haven't fitted a charger, but althou I have go I'm missing out big time . Wonder if theirs any cheaper place to get cable. Where you moving to? Not Italy?

[@rangiemike]

I would love to get this tariff but our smart meter has no signal in rural Cumbria 😡

[@vhol93]

super cool, would love something like that in Portugal, but the mafia enterprises here wouldn't allow it...

[@Carborator-01]

Thanks Andrew. We have a Kia Soul EV with a Zappi charger and some solar PV, so thinking of changing our tariff to IG. Really useful to hear your experiences with Octopus IG. You seem to suggest that the EV has to be plugged in ready for charging, before the whole house can benefit from the cheaper rate. Is this really the case, as I would have thought that the smart meter would have a role to play?

[@duffman9]

I am thinking of moving to eon as it’s 6.7 p for 7 hours and the normal rate is currently 1p cheaper than intelligent go. Plus export is 16.5p while intelligent go matching export is 15p. I don’t know why I have intelligent go as my car was removed from it a year ago and I don’t have a compatible charger. Btw I charge 3 EVs totaling over 50000 miles a year, heat pump, battery and solar. I think I am quids in but on my second smart meter and it’s stopped reporting months ago. My solar inverter is reporting really encouraging figures.

[@johnnodge4327]

I've no experience of octopus, but have Eon Next drive V4. It's definitely a cheap tariff, and 7 hours cheap rate is very useful for adding a decent range in the cheap rate period.

[@zzebedee1419]

Due to lost records by electricity north west my house hasn’t yet been permitted a proper charger. This means that I’ve been using the granny for our extended range Mach e. The down side of this is it take days to charge. The up side is that while the car is charging I’m getting way more cheap house electricity than I otherwise would. I’ve occasionally even gone so far as to not plug in or tell the car to not charge overnight so I can get cheap rate at the weekend day time while all the washing and drying is being done. I do feel a bit dirty gaming the system like this though (sometimes)

[@garyogrady6654]

Hi, I have the ohme charger, which communicates with the car, so octopus knows what the current SOC is. Not sure if you were just referring to the Nissan being old and can't communicate with the car

[@LeeJonesNPT]

I have been using IO Go for just over a year using a PodPoint charger on my Tesla M3. I have a Givenergy 9.5 kw battery and solar panels which i am really pleased with. However i basically have to ensure that my charge is finished by 05.30 or when the free electricity period finishes otherwise i am draining my battery. I always charge my home battery at the same time the car is charging to ensure I don’t end up draining the battery and not having enough to run the house. I don’t believe i am gaming the system as otherwise i am not gaining anything from the IO Go tariff.

[@michaelridley2864]

Does the same cheap overnight rate apply even if you don't have the car plugged in? We have batteries and which we'd normally charge every night - but would probably only actually need to charge the car once or twice a week.

[@POVDrivingTour]

I love a full charge in my Mini Cooper at a cost of £2 from 0-100% 🤯 Even during winter. However, in the past 2-3 weeks the myenergi app doesn’t stick to the overnight charge time. So, if you plug in at 21:30, the charge immediately starts. I tried to delay it in the Mini app but it didn’t work.

[@davidtolson7680]

Eon Next Drive gives you 7 hours off-peak per night, and you don’t need to piss about with remote scheduling.

[@Tyreman22]

What is their day rate?

[@HidingInMyRoom1989]

@@Tyreman22 i have it and its 30p during the day 0.069p off peak

[@davidtolson7680]

@@Tyreman22 25.4p peak, 6.7p off-peak

[@mrstoives2444]

Had to change from Octopus to British Gas EV tariff. Charger very old school and not compatible with Octopus (neither is the car but can schedule the car to charge between specific times) and payback to upgrade charger would be over 3 years, so currently not work it for me. Currently paying .079p per Kw/h between 12 & 5. Had a few issues with BG compared to Octopus but needs must

[@bill_heywood]

It's a fantastic smart tariff. My wife's PHEV needs charging during the day regularly. Octopus control the charging and because this would drain my home batteries, being able to import to the home battery at the 7p rate is great. Otherwise we'd have empty batteries for the evening I also don't get billed regularly, Octopus post debits and credits to my account, but it would be good to get a bill every month. Time to chase them again

[@martyndavies1482]

Do you have to manually 'tell' your batteries to charge instead of draining to the car?

