UKC

Looking to get an EV charger installed at home early next year. Currently with Octopus and will be looking at getting one of their EV add on tariffs.

I note that Octopus recommend premium Ohme, Wallbox and Myenergy chargers as compatible with their tariffs. Any thoughts on if one is better than another (or indeed another make to consider)? Anything else to consider?

Thanks.

What car have you got? I've got an Ohme that I've had for 3 years now. It was fine with my Leaf, but won't talk to my eNiro. It still charges and lets me use Intelligent Octopus for 5 hours cheap rate a night, but I can't specify a percentage to charge to. Ohme blame the Kia API, but from what I've seen of Ohme's software development I'm dubious about their claims.

I bought the Ohme because it was on a special offer. To be honest if I was buying another EVSE I'd just go for the best deal again, as long as it's compatible to get the Octopus deal.

Haven’t got an EV yet, but hoping to buy soon. I would use the online check form Octopus has for particular models and if need be speak to them about compatibility before committing.

Knowing nothing about home chargers starting to learn more. I would hope that I could use say a smart charging tariff Octopus are doing in beta where they would control the charger for when it was best for the grid (all a at a lower price I think).

No personal experience, but from what I can gather, home AC chargers are basically an on/off switch (well, a contactor really) with a few monitoring circuits. The actual charging (i.e. AC to DC conversion, fancy means of balancing cells and regulating applied voltages etc.) is done by the car's integral charger.  All the home "charger" unit does is "hand-shake" the car's own systems - verify a connection to the household circuits and the maximum current rating.  Then the house's AC is supplied to the car, which uses its own charger to charge the battery. TLDR - probably no real difference in terms of electrical hardware -  I'd frankly be more wary about interfaces / software i.e. if anything requires "apps" to work etc.

That's all you need to charge a car, but if you want to get the best rates for electricity you need a smart charger that the supply company can control. So it is important to choose a compatible one. A few hours a night at 7.5p a unit adds up to a big saving when you're charging a car. 

The other thing to consider is whether you're going to want to go vehicle to grid at any point. In which case you'd need a compatible charger. Currently expensive. 

I've had a basic Podpoint for some years. Been very reliable but my needs are simple. Installed by a complete muppet however, so required some remedial work.  

Paul

I got the cheapest wall charger on Amazon for £300 and got a local electrician to fit it. Total cost less than half what Pod Point charged in our previous house. Made me think all those big charger companies are just profiteering. 
 

I’ve never done smart or scheduled charging but we have a Niro and I know it’s the car that does it not the charger, I can set a schedule tI only charge at cheap times in the cars infotainment screen and then plug it in. I think any charger with bells and whistles is just doubling / tripling the price for minimal benefit probably. 

I'm currently w Ovo, who are not meant to be bad for overnight charging, but I have not had chance to contact them (and last time I did, it took an age to get to them), but does anyone know if they advise any particular chargers. 
I was supposed to get a new EV at the end of November. It got delayed. 

I currently don't have free time during a working day to call utility companies, and I'm waiting for a plumber to give me a quote for a new boiler, as well as information which he says may change what I do about solar panels as there may be funding. Otherwise I would have already had new panels and a charger installed: Hence my interest in which charger to go for.

Yes. There is a lot of merit in keeping it simple, but I feel I will have to go with modern software control to get full benefit from changes in tariffs that are coming. I have read frustrations of apps not working and chargers being dumb and not responding which is a concern. 

Currently I’m paying 29p per kWh for electric and I see overnight/smart charging could be 7-10p so smart(er) charging should provide a payback of the extra costs of a smart charger.

Ah thanks. Not sure I’m bother at vehicle to grid at this stage, but something to keep in mind in case I get a car that is capable of this.

I'm currently 29p for electric but an overnight EV add on would seems to be in the region of 7-10p for the car. Octopus are trialling though as far as I know smart charging at the low rate anytime if it suits the grid. May suit me this “random” type charging in future so worth me investigating.

Maybe able to help a little there. Coincidentally I browsed OVO’s website last week trying to learn more! Seems like they only recommend Ohme and Indra chargers as compatible. However, they state “You only need a compatible EV or smart charger, not both.”  

