Energy prices - gone nuts.

[russdx1]

The octopus go intelligent is still 7p, 11.30 to 5.30, but they only support a small handful of chargers. We have no plans on moving and most likely will get more electric cars in the future so probably not a bad investment.

The car is 31kw according to octopus and it’s a big heavy car so you only get 70 miles max in pure electric Lolol but for what I will need it for that will be ok.

Leaning towards octopus go intelligent at the moment…

With this charger

Hypervolt Home 3 Pro​

As supports solar + battery setup correctly. Use cheap rate over winter to charge solar batteries.

 

[Asiapinball]

The cars have their own intelligence so you can program them to only charge in the cheap overnight times. Mine stays plugged in most of the time but the car only takes on charge from midnight to 7am when I get the cheap rate.

Electric tech is changing so quickly at the moment so I'm sure there will be better chargers available in a couple of years. And if wouldn't surprise me if the car manufacturers started to build the intelligent tech into their cars so intelligent chargers may be a thing of the past within a few years. I don't even know if that is possible or planned but since I got my first phev in 2016 and full electric in 2019 I have seen huge advances in the technology.

You really don't need the intelligent tech for now but I do understand the desire for it for greater convenience and ease of use and to fulfill the tech geek needs that we all seem to have on this forum

 

[Asiapinball]

In particularly the car manufacturers need to make sure the intelligent charging is built into the cars as there can be data issues.
Jaguar pulled intelligent charging capabilities from their cars a few tears back because if data concerns. The cars take on software updates automatically so the manufacturers have the ability to do this.

Jaguar I-Pace owners angry as smart charging ability removed | Autocar

Manufacturer says limiting third-party access to cars is to "keep clients’ data as safe as possible”

www.autocar.co.uk

 

[russdx1]

I think it will be useful to have a proper charged so can charge it faster if needs be and the intelligent ones only seem to be few hundred more. And yes we love our experience tech toys (weather it saves any money if not lol)

Solar panels seem to be working out so far since installation few years back. I just pay £100 a month for gas / electric all year around and think that’s not to bad for a large 4 bed house with 4 person family with electric ovens/hobs etc…

 

[daveyp]

My BMW XM has Intelligent charging but Octopus are having issues and there systems can't communicate with it so I don't get the full flexible charging only the 6 off peak hours. They say there working on it and it will come eventually. The BG Sync ev charger I have that's £399.99 at screw fix has Wifi and smart charging so not an issue.

 

[russdx1]

Bit the bullet and went for the hypervolt 3!


Should be a pretty easy install as it will go almost next to my power box which currently looks like this.

The clamp monitor is for the iSolar immersion heater.

 

[Fantazia2]

Looks a bit tight in there to get an Isolation switch in place as well, pretty sure it's a requirement to have one in place for an Ev charger, would go between the meter and the black Henley block below the meter.

 

[russdx1]

Looks a bit tight in there to get an Isolation switch in place as well, pretty sure it's a requirement to have one in place for an Ev charger, would go between the meter and the black Henley block below the meter.

How do others fit it all in? It’s just a standard uk electric box, garage is other side, maybe isolation switches can go in there?

 

[Fantazia2]

How do others fit it all in? It’s just a standard uk electric box, garage is other side, maybe isolation switches can go in there?

Don't think they would normally have a fuse box in there for solar.

 

[taz turbo]

I'm currently on the Octopus 'Flux' tariff...

Off peak	02.00 - 05.00
Peak	16.00 - 19.00

Standard day rate at other times

They've recently increased their 'import' prices, this I can live with, but what really rubs is Octopus have significantly reduced the 'export' price during the day!

	Import	Export
Off peak	17.1p	5.12p
Peak	39.9p	30.68p
Day rate	28.5p	10.54p

Standing charge 67.83p/day

It used to be the same cost to import off peak as to export during the day, so I used to charge the storage during off peak and charge the car from the storage and off peak. But that's obviously no longer the case, so now the better weather is here I've stopped usage from the grid and just let the solar do what it does, storage is typically full by 14.00 - 15.00 then its just exporting at peak rate, which is great while the suns shining!

What tariffs are others on?

Plus point was we had our best day of solar yet yesterday 81.9kW over the day. And now although we're exporting less as we're not really exporting much during day rate, can export quite a chunk at peak rate. Also we're now using basically no grid power, again, while the sun shines.

Chris.

 

[russdx1]

I'm currently on the Octopus 'Flux' tariff...

Off peak	02.00 - 05.00
Peak	16.00 - 19.00

Standard day rate at other times

They've recently increased their 'import' prices, this I can live with, but what really rubs is Octopus have significantly reduced the 'export' price during the day!

	Import	Export
Off peak	17.1p	5.12p
Peak	39.9p	30.68p
Day rate	28.5p	10.54p

Standing charge 67.83p/day

It used to be the same cost to import off peak as to export during the day, so I used to charge the storage during off peak and charge the car from the storage and off peak. But that's obviously no longer the case, so now the better weather is here I've stopped usage from the grid and just let the solar do what it does, storage is typically full by 14.00 - 15.00 then its just exporting at peak rate, which is great while the suns shining!

What tariffs are others on?

Plus point was we had our best day of solar yet yesterday 81.9kW over the day. And now although we're exporting less as we're not really exporting much during day rate, can export quite a chunk at peak rate. Also we're now using basically no grid power, again, while the sun shines.

Chris.

Yeah the rates have gone a bit rubbish, I moved over to intelligent octopus to take advantage of the 7p kw cheap night rate for ev / battery charging.