[@bill_heywood]

@@martyndavies1482 sadly yes I do. If I was more IT literate I could set up Home Automation and get the inverter to charge them any time the charger was working. That's the next stage, I think I have a family member who can help

[@martyndavies1482]

@@bill_heywood By all means try it, but after setting up HA I couldn't control the inverter or car, and the decision making was too complex - I decided I had better things to do with my life than save those few pounds.

[@bill_heywood]

@@martyndavies1482 thanks, I would be in the same boat. I'll only try it if there's good community support for Solis inverters

[@martyndavies1482]

@@bill_heywood Ha, I have a Solis too, the app does enough, just ask for the installer account so you can change the battery charging rate/times from your phone.

[@imamiddleagedman]

I have this and saves a fortune. The problem I have is that outside of the 6 hour window it dumps the power from my power walls into the car so I have to manually set the Tesla app not to go below where it is at that point. You would think Tesla car would talk through the gateway to the battery not to take energy from the battery if the car is charging. I’ve given them feedback on this but they haven’t done anything about it. I’m sure there are 3rd party solutions out there.

[@MrEV]

That's really interesting, thank you! Especially as I'm hoping to get a Powerwall at some point.

[@imamiddleagedman]

@@MrEV you’re welcome to come and look at my setup. I’m only down at the top end of Eastbourne.

[@simonfynn2555]

Octopus Agile is still cheaper than Intelligent for us over a day, week, month or year. Intelligent would have cost us another nearly £50 last month compared to Agile for e.g. We charge a 51kWh battery EV every night during whichever are the cheapest 30 minute slots. If we want to top up in the day for any reason, we just charge around our needs rather than based on price. The only adjustments we make is trying (but not always remembering) not to use the washing machine and dishwasher during peak between 4 and 7PM.

[@pmbpmb5416]

There is a counter to Octopus with Eon and Tomato energy .

[@twelvebears1971]

I’ve found the Octo-Aid app to be very useful for cost and usage data.

[@MrEV]

Great tip, thank you!

[@twelvebears1971]

@@MrEV oh and it lets you add your scheduled EV smart charging slots so the off peak rate gets applied to all usage. I’ve found all the energy and cost data to be spot on

[@glike2]

I registered with my EV and charger at the Octopus energy eligibility page to get an update when I'm eligible

[@C-L66]

Can you adjust the max output from the charger say 1 KWh so it takes longer? Would that give the whole house a longer periods of the cheap stuff?

[@MrEV]

Not as far as I know, but that’s a great point as my LEAF only charges at 3.3kW so I get cheaper electricity for longer with that. (Until its relatively small battery is full anyway!)

[@iantaylor1172]

​@@MrEV you can reduce the charging rate via the Kia infotainment under EV setting, normal, reduced and minimum. The charge point or octopus app may protest with" the car is charging slower than expected. Just ignore that and the car will try to charge for alot longer. 😂😂

[@ThePrawlin]

You can limit the Zappi charge current. You can set the “Device Limit” Amps to whatever you like (between 6A/1.4kW and 32A/7.4kW I think) it’s in the Zappi front LCD menus). Sounds like unfair gaming though to me.

[@gazzrobb2366]

The OHME charger is now terrible since they added the dynamic charging my car sat for two days and never charged Ioniq 5 I now have to set the car chargers 23.30-05.30 and start charging in the app so it starts at 23.30 it was perfect before this dynamic charging was added, loads of people on Facebook are complaining about it

[@MrEV]

I've never understood how the Ohme works. We have a Commando Ohme charger and the interface baffles me!

[@mickinmerton8053]

I have a Kia Soul 2021 and a AmiPro charger, I've got the charger linked to Octopus Intelligent. The charger can read the cars state of charge most of the time (over the year I've had to reset the charger twice because it could not read the SOC). I've never seen it charge during the day, this probably because it calculates that it can match my target (70%) in the 23:30 to 5:30 period. Octopus periodically send out a message to say 'free electricity' at a specific time usually 1 hour. I've plugged my car in but Octopus have not triggered a charge for that hour, they have all the information and systems connected. A minor gripe I suppose, I only missed out on 7kWh @ 7p = 49p. Gripe aside I've been on Octopus Intelligent for 1 year, in total it cost me £73 for 4039 miles which includes a couple of charges away from home, very cheap.

