Intelligent Octopus and Cupra

[alanjs]

Fourth update. - IO Go - Zappi V2 - Cupra Born

I had 2 further charging Plans and I may have discovered Octopus's "Dirty Tricks Department". Perfectly legal under Octopus's terms and conditions, but I feel is a bit underhand.

I plugged the car in at about 10:15 on Friday morning with a 65% state of charge. Octopus scheduled charge sessions for 10:30 - 11:00 and 11:30 - 12:00 the same morning. Outside the off-peak hours. This worked, but only charged the car to 70%, not the target 80%.

What was immediately apparent was that the charging was activated at a time when my solar panels were generating excess energy which is sold to Octopus at 15p/KWh while they were charging me 7.5p/KWh. Therefore a benefit to Octopus of 22.5p/KWh.

At that point I expected Octopus to schedule a further charging session during the off-peak hours. Well, they did, but the times scheduled were 05:00 - 05:30 and 06:00 - 06:30. again, outside the off-peak hours.

This scheduling meant that my solar battery which is charged to 80% during the off-peak hours was drained to 40% to supplement the grid charge at that time. As this was also at a time when my solar panels were not producing power, this meant that solar battery power that I would have used during peak hours was no longer available. So, again, a benefit to Octopus because I am now using peak-rate power instead of my stored solar battery power charged at off-peak. Unquantifiable.

OK, this legal, and it may turn out to be a one-off, but those of you who are using IO Go and have a similar solar installation need to know that when Octopus say they may charge your car at peak times when free excess energy is available, they mean when your excess energy is available, not theirs.

I'll see what happens in future, but I now need to re-think how I schedule off-peak solar battery charging relative to EV charging to avoid paying extra charges to Octopus.

[Yoriel79]

Any news about this matter?

[alanjs]

Any news about this matter?

Unsurprisingly, the Octopus chatbot hasn't responded to the e-mail I sent regarding this issue and I don't really expect a reply.
I won't need to schedule another charge until tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon so I won't know what IO Go's next plan will be until then. However, I have analysed IO Go's previous activity and scheduling, and I have figured out a way to override anything it plans. If I don't like what the plan I will force the charging to happen during the off-peak hours.
Low cunning and human intelligence should be able to defat IO Go's AI.

[alanjs]

Any news about this matter?

On Tuesday 7th, I plugged the car in and after a few minutes it started charging. This is consistent with IO plan so I left it for 20 minutes but IO did not switch it off. This may have been due to the car, so I stopped the charge manually. At this point, IO had not set up any planned charge. Later in the day, IO had set up a plan for charging from 02:30 and 03:00 so that all looks good.
In future I will plug the car in and then immediately manually stop any charge that starts automatically.

[alanjs]

Octopus have responded positively to my concerns so I will post their reply here

• Thank you for bringing your concerns about the scheduling of your EV charging on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff to our attention. I apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you.
  
  I understand that you have noticed that your EV charging sessions have been scheduled outside of the off-peak hours, and this has resulted in your solar panels generating excess energy that is sold to Octopus at a higher rate while you are being charged at a lower rate. I can see how this would be frustrating for you.
  
  I want to assure you that our intention is to optimize the use of excess energy and provide you with the most cost-effective charging options. However, it seems that there may be an issue with the scheduling algorithm in this particular case.
  
  To investigate this further and ensure that your charging plan is aligned with the off-peak hours, I will escalate this issue to our technical team. They will review the scheduling algorithm and make any necessary adjustments to ensure that your EV charging sessions are scheduled during the off-peak hours.
  
  I apologise for any confusion or inconvenience caused by this issue. We appreciate your feedback, as it helps us improve our services. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to assist you.

So, a fair response and perhaps their technical team will take note of my concerns and implement changes to their AI algorithms.
I'll be keeping an eye on future charging sessions, but so far, so good.

[martinto8]

I've just had a Givenergy EV charger fitted and had issues trying to initiate charge from the EV charger end. I am guessing this issue isn't exclusive to the charger I have had installed?

