Octopus Go, Go Faster and IO temporarily suspended for new signups and renewals

[nowty]

Seems a shame that there is no common control protocol, so that anyone with the security credentials could write code to control these newer chargers. I believe that Octopus teamed up with the Ohme developers to get the Ohme to play with the Octopus tariffs, so unless something similar happens with every other charger manufacturer this feature is probably going to remain a bit restricted.

There is OCPP, my Webbox EV charger has it, although I have not yet enabled it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Char ... t_Protocol

That's good news. Last time I looked at this, a couple of years ago, there seemed to be a distinct lack of compatibility between different makes of charger, and all seemed to be reliant on their own proprietary apps and back end support. Bothered me a bit, TBH, as I'm not convinced that the back end support for some makes of charger will stay around forever. Having an open standard, so that others can provide control and monitoring services, makes a great deal of sense. It also makes it more secure, as long as it's genuinely open, as it seems that the open source movement is pretty good at staying on top of security vulnerabilities that arise from time to time.

I suspect there still is lack of compatibility as Octopus first announced that their IO would work with any Tesla or an OCPP compliant charger but limited to a Webbox EV charger. So I bought a Webbox and it turned out not to have OCPP even though I bought the recommended model. Then it turned out that it only worked with a Tesla so I was in luck as I had one on order. Since then my Webbox EV charger has been upgraded over the air and is now OCPP compliant but still won't work with Octopus (without the Telsa). Octopus already had some form of partnership with Ohme as they used to offer a discounted charging cable from Ohme.

[Oldgreybeard]

I suspect there still is lack of compatibility as Octopus first announced that their IO would work with any Tesla or an OCPP compliant charger but limited to a Webbox EV charger. So I bought a Webbox and it turned out not to have OCPP even though I bought the recommended model. Then it turned out that it only worked with a Tesla so I was in luck as I had one on order. Since then my Webbox EV charger has been upgraded over the air and is now OCPP compliant but still won't work with Octopus (without the Telsa). Octopus already had some form of partnership with Ohme as they used to offer a discounted charging cable from Ohme.

I believe that Tesla are fairly unique in that their API has been made public and there are several third party apps available that use the Tesla API, even some home brew ones like Teslamate. Probably means that charge control via the car API can be used, rather than charge control via the charger API (or perhaps a bit of both).

There seems to be a dearth of information about control and data access from other makes of EV. It's probably the nature of many of Tesla's customers that has resulted in their API being reverse engineered and made public (it's here, if anyone is interested: https://www.teslaapi.io/). Tesla don't seem to object to this reverse engineering and all the third party services that now use their API for control and data gathering. Might be useful if some other manufacturers started releasing details of their vehicle APIs, be good to get away from relying on the manufacturer's app, as well as enabling better integration with other systems (like IO).

[Joeboy]

I guess I'll stick with Go in the New Year until Octopus catch up with available variety.

[nowty]

I guess I'll stick with Go in the New Year until Octopus catch up with available variety.

Not quite so straight forward anymore though, is it ?

No brainer for me, 10p IO for 6 hrs.

But 12p Go for 4 hrs or 15p E7 for 7 hours ?

Lets say WT1 and WT2 end up with a revenue cap aligned to Europe at 17p / kWh, take say 3p off for operating expenses, that leaves 14p / kWh rebate.

[Joeboy]

I guess I'll stick with Go in the New Year until Octopus catch up with available variety.

Not quite so straight forward anymore though, is it ?

No brainer for me, 10p IO for 6 hrs.

But 12p Go for 4 hrs or 15p E7 for 7 hours ?

Lets say WT1 and WT2 end up with a revenue cap aligned to Europe at 17p / kWh, take say 3p off for operating expenses, that leaves 14p / kWh rebate.

To be honest, I am sanguine on the details. We've done the best we can to set it all up to run green and at a decent cost. Happy with the 5.5p for 5 hours until New Year then we'll see. I'll have a working out of the possible figures. Again, glad I've got the 100A fuse.