[@salibaba]

FYI When Octopus do the "Free Power" events, you simply press the Bump Charge button on the app. It charges at day rate initially, then the credit is added to your next bill to cover what you consumed. Just remember to disconnect the car at the end of the session or it will overrun past the free period and cost a bit. We got 12.6kWh on our last session about 5kWh of which went into the car. Sorted everything, Dishwasher, load of laundry, heated the water tank delayed from the night before, pre-prepped & cooked soup ready for dinner.

[@mickinmerton8053]

@@salibaba Yes I know that. What I want is that to be automated. My car was plugged in during a "Free Power" period, I could of started it but I thought I'd see if Octopus automatically triggered it, they didn't.

[@anthonydevono8833]

I assume it’s area specific? My supplier doesn’t offer any Ev discounts of any sort but it’s good if you can get it

[@MrEV]

If you’re with Octopus, everyone in the UK should get it?!

[@yp77738yp77739]

The first rule of fight club is…….

[@dougbamford]

So are you an apiarist? We're on Octopus Flux temporarily before we switch to Go for the winter. Sadly neither car (MG) nor EVSE (Givenergy) is compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go, which is very frustrating!

[@robertblood3722]

Morning Andrew. Watched your latest KZbin video. Completed the Intelligence Octopus Go for to compare prices. The charger box details they ask for, a very long list of wall boxes. However Zappi is not listed so cant continue. Have just sent Octopus a email, see how long it takes for this to be resolved ? Have two EV’s, 12 Solar panels, Air to Air system for heating and Gas (cooking only), 1x MG4 long range, 1x Zoe and a Solax battery. Will not want to change my Fits rate that’s just under 80p a unit generated. So how did you complete the form when the Zappi is not listed ? Hope your moved went. Bob. Gillingham Kent.

So whenever you want to use the tumble-dryer (or other high drain device), remember to plug in the car first?

[@MrEV]

We didn't worry about it to that degree, but yes - if the car was charging, we'd tend to do things like drying at the same time. It is still a gamble though: you could plug the car in and the schedule decides it won't start for a few hours.

[@salibaba]

TBF that is a bit naughty and gaming it could end up with you getting a little advisory not from Octopus, "Hey mate, plz stop takin the piss, thx". If its not within the spirit of the system then it could end up knocking out the economic calculations when they do their review sums. It may end up if enough people do the same "trick" that it affects the discount rate to allow Octopus to still make it sensible revenue generation.

[@MrEV]

Their terms say this about fair use: 2.4.1.8 Intelligent Octopus Go is subject to a fair use policy with a maximum of six hours of managed charging per 24 hours. Should your charging schedule request more than six hours per 24 hours, we reserve the right to charge any incremental usage above six hours at the day rate. If I regularly charged more than six hours a day, I'm sure they'd let me know! Most of the time I'd just charge a couple of hours during the day - and even then we work from home and the school run isn't long, so we're never going to take the piss too much. I wonder if they have ever moaned (in a friendly Octopus way) to any customers.

[@salibaba]

@@MrEV yes, I think that’s exactly how they’d play it. Very polite and such. I think they allow a small amount of boundary bending and turn the other way, but if it started to cause issues with their planning algorithms at a macro scale, they’d start to tweak the restrictions.

[@simux008]

​@MrEV I think they moderate the use by issuing schedules that are adjusted to off peak times, when one exceed the fair use boundary. I have a 100kWh car battery and occasionally I need to charge it during the day to keep using it. I noticed that they allow me to do one or two of these a month before they start issuing more stringent schedules sticking to usual off-peak times. So they are really both accommodating and moderating with their intelligent tarrif as you would expect from octopus.

[@robertcollins1371]

If connected via the car Do they charge all electricity used by the house during the mapped sheduled charge times at the 7p rate, or just the amount the car tells them it has used?

[@MrEV]

Yes, amazingly all electricity used by the house will be 7p/kWh for as long as the car is charging. As I understand it, that's unique to Octopus.

[@robertcollins1371]

Pretty good, I was wondering this, struggling to find any information from Octopus themselves on this. The smart schedule at the moment is 21:30 to 08:00 so will be good to get the heat pump warming up the house cheaply and have a shower (electric one) before 8. Shame the Octopus app doesn't show the traffic usage split in the usage app.