See https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-anytime-cars-and-chargers .  I was reading OVO are apparently the cheapest for overnight rate for EV charging currently though I wasn’t thinking of switching.

Do you have any form of micro-generation?  If so, a Zappi from Myenergi might be a good bet for you.  

My Zappi has three modes - FAST which will basically stuff as much electric as it can handle into my car, ECO which will take excess solar power from my panels first, blended with a little from the grid and feed that into my car or ECOPLUS which only kicks in if there is excess solar energy.  There is also an option to use a boost facility which works alongside the third option where I can opt for solar power only for a set time then an automatic boost of power going in to take my power up before making a journey (I’ve never used it though).

Zappi has worked well for the five years I’ve had it, which is fairly surprising as it’s an electrical thing, outdoors in an exposed location on a Scottish island.

No experience on the other brands, sorry.

We have a PodPoint, because that's the one my wife's company have partnered with for their car scheme. The installer was a complete arse with a chip a mile wide on his shoulder! All because I asked a couple of questions to confirm what he needed access to to install it and to clarify my understanding of best practice to connect it into the house!

Ours has a key lock so no-one else can come and just plug into it if we're away.

We are with Octopus and haven't yet gone with their EV add-on tariff, because the Niro EV we had wasn't on their approved list, so we couldn't go to the best tariff, just the basic one, which only gives you something like 4 hours cheap charging, rather than 6.

The other catch with it seems to be that your electricity for the rest of the day actually costs MORE! As both my wife and I work from home, so are heavy day users and we don't actually need to charge the car that much, we're not on an EV tariff, as I figure that might be more expensive for us.

I really do need to sit down and work that out, though.

If you do go for the EV tariff, you need to set the dishwasher/washing machine/whatever else to run during the cheap period to get best benefit. Again, we don't, as our bedroom is right above the utility room and we can't figure out how to stop them beeping when they finish and my wife doesn't like being woken up at 4am!

I know that everyone seems to think Octopus are the dogs testicles, but they really aren't when it goes wrong. 

My Smart Meter stopped working in October and I've spent the last 8 weeks trying to get it sorted. Endless Chat, emails, phone calls, formal complaints etc . They are utterly useless and have passed me round the houses. 

I know this doesn't really answer your question but I have a EV and the solar panels are being fitted today but its all useless if the supplier can't sort out the smart meter. 

I'd definitely check out customer reviews of service whatever charger you go for. Mine was Alfen fitted by British Gas - the main advantage being it came free with the car but would probably have researched more if I'd been paying.

Not yet, though am interested in solar. Definitely something I should look into as often my car sits idle during the day. Thanks, I’ll have a look at Zappi; five years surviving island conditions is a great sign (I used to live in Shetland).

Yes I noted some tariffs are charging more for the day rates. Have to do the calculations as I use far more (most) electricity in the day currently. My overnight is minimal as there is no reason currently price wise for me to run stuff overnight; an EV should change thinking. Last home I had had cheaper overnight electric and I certainly used it with machines on timers.

Hadn’t figured out the difference between Octopus’ 4 and 6 hours tariffs - your explanation covers that. 

I actually did work this out for my parents, because you're correct i think their day rate for electricity was 34p. It was cheaper to switch to the EV (or non-peak tarriffs I guess) providing you made the most of those hours.

So if you ran the washer / dryer overnight, charged your car etc etc during those off peak hours it was cheaper. However, if you don't do those things then it turned out to be substantially more. It does sound like for you then it's smarter to stick with the normal tarriffs. 

In all though, the averaged cost at the time came out to about a penny or two cheaper than the government cap on unit cost at the time.

I appreciate what you are saying - I’m actually open minded about Octopus still and could move as I have yet to really test them out. Are anyone really that much better when things go horribly wrong though is a hard question to answer.

Hard to believe I’ve been with them for some 2.5yrs and never yet phoned or emailed them! Everything has been just online from the switch and so far hassle free; when my 2 yr fix ended it automatically went on to standard tariff.

I did switch from a provider that was very poor and uncommunicative (was one of those that went bust which probably says it all about it’s business practices) and have been relieved and grateful so far Octopus as supplier has just worked.

