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Energy prices - gone nuts.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 2463
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Just noticed my current FIT rates.....

Energy generated @ 71.85 p/kWh
Energy exported @ 5.07 p/kWh

Crazy
 
Getting a hybrid electric car in few weeks, so will jump to the octopus go tariff for the cheap 7p night rate to charge car and house batteries if they need a top up. But what is the best charger? Which could potentially work with solar so it can charge the car after the house batteries and hot water etc.. Octopus have a few to choose from inc
Installation so assume they will work well with there systems and my solax inverter?

Does it need to be wired a certain way so it never tries to pull juice from the house battery? And only ever from grid (in cheap rate window) or from exported solar.

I’m guessing others here are in same situation, what charger did you go for?
 
Im on Octopus Intelligent and it costs me £2.10 to fully charge my BMW XM Hybrid overnight and I got a BG Sync EV charger for £280 trade supplied and that is fully integrated for Solar which I also have.
 
Im on Octopus Intelligent and it costs me £2.10 to fully charge my BMW XM Hybrid overnight and I got a BG Sync EV charger for £280 trade supplied and that is fully integrated for Solar which I also have.
What rates is octopus intelligent? How did you get the charger installed?
 
Yeah that’s the same as go tariff I believe, octopus want like 1k for charger / install. Sounds like cheaper to buy myself and then get electrician to install.
 
You can get chargers from about £300 if you know an electrician who can fit it. Majority of them have options to charge from excess solar using clamp on incoming supply, or scheduled charge for cheap grid rate.

Pretty sure you need to have a cutout fitted between meter and fuse board in house if you don't have one already, you should be able to get one fitted free from your supplier.
 
No cutout that I am aware of. I’ll take a look In the meter box later as might be something there, it’s pretty new.
 
Thinking of going with Solax one just as my inverter is Solax so guess they would speak to each other. Octopus does not appear to support that one on there smart ev tariff but still get the 11.30 till 5.30 7p rate so not sure it matters they support it or not. Not sure what advantage there is?

 
Your car will probably come with a 13 amp "granny" charger that will charge at around 2.5kw every hour so on 6 hours charge you can put in 15kw overnight just from a standard 13a socket. As a hybrid this is likely almost a full charge anyway or close to it. So you don't necessarily have to spend £1,000 on a type 2 socket which are only really needed if you have a full electric car.
You will be able to charge using cheap overnight rate for 90% of your charging needs anyway. And you should be able to program your car to just charge during the cheap hours so just leave it plugged in and let the car take the charge when it's cheap.
 
...... you really need to look at the specifications of the car you are getting to work out whether to bother with a type 2 socket. If it's only got a small battery 15 or 20 kW then financially there is little point in jnstalling a type 2 charger if uou have a granny charger.
 
agree with @Asiapinball

A fully EV with 50+ kWh battery then you *ideally* need a Type 2 32A/7kW charger, if only for safety reasons, and to get the required charge added during the off-peak periods.

Those hybrids have tiny batteries relatively speaking, so you'd probably be fine with an up-to 13A granny charger.
 
Apparently it has a 38kw battery, so I don't think it would charge much off the granny charger. Buying a charger + electrician seems like cheapest option? The charger would be right next to the electric / fuse box so wiring should be fairly easy.
 
Slightly different set up as no batteries and I’ve got an EV but I ended up going with a Zappi charger through octopus cost wise was £1000, couldn’t get a electrician and wanted it to work with octopus (And possible future batteries/Solar if I ever get off the fence?😂)
Reason for the octopus one was the 7p off peak tariff, so now all my off peak electricity is 7p fridge freezers etc. this also allows octopus to start stop your charging at any other time I.e. just plug your car in and set it to immediately charge and if there is surplus on the grid? Octopus will charge the car and still charges you 7p? Sometimes it will charge for a bit then stop at peak times then restart etc.You can over ride this but to be honest it’s quite good at sorting itself out? I just leave it to it
As with all this stuff it really depends on what you want it to do?
 
Slightly different set up as no batteries and I’ve got an EV but I ended up going with a Zappi charger through octopus cost wise was £1000, couldn’t get a electrician and wanted it to work with octopus (And possible future batteries/Solar if I ever get off the fence?😂)
Reason for the octopus one was the 7p off peak tariff, so now all my off peak electricity is 7p fridge freezers etc. this also allows octopus to start stop your charging at any other time I.e. just plug your car in and set it to immediately charge and if there is surplus on the grid? Octopus will charge the car and still charges you 7p? Sometimes it will charge for a bit then stop at peak times then restart etc.You can over ride this but to be honest it’s quite good at sorting itself out? I just leave it to it
As with all this stuff it really depends on what you want it to do?