I have never manage to get the schedules on the EV app to successfully start a charge on the car (unless I aslo start it on the Born end and even that begins to complain!) What this means is that my solar diversion is non functional as a result!

I am not sure if it is a problem with the Borns end or EV charger or combo of both!

[Lizzj18]

Please forgive my naivety as am new here.Unfortunately I’ve decided that intelligent Octopus is really not that intelligent or maybe it’s me ! I’ve been trying for 2 weeks to perform the test run in order sign up to no avail. IO at customer service tell me to make sure that I have location settings on I can’t see where I do this it’s not on the vehicle settings on the app. Then they say obviously it must be charging what charge should it be on please it’s been about 70% so far should it be higher? All my software updates are up to date and My Zappi charger is just one week old ! Again I’m sorry to raise this issue as I know other have it’s just so frustrating! Hope someone can save my sanity! Liz..

[alanjs]

Please forgive my naivety as am new here.Unfortunately I’ve decided that intelligent Octopus is really not that intelligent or maybe it’s me ! I’ve been trying for 2 weeks to perform the test run in order sign up to no avail. IO at customer service tell me to make sure that I have location settings on I can’t see where I do this it’s not on the vehicle settings on the app. Then they say obviously it must be charging what charge should it be on please it’s been about 70% so far should it be higher? All my software updates are up to date and My Zappi charger is just one week old ! Again I’m sorry to raise this issue as I know other have it’s just so frustrating! Hope someone can save my sanity! Liz..

You're not alone. What is your current supplier/tariff? I was on Flexible and switched to IO Go and I kept getting problems with the test charge.

I believe the process that works best is to start from the Octopus web site (not the app) and follow their instructions up to the point where they want you to run the test from the app. Make sure everything is plugged in and the car is on charge immediately. Zappi should be set to "fast".
There should be a short (about 10 minute) test charge and you should then get a "success" message. After that you should get switched over within a week or so.

If you have solar panels and a battery there are a few other wrinkles that you need to be wary of. Go back to around page 5 of this thread and look for some of the other comments. IO Go can be really good and cost-effective but you may be better to set your car to charge using the Cupra routines.

[Daveion]

Please forgive my naivety as am new here.Unfortunately I’ve decided that intelligent Octopus is really not that intelligent or maybe it’s me ! I’ve been trying for 2 weeks to perform the test run in order sign up to no avail. IO at customer service tell me to make sure that I have location settings on I can’t see where I do this it’s not on the vehicle settings on the app. Then they say obviously it must be charging what charge should it be on please it’s been about 70% so far should it be higher? All my software updates are up to date and My Zappi charger is just one week old ! Again I’m sorry to raise this issue as I know other have it’s just so frustrating! Hope someone can save my sanity! Liz..

I had exactly the same problem as you. The instructions in the Octopus APP don't really tell you what to expect as a next step. Thought it may need 24 -48 hours to register the test but NO, one morning I rolled the process again and within minutes the APP acknowledged the test charge and moved my tariff over. 10 minutes Inc the test charge.
As for location. I'm sure if you can see where the car is on the Cupra APP then the location is ON. My other tip is when you do tge test charge sit in the car with Octopus APP open. Don't leave the screen until you get an error or acknowledgement message.
Best of luck. I lost count of the attempts I made.

[alanjs]

I really wish I could understand what IO Go is doing. Yesterday, I plugged the car in and set the Cupra routine to "preferred times" i.e. overnight, and Octopus set two charging periods, 02:00 - 02:30 and 03:00 - 03:30. None of these charges occurred. Then, the car started charging at 08:00 and stopped at 08:30, I assume at the behest of Octopus. I have no idea why. and I have no idea which tariff got charged, but I do know that it used up part of my solar battery charge to do it. Octopus have logged 1.74 KWh out of a Zappi total indication of 2.9 KWh. Crazy and frustrating.
I went out during the morning and plugged in on my return. There was a very short charge which is what I would expect, but so far no plan has appeared on the Octopus app.