[@stuartgifford8672]

It only works with one EV, so if you have two like me you have to charge the other at 11.30 at night to 5.30 in the morning, but yes Octopus is one of the better energy companies out there.

[@oleww50]

Can you use an Eddi for this too? Or limited to the zappi 🤔

[@joejdl]

As you have solar, am wondering what the feed-in tariff is (for those rare days when there is lots of sun!)?

[@benwalmisley5755]

IOG export is 15p/kwh

[@Ricky-by3id]

Does my energy not give octopus any info on your active charging hours? im sure Ohme do, so if your car is full but you still have hours left on your schedule Ohme gives them that info, and they adjust your bill to the active charging hours.

[@TheRonskiman]

You're in for a shock moving to a house with electric radiators and no gas, that makes for a very big bill. I'm on Flux, last year our total spend on gas and electricity was minus £400. 8.74kWp of solar (now 15.5 kWp), no EV, and no ASHP yet, 28kWh of batteries.

[@MrEV]

Yes, I’m not looking forward to the bills this winter!

[@_Dougaldog]

@@MrEV Heat Pump on the horizon ? Grab the £7.5k grant whilst still available.

[@mev202]

Nice video, I'm on this tariff, it's great, but it is very temperamental with the integration of the zappi, sometimes it says it can't schedule, but then it starts charging. Or it can't control device and then it does and it starts charging. But it does help save money. I wish they'd do this for house batteries too, so we could top up for the night time usage.

[@murph10375]

I thought Octopus were not happy with this advice. Their advice is to set the ‘charge to add’ and ‘ready by’ accurately. If not you could be seen as ‘gaming’ You didn’t mention you only get the cheap rate when the car is actively charging. Therefore when you plug in during the afternoon it won’t the give further cheaper slots once the car is full. (Edit). Just saw the end of the Vid. Looks like you acknowledge the fair usage policy.

[@MrEV]

Did I not make that clear about it only being cheap when charging? I thought it was obvious, but thanks for mentioning. I don't think people can be expected to check the battery % when they plug-in. It's adding a lot of extra faff. But you could be right that it's gaming it, and perhaps Octopus will ask me nicely (or not!) to remove the video! 😀

[@murph10375]

@@MrEV I think to make it clearer you mention on plugging in you get a number of slots. If, for instance the car reaches 100% in the first published slot then any further slots wouldn’t be valid as the car would not accept any further charge. I’d imagine some people could become confused and just take the published slots as gospel and look to load shift during these times (outside 23:30-05:30h)

[@StephenButlerOne]

I thought you made it very clear that only when there is excess renewables on the grid the car will charge, and your whole home gets the benefit ​@@MrEV

[@cingramuk]

@@StephenButlerOneexcept its not. Octopus will do their best to accommodate charging so if you ask for 100% in a short time, it will think 'oh crap, this guy needs a charge quick' so will allocate slots it wouldn't ordinarily do. This is well documented on the Octopus forums and Octopus do not expect people to behave like this. They expect people to ask for what they need. Asking for 100% all the time is 100% gaming the system.

[@cingramuk]

@@MrEVsorry, but I think you are being naive here. Clearly asking for 100% all the time is going to get it to schedule charges when it wouldn't ordinarily. It's not just when there is renewables on the system. It looks at something like 29 variables to work out when to charge. Octopus try to be fair and accommodate peoples charging requirements so if you ask for 100% all the time, you will be getting slots you shouldn't. I personally dont think its too much to ask to put the right percentage in in exchange for 1/3rd of the cost of SVR charging. It's not hard to get out the car and see what the SoC is and think to get back to 80% or 100% I need to add x%, open the app and set it. By doing 100% all the time (and everyone doing it) the tariff would be unviable and we'd all be forced back onto Go with higher rates. Octopus are tracking this, we heard as much on the Zappi x IOG beta. So if too many people do it, they will act. I probably can't say any more as it was under NDA.

[@weatherall68]

You mentioned the heat pump, can you possibly do a video on that please, is it working well, I hear a lot of negativity about them.

[@MrEV]

We have actually! kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpnGqpiNqZ6DfZo