Hope you get your smart meter sorted - without it properly working everything else connected is …. well you know, as well as 2.7 million with smart meters not working correctly (according to BBC reporting recently). It does concern me that when smart meters/apps/other tech goes wrong it causes endless hassles and cost implications.

There's no particular need to get any specific brand of charger in order to be able to access the simpler EV tariffs.  Something straightforward like Octopus GO works with any charger; as long as either the car or the charger is capable of timed charging you can just set it to fill up in the cheap period.  I simply charge off a 13A socket, but my car (e-Niro) has timed charging built in so it knows to only request power between 0030 and 0430.

If you really want to access the more complex tariffs like Intelligent, then yes, you need either a car or charger that is sophisticated enough to 'talk' to Octopus.  I am not convinced that this is a big enough reason to choose a specific charger.

However: if you are planning on PV soon, then it is definitely worth making sure to get a charger that can talk to your inverter; being able to divert excess PV to the car is a real advantage.

If I were in your position I'd be thinking about a combined setup of PV, hybrid inverter, small-ish battery and linked EV charger.  Then you can charge either from the sun or cheap overnight rate, and the battery will ride out the more expensive day rate.  If you think you'll ever go for a heat pump, then being able to add more battery capacity will be advantageous.

Thanks for all that. Makes me think more about fuller integration I should look into. I should make solar a priority as part of going for an EV. Usefully storage batteries should be part of it as the car would not need to be charged every night I can’t imagine, and could use overnight electric if not charged by solar.

I've gone pretty much the whole hog.  5.7kWp PV, 3kW AC inverter with 9.5kWh battery, heat pump and EV.

The EV is pretty much standalone from everything else for me; it just charges during that cheap period.  I do intend to upgrade my charger to one which can divert excess PV sooner or later.

Regardless of what the car is up to, I charge my home battery every night; up to full in the winter, but only to half or even less in the summer as I know that the morning's PV will then fill it up.

The heat pump runs overnight to charge my thermal store.  For 3/4 of the year that's enough for the day; in Dec/Jan/Feb it needs to run again in the daytime.  

It's cost me a lot to get to this stage, but I now have a direct debit for £60/month which covers my heating, hot water, domestic electricity and my car charging.

The only thing I'd change if I did it again would be to get the PV and battery at the same time.  A single hybrid inverter is more efficient than a PV inverter plus separate AC inverter for the battery.

I also noted what you mentioned about no VAT in another thread with getting batteries at same time as PV; thanks good to know.

I’ve got time to plan and try and get a reasonable setup for home. In the short term for a forthcoming EV to be charged, if for financial reasons alone, I should use some of the public chargers we are fortunate to have still cheap up here in central Scotland.

I’ve recently used a couple of car parks that I fairly often use throughout the year and discovered when I looked them up online that they have 22kw chargers that are only 16p/kWh. Would be handy for top up if parking anyway.

We also still have a few free, but slower chargers, available here in Fife and surrounds (even Edinburgh according to a friend has some free ones still) and others are only 30p.

That won’t last so shouldn’t be taken into consideration of planning home set up though, but short term I could work around the public ones. All the newer ones getting installed have much higher prices as a sign of the way charges will go to make home charging worthwhile to get installed soon.

....following this thread with interest, apologies for a slight hijack....I have an Ohme smart charger, solar panels and battery setup. I set the batteries to charge during the cheap period overnight which is fine. But Octopus Intelligent Go sometimes will charge your car during the day at points when the grid is quiet (and in theory still only charge you the night rate, hence 'smart' charging) but it takes the charge from the battery first then, which can drain quickly, hence undoing all my good cheap charging from the night. Still working with my solar guy to get a solution for that. Any thoughts on a way round this?

...this is why I'm currently sticking to dumb Octopus Go!  

At a guess, you need the charger to tell the battery not to respond to the charger's load, only the house load.  But whether that is possible, I don't know.  

Or an automation that tells the battery to stand down during a period when Intelligent Go is charging?  I assume running the whole house off the (cheap) incoming grid power would be acceptable.

...thanks for the reply. Yes, understood. Apparently one answer is to wire in the car charger on a separate circuit to the house, so that it is outside the battery. Solar guy is coming on Monday. Let's see....

My wallbox has been a total mare. Zappi are much better, I have even considered ditching the Wallbox.

Interesting, thanks.