[Oldgreybeard]

I guess I'll stick with Go in the New Year until Octopus catch up with available variety.

Not quite so straight forward anymore though, is it ?

No brainer for me, 10p IO for 6 hrs.

But 12p Go for 4 hrs or 15p E7 for 7 hours ?

Lets say WT1 and WT2 end up with a revenue cap aligned to Europe at 17p / kWh, take say 3p off for operating expenses, that leaves 14p / kWh rebate.

This EXACTLY sums up the conundrum! It boils down to how much 7 hours of cheap rate is worth versus 4 hours of cheap rate.

For me, it's a no brainer, as I need the extra hours quite often, especially during the winter, so paying a hefty premium for the extra two or three ours over the 4 hours Go period doesn't make any sense. For others, that can always get almost all their consumption into the 4 hour window then Go makes more sense.

My major concern with the plethora of different tariffs available is that it is getting very hard for the majority of people to understand which would give them best value. The price comparison sites (when they were working properly) were absolutely hopeless, I found. They are fine for those whose energy demand doesn't change much through the day, but completely and absolutely useless for those of us that are trying to squeeze as much of our consumption into the cheap rate period as possible.

Batteries have certainly made this easier, as long as they have enough capacity to pretty much avoid ever needing to use peak rate electricity, although they do introduce another time versus power issue when it comes to charging. We could easily eat up more than two thirds of our supply maximum continuous capacity just by charging the car and charging the house batteries, leaving less than 3kW to run the house, heat the hot water, run the heating system, etc, so it just isn't safe or practical to try and squeeze all this into a short off-peak window.

My bodge has been to turn down the house battery charge rate and to also turn down the car battery charge rate slightly, plus offset the time that the hot water starts to heat overnight from both the car and house battery charge start time. Even so, we get very close to the supply limit at times, and our electricity usage is at the lower end of the normal range, I suspect.

What might help would be if there was a way for the comparison sites to use smart meter data to be able to give a better indication of the best tariff for any particular customer. It's fraught with privacy and data security concerns, but frankly without accurate usage data it is going to be near-impossible to compare one tariff with another before too long.

It's OK for us on this forum, a subset of the population that has an interest in saving energy and a better than average understanding of the conundrum than many, but for the majority of consumers I can't help but feel that they are going to be very easily hoodwinked into choosing a tariff that doesn't give them good value. Worse still is that it's probably those who can least afford it who are most likely to be caught out.

[Joeboy]

I guess I'll stick with Go in the New Year until Octopus catch up with available variety.

Not quite so straight forward anymore though, is it ?

No brainer for me, 10p IO for 6 hrs.

But 12p Go for 4 hrs or 15p E7 for 7 hours ?

Lets say WT1 and WT2 end up with a revenue cap aligned to Europe at 17p / kWh, take say 3p off for operating expenses, that leaves 14p / kWh rebate.

This EXACTLY sums up the conundrum! It boils down to how much 7 hours of cheap rate is worth versus 4 hours of cheap rate.

For me, it's a no brainer, as I need the extra hours quite often, especially during the winter, so paying a hefty premium for the extra two or three ours over the 4 hours Go period doesn't make any sense. For others, that can always get almost all their consumption into the 4 hour window then Go makes more sense.

My major concern with the plethora of different tariffs available is that it is getting very hard for the majority of people to understand which would give them best value. The price comparison sites (when they were working properly) were absolutely hopeless, I found. They are fine for those whose energy demand doesn't change much through the day, but completely and absolutely useless for those of us that are trying to squeeze as much of our consumption into the cheap rate period as possible.

Batteries have certainly made this easier, as long as they have enough capacity to pretty much avoid ever needing to use peak rate electricity, although they do introduce another time versus power issue when it comes to charging. We could easily eat up more than two thirds of our supply maximum continuous capacity just by charging the car and charging the house batteries, leaving less than 3kW to run the house, heat the hot water, run the heating system, etc, so it just isn't safe or practical to try and squeeze all this into a short off-peak window.

