Octopus Go/Go faster - enforcing "EVs only" ??

[Burble61]

For those those of you with Energy Stores and on those Octopus tariffs - appears that they are now enforcing "need to have an EV to be on this tariff" at contract renewal time.

Checking with Octopus to see if this is the case, will report back.

[Stinsy]

How do they "check"? And why should they be bothered?

The point of a ToU tariff is: "off-peak" electricity is cheap because wholesale prices are cheap during those hours and you usually accept a higher "peak" price in exchange. I get that the "peak" prices for Go and Go Faster have been too low (not complaining but 15p never did make sense) but why does it matter to Octopus what device the electricity goes into?

[Burble61]

Good questions. I assume they would ask for some evidence, I have no idea what/how.

I agree - to my mind any load that could be time shifted is "good enough". Why heating is deemed as not being an appropriate end use whilst an EV is - again no idea.

Seems rather an elitist decision to me. But shows how quickly an "industry innovator" can show the behaviours of the old guard it claims to be challenging doesnt it.

[Bugtownboy]

Maybe it’s been precipitated by taking on the customers of failed providers and the current instability in the market.

Protectionism ?

[dan_b]

To be fair to Octopus, they always marketed Go as a tariff that was "perfect" for EV owners. But I agree it seems a little odd to try and make it "only" for EV owners.
Mind you they do have a Tesla-only tariff which incoporates the Tesla Powerwall https://octopus.energy/tesla/tariff/#/join
and the Nissan-Leaf-specific Powerloop Tariff which incoroprates V2G https://www.octopusev.com/powerloop

But I'm not sure how they'd check/enforce Go being solely for EVs?

[nowty]

Certainly some other EV tariffs from other providers require proof, copy of V5 document or similar. Octopus never asked me anything when I joined the Go tariff and I was thinking about putting my father on it, but he is more than happy with his 2 year fixed deal with gas at only 3.25p / kWh.

But now I am on Octopus intelligence, their app needs access to my Tesla but only allows it to work if my car is physically at my address. If its elsewhere the car will charge immediately and not be controlled by Octopus.

And you need to do a 7 minute test charge on the car with their App before your approved for the tariff.

So that's the ultimate proof you have an EV !

[Burble61]

So when I checked with their customer services it was "no, we're not enforcing that".

When i checked response with someone more senior it was "oh yes we are, for new customers and renewals"

That will be the "award winning customer service" kicking in then! (And yes, having run a large customer service organisation i understand the difficulties in getting consistent messages out. The means to do that have been easily implementable for some time).

The position of restricting cheaper tariffs to the already well off seems pretty questionable to me....

[nowty]

That will just be the start of it, I predict some sort of "fair use policy" is a coming.

I'm doomed if that happens.

[Stinsy]

So when I checked with their customer services it was "no, we're not enforcing that".

When i checked response with someone more senior it was "oh yes we are, for new customers and renewals"

That will be the "award winning customer service" kicking in then! (And yes, having run a large customer service organisation i understand the difficulties in getting consistent messages out. The means to do that have been easily implementable for some time).

The position of restricting cheaper tariffs to the already well off seems pretty questionable to me....

I guess Octopus are throwing money out the door as fast as all the other energy companies right now. And the "Go" tarrifs probably lose more money than average. Particularly when one of us lot get ahold of it.

Octopus would probably rather an "ordinary" BEV-owning family use the Go tariff. The sort of people who use power perfectly normally and other than charge their car during the cheap period go about business as normal. Other ToU tariffs have often come with a clause insisting that 50% (or whatever) of your electricity use has to be "peak". Us lot with our over-sized solar arrays, and big battery packs, who get very upset at the prospect of using a single kWh of "peak" electricity, are never going to be their target market, BEV or no-BEV.

[Burble61]

That will just be the start of it, I predict some sort of "fair use policy" is a coming.

I'm doomed if that happens.

Oh yes I think you are right there. Having changed the basis of use once, its much much easier to justify the approach subsequently.

I don't dismiss the complexities and challenges of being in the energy business just at this moment. But this time will pass and Octopus are starting to demonstrate behaviours typical of energy BigCos that they have been so critical of in the past. Oh the irony...