I dont think you have to buy it from Octopus for it to be compatible with their service, think they have a list of compatible chargers, also I think certain cars can use the service with a none intelligent one.

  • Own a compatible electric vehicle (EV) OR have an Intelligent Octopus compatible charger installed at your home
  • Have a smartphone compatible with the Octopus app. For iPhone users, you need iOS v14.0 or higher. Similarly, Android users need v7 or newer.

Octopus compatibility checker - https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/
 
Slightly different set up as no batteries and I’ve got an EV but I ended up going with a Zappi charger through octopus cost wise was £1000, couldn’t get a electrician and wanted it to work with octopus (And possible future batteries/Solar if I ever get off the fence?😂)
Reason for the octopus one was the 7p off peak tariff, so now all my off peak electricity is 7p fridge freezers etc. this also allows octopus to start stop your charging at any other time I.e. just plug your car in and set it to immediately charge and if there is surplus on the grid? Octopus will charge the car and still charges you 7p? Sometimes it will charge for a bit then stop at peak times then restart etc.You can over ride this but to be honest it’s quite good at sorting itself out? I just leave it to it
As with all this stuff it really depends on what you want it to do?
Ah so with the intelligent octopus you get 7p per kw any time the car charger is used? As well as your 11.30 to 5.30 window? If I read that correctly?
 
Ah so with the intelligent octopus you get 7p per kw any time the car charger is used? As well as your 11.30 to 5.30 window? If I read that correctly?
Yep, so long as they have control of the charge process - be that via your car or the charger.

Just be careful if you have home batteries - they may try to discharge to meet ad-hoc demand, but there are ways around this with Home Assistant (or in my situation it’s NetZero for Powerwall).
 
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Ah so with the intelligent octopus you get 7p per kw any time the car charger is used? As well as your 11.30 to 5.30 window? If I read that correctly?
Yes but they decide, i.e. you plug the car in and it starts then stops for an hour then starts again etc they control if they have surplus, sometimes it just charges straight away? Sometimes it waits until off peak? Generally it’s quite good at sorting itself out quickly.
I’d check the charger you fancy is compatible? If you want this as an option?
 
And the thing is ofgem said companies don't have to charge the standing charge.
 
Apparently it has a 38kw battery, so I don't think it would charge much off the granny charger. Buying a charger + electrician seems like cheapest option? The charger would be right next to the electric / fuse box so wiring should be fairly easy.
A 38kw battery should give you somewhere between 80 and 150 realistic miles depending on size of car when and how fast you drive. Lower end if big car on motorway at speed in winter.

My granny charger charges consistently adds 2.35kw every hour so assuming same it would take 16 hours to charge your new car from 0 to 100 percent. 7 hours overnight on the eon next tariff would give you 30 to 55 miles overnight. So if you are driving consecutive days of the week but less than 30 (to 55) miles each day or you drive greater distances but every few days a granny charger is a feasible option to provide all your miles on cheap electric.

Note that 10,000 miles a year on electric is 200 a week which takes 80 units assuming 2.5 miles per unit which will mean the car will be charging for around 35 hours a week on a granny charger or 15 hours a week on a type 2. So it is possible to do 10,000 miles a year on cheap electric with a granny charger.
 
I have to use a granny charger to get the cheap overnight electric as I live in a conservation area so need planning permission to install a charger at the front of my house but don;t have off street parking so planning permission would not be granted.

I run a full electric (Jaguar ipace) which is at the low end in terms of miles per kw and has a 90kw battery. In the past 2 (TWO) months it has been on the granny charger for 329 hours of which 308 of those were at a cheap overnight rate and 21 were at daytime rate because I was going on longer journeys so wanted to be 100% charged. So that's 94% of my charge at cheap rate. With a smaller battery like you are getting, I'm sure I would have been able to do 100% of my charging at cheap rate.

For the 2 months the total cost of the electric was £60. Had I been able to get all my charge at cheap rate it would have been £52 so would only have been £4 a month saving if I had a Type 2 charger. I estimate that I got 1,600 to 1,700 miles out of that charge. Scaling that up for a year works out at £360 for 10,000 miles (a saving of around £1,500 a year over Petrol). Assuming I could get a faster type 2 charger installed I could save £48 a year but the payback period on the installation costs would be a long time. The granny charger came free with the car.

I expect that when you next change your car you may just go for full electric having learned the ropes on a higher range PHEV. Unless you are doing mainly long distance motorway driving there is little point in carrying around an ICE with all its ancilliary components and a tank of fuel. PHEV are often promoted as best of both but in a lot of ways they are worst of both. But they do give people teh comfort to take the next step towards full electric, which is good.
 
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