My bodge has been to turn down the house battery charge rate and to also turn down the car battery charge rate slightly, plus offset the time that the hot water starts to heat overnight from both the car and house battery charge start time. Even so, we get very close to the supply limit at times, and our electricity usage is at the lower end of the normal range, I suspect.

What might help would be if there was a way for the comparison sites to use smart meter data to be able to give a better indication of the best tariff for any particular customer. It's fraught with privacy and data security concerns, but frankly without accurate usage data it is going to be near-impossible to compare one tariff with another before too long.

It's OK for us on this forum, a subset of the population that has an interest in saving energy and a better than average understanding of the conundrum than many, but for the majority of consumers I can't help but feel that they are going to be very easily hoodwinked into choosing a tariff that doesn't give them good value. Worse still is that it's probably those who can least afford it who are most likely to be caught out.

At what point should grown adults take responsibility for their actions rather than looking for someone else to? I know that is harsh but the entirety of the Internet and plethora of forum space/ chat rooms should help if they took a few moments to delve? Not long ago we were not happy with the big 6, then we were not happy with all the smaller companies going tits up. Now it's transparency of tarrifs... I always took responsibility for that stuff, if folk can't be bothered, let them be bled as the sheep they are.

Personally, I'll be 12p for 4 on Go and keep an eye out as the political landscape changes. Or for IO to develop further. Defo be maxing out the enlarged battery stack in the run up to the 30th Dec.
That's about 88kWh available across the 4 hour window without fully making it out, close though.
12kWh HWT
20kWh Battery stack
14kWh EV (50 miles)
42kWh Storage heaters
Can slide that all about but I'm covered there and maybe chuck some power at No1 son's place once I see it balance out.
£10.56 per day less the take of WT1. Only for a wee while across Winter and thats worst case, that'll do.

[Oldgreybeard]

At what point should grown adults take responsibility for their actions rather than looking for someone else to? I know that is harsh but the entirety of the Internet and plethora of forum space/ chat rooms should help if they took a few moments to delve? Not long ago we were not happy with the big 6, then we were not happy with all the smaller companies going tits up. Now it's transparency of tarrifs... I always took responsibility for that stuff, if folk can't be bothered, let them be bled as the sheep they are.

Personally, I'll be 12p for 4 on Go and keep an eye out as the political landscape changes. Or for IO to develop further. Defo be maxing out the enlarged battery stack in the run up to the 30th Dec.

Good question, but we do have to accept that there are a lot of people that simply cannot get their heads around the concept of energy at all, and who are definitely not going to be aware of how much of it they use in each of the 30 minute billing slots each day. It would be great to think that a bit of education will fix this, but it won't - there are just far too many people that cannot grasp the concept of integrals at all. They aren't stupid, it just that what some of us accept as being fairly easy to work out, many others find to be impossible to understand.

In the past this wasn't a big deal. The price of gas or electricity was the same for every hour. Now we are moving to an era when it's very likely that the price for energy may well vary from one 30 minute slot to another, and not vary in a consistent way, either. The end game for suppliers is for them to remove the risk they currently hold, where they have to set a mean tariff based on what they think the wholesale price is going to do, to a regime where the suppliers have no risk, and sell energy on a cost-plus basis, so it comes down to every consumer to know how much energy they use each 30 minute slot, and adjust their behaviour if they wish to minimise their bills.

I doubt that more than half the population will ever get their head around this, TBH. It's just not something that many people are able to wrap their heads around at all. A good example would be my wife. She's not stupid, she was a nurse before she retired. She does really struggle when it comes to understanding power and energy, though, and no matter how much time I spend trying to make it a bit easier to understand why time is every bit as important as power, when it comes to energy consumption, she does still struggle with it.

One of the young lads that was working here over the past couple of weeks, building our new stone wall, was much the same. He's paying £187/month for electricity and just couldn't understand where it was going. He wasn't daft, either. His stone work is some of the best I've seen, and it takes skill and intelligence to build a traditional stone wall. Nevertheless, understanding energy was, for him, like rocket science, and I doubt that he'll ever really understand how to get best value from any supplier's tariff.

