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

[Oldgreybeard]

You can get 6 hrs at 10p / kWh on Inteligent Octopus, subject the right EV or EV Charger.

Sadly this falls into the "only for those that can have a smart meter" trap (as does Go). The discrimination against those who, through no fault of their own, cannot access cheaper electricity tariffs needs to be addressed. It's frankly discriminatory, and something that is estimated to impact between 10% and 20% of UK homes.

This discrimination is beginning to hack me off, TBH. It's like getting to the checkout in a supermarket and being told you have to pay 20% more than the till has racked up for some random reason, like having dark skin.

OGB, is there a different way to approach this ?

Currently you are pursuing Octopus to become a customer, can you not change the dynamic so that Octopus want you as a customer ?

With your house/home design and lifestyle, surely you’d be a poster boy for Octopus supporting eco/green living, especially if they overcome the smart meter issue.

Contacting Greg Jackson directly (sure someone on here has his email if it’s not freely available) outlining your position/background may provide a better way in.

Might be easier than wading through the treacle of customer services ?

To be fair, I'm not sure that we're the sort of customer that any supplier would actually want! We use so little electricity, and only a miniscule amount of peak rate electricity, that we're hardly going to have suppliers bending over backwards to have us as customers.

The main reason for the interest in Octopus, in particular, was because I was keen to invest in Ripple (as in the other thread). I'd switch to them as long as it was both possible and as long as their rates for E7 were OK.

[Bugtownboy]

But surely, given the company ethos, you should be the type of customer they’re encouraging. I would imagine the more customers time shift usage, the more profit Octopus will make per kWh provided.

There’s got to be something in it for them ?

[Oldgreybeard]

But surely, given the company ethos, you should be the type of customer they’re encouraging. I would imagine the more customers time shift usage, the more profit Octopus will make per kWh provided.

There’s got to be something in it for them ?

I'll test this out by making them an offer and see what happens. My gut feeling is that Octopus may be more ethical than some other companies, but they are still a business that needs to be profitable. There comes a point where the admin cost of having some customer accounts may well exceed the profit from those accounts, simply because the admin costs are pretty fixed, no matter how much energy a customer uses.

Our direct debit is set at £12/month until the end of March 2023, we're massively in credit with our present supplier, and the tariff is reasonable for the time being. May well be that it makes no sense to switch until after the winter, when I hope there may be a bit more stability in the energy market.

[nowty]

Looks like IO will be the way forward for me then if they accept easee one as a charger. How much does the main window change Nowty. Is there a reliable central slot of x amount of hours with the rest scattered?

It doesn't, the main cheapslot window is fixed 23:30 to 05:30 whatever happens. Charge the EV or dont charge the EV, those 6 hrs behave like Go Faster but with 6 hours. The ONLY thing that changes is if IO decides to say charge your car as below you in fact get the cheapslot for the EV AND whole house from 8pm to 5:30am. Tough eh ?

[Mr Gus]

joe, why do you say *if* they accept the easee one as a charger?

[Fintray]

joe, why do you say *if* they accept the easee one as a charger?

They only accept a Ohme charger at present.

[Oldgreybeard]

joe, why do you say *if* they accept the easee one as a charger?

They only accept a Ohme charger at present.

Presumably that's to do with getting access to the API. As I understand it, although the law requires all new chargers to be internet connected and have the timing jitter feature, there is no standard between manufacturers as to how data and control are handled. This probably means that unless a charger manufacturer chooses to make their control protocol public, or at least reaches an agreement with a company like Octopus to have access to it, control remains proprietary.

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.

[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

[Mr Gus]

Thanks Fintray.

"Why only that one" !? ...brings up a tranche of questions as to why therefore have all these brands of expensive chargers that a mere 1% can utilise for a certain deal.

..Octopus are being sent masses of new customers from failed energy companies & loading us with debt,

Presumably Ohme is working with, or has invested in?
Presumably this is the brand of charger that was made available to a small area of the country (Cambs was too far north when we asked) ..in which case surely there are many axes to grind as to fair play not being employed for their not inconsiderable customer base.

I look forward to being wrong & corrected by others knowledge on this front

(is this another expensive smart meter debacle for ev owners waiting in the wings) !?

[Oldgreybeard]

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.