Putting my usual cynical hat on, I'd say that it is in the supplier's interest to make tariffs as complex as possible. We've already seen this with mobile phone charges, they made things as complex as they possibly could, then advertised the unachievable cheapest price, when most people ended up paying way more than this. This did self-regulate down a bit, due to high levels of competition, but the energy supply market has become a lot less competitive over the past year or so, and is most probably going to stay like that for some time.

[Joeboy]

At what point should grown adults take responsibility for their actions rather than looking for someone else to? I know that is harsh but the entirety of the Internet and plethora of forum space/ chat rooms should help if they took a few moments to delve? Not long ago we were not happy with the big 6, then we were not happy with all the smaller companies going tits up. Now it's transparency of tarrifs... I always took responsibility for that stuff, if folk can't be bothered, let them be bled as the sheep they are.

Personally, I'll be 12p for 4 on Go and keep an eye out as the political landscape changes. Or for IO to develop further. Defo be maxing out the enlarged battery stack in the run up to the 30th Dec.

Good question, but we do have to accept that there are a lot of people that simply cannot get their heads around the concept of energy at all, and who are definitely not going to be aware of how much of it they use in each of the 30 minute billing slots each day. It would be great to think that a bit of education will fix this, but it won't - there are just far too many people that cannot grasp the concept of integrals at all. They aren't stupid, it just that what some of us accept as being fairly easy to work out, many others find to be impossible to understand.

In the past this wasn't a big deal. The price of gas or electricity was the same for every hour. Now we are moving to an era when it's very likely that the price for energy may well vary from one 30 minute slot to another, and not vary in a consistent way, either. The end game for suppliers is for them to remove the risk they currently hold, where they have to set a mean tariff based on what they think the wholesale price is going to do, to a regime where the suppliers have no risk, and sell energy on a cost-plus basis, so it comes down to every consumer to know how much energy they use each 30 minute slot, and adjust their behaviour if they wish to minimise their bills.

I doubt that more than half the population will ever get their head around this, TBH. It's just not something that many people are able to wrap their heads around at all. A good example would be my wife. She's not stupid, she was a nurse before she retired. She does really struggle when it comes to understanding power and energy, though, and no matter how much time I spend trying to make it a bit easier to understand why time is every bit as important as power, when it comes to energy consumption, she does still struggle with it.

One of the young lads that was working here over the past couple of weeks, building our new stone wall, was much the same. He's paying £187/month for electricity and just couldn't understand where it was going. He wasn't daft, either. His stone work is some of the best I've seen, and it takes skill and intelligence to build a traditional stone wall. Nevertheless, understanding energy was, for him, like rocket science, and I doubt that he'll ever really understand how to get best value from any supplier's tariff.

Putting my usual cynical hat on, I'd say that it is in the supplier's interest to make tariffs as complex as possible. We've already seen this with mobile phone charges, they made things as complex as they possibly could, then advertised the unachievable cheapest price, when most people ended up paying way more than this. This did self-regulate down a bit, due to high levels of competition, but the energy supply market has become a lot less competitive over the past year or so, and is most probably going to stay like that for some time.

Wall OK, no more visits from the local loony?

With fortune, the next couple of years will drive an unwanted development of the average power consumer.

[spread-tee]

OGB said

"so it comes down to every consumer to know how much energy they use each 30 minute slot, and adjust their behaviour if they wish to minimise their bills."

I think this is the crux of the topic and we may be over thinking this. People I speak to aren't that bothered about saving a couple of hundred quid a year on a bill of a couple of grand, and I put myself in this bracket TBH it wont make any difference to their lives and life is too short to spend ages trawling through all the supplier bumf trying to shave a few percent off the bills. I get that there are a lot of folk who really struggle to pay their energy bills who would feel the benefit of a couple of hundred. A lot of these people are on pre-payment deals which I think will cost more in any case and I bet the benefit of changing supplier for them is minimal too.

Last time we changed supplier they made a right mess of it and nothing I see has convinced me it is really worth the bother to do so again.

Desp