 

[Fantazia2]

What tariffs are others on?

I'm on separate tariffs for import and export

Import I'm on Octopus Cosy which is designed for Heat Pumps but I didn't have to prove I had one when I signed up

Off Peak 4am to 7am, 1pm to 4pm and 10pm to 12pm
Peak 4pm to 7pm
Day Rate All other times

Standing Charge 58.07p per day

Off Peak 13.58p/kWh
Peak 41.53p/kWh
Day Rate 27.68p/kWh

On my last bill my average usage was 14.04p/kWh


For Export I'm on Outgoing Octopus 12M Fixed

Standard Charge 0p day

Single Export Rate of 15p/kWh

 

[russdx1]

Question for the solar experts!!!!



I have done a bit of research but not 100% sure how it applies to my electric box.

We have a 4.8kw panels with a solax inverter + 11.8kw battery storage. We also have a iBoost which heats our emersion from excess solar (after the solar batteries has charged)

The desired outcome is the ev charger either gets it power directly from the grid (never the battery) or excess solar which would be exported. We are on the octopus intelligent go tariff which gives us a cheap night rate window and cheap rate in the day for the ev charger if they have excess power.

The charger is going to be the Hypervolt Home 3 5m (black)

This is my electric box, the red is the power in, the yellow is splitting off to solar(inverter) & blue splits off to our house(consumer unit)


The octopus installer which came over today (but could not install, as neighbour car in the way......) Is saying we have 2 options, to install grid side or solar / consumer side?

Which is best? if it is grid side he says it 100% wont use the solar battery, but also we might not be able to use excess solar? Or if we install solar side it will drain our solar battery? (unless we constantly tweak battery discharge settings to match when we are charging the car etc..)

From the above picture where would be the best location to tap into for the ev charger so we don't drain our solar battery (it takes power directly from the grid) when the charger is being used or the charger can use excess solar power before its exported to the grid.

One note, the installer did say its gonna be tight in there as the solar people put there fuse box in there (which they shouldn't have really) but he will make it work!

 

[Calimori]

It is worth mentioning that the import price includes VAT whilst the export will not.
However, if you buy 20 and sell 20, the units are fungible and you won’t pay VAT ones you buy and not get it back on the ones you sell, only the balance. But my meter is messed up and this seems to not be happening.
However, VAT is low at 5%.

And my system largely buys cheap, then sells at peak but it is sad I now could charge the battery from the sun and then still sell.

 

[Fantazia2]

It is worth mentioning that the import price includes VAT whilst the export will not.
However, if you buy 20 and sell 20, the units are fungible and you won’t pay VAT ones you buy and not get it back on the ones you sell, only the balance. But my meter is messed up and this seems to not be happening.
However, VAT is low at 5%.

And my system largely buys cheap, then sells at peak but it is sad I now could charge the battery from the sun and then still sell.

My listed Values are included any VAT.

Not sure of your calculation there what you mean, my meter measures separately import and export and they are billed separately so one having VAT and the other not doesnt make any difference. I pay the same VAT on anything I import regardless of what I've exported.

 

[Fantazia2]

Question for the solar experts!!!!

IMHO and not sure if this is fully correct, but I think what you want is the EV charger splicing in between the current Henley block and Meter and then make sure the CT clamps for the Solar and Water Meter stay between the EV charger and the old Henley Bock so the Solar CT never sees when the EV charger is pulling power and hence try to discharge the battery.

Not sure on the spec of the EV charger but I would hope that it includes its own CT clamp that would then go between the EV Charger and Meter so it can see when excess solar is being exported and then milk that off into the cars battery, from a couple I have read up about they need to see a decent amount of export showing before they will start diverting power, something like 1kW.

Assuming that the Battery is configured to allow a 0 export amount so it always tries to charge when exporting, and the iBoost is setup to allow a certain amount of export before diverting so the battery is prioritised that should give a scenario where the EV charger will only charge from excess solar once the battery is full and the Water is Fully Hot or until the point where the Battery and Water Heater are both pulling less than the excess solar mount, and also the EV will never charge from the battery as the Battery will never see its power usage. with the clamp being before the EV charger and the meter.



I have a water heater setup as well and my system currently work like this (With some caveats as I force charge the battery during off-peak as its cheaper than wasting solar but ignoring that)

The Battery is setup to not allow any export so when exporting excess solar if the battery is not fully charged it will start charging from the solar until export is 0, or it reaches its max charge rating, which does drop when the batteries get closer to being full.

The Water Heater clamp has to see at least 300w (This is built in and not adjustable for mine) being exported before it will start to divert power to the immersion heater so it wont start diverting any power to the immersion until either the battery is full or I'm exporting more power than the inverter can put into the battery.

This way the battery is prioritised first and then the water heater takes the next lot.

EDIT: Looked up the EV Charger and saw this in the FAQ

The charger comes with a CT clamp that must be fitted at the service origin to measure the main load on the property and discover any solar export. Once the clamp detects that you are exporting over 6A/1.4kW of energy back to the grid, the charger will be able to charge.

So as long as configured as I think with the Solar and iBoost CT clamps between the EV charger and Fuseboard and CT clamp for the EV charger between the charger and the meter it will divert excess solar to the EV charger once youre exporting over 1.4kW which should mean your battery and iBoost get prioritised for the excess power.

 

[russdx1]

IMHO and not sure if this is fully correct, but I think what you want is the EV charger splicing in between the current Henley block and Meter and then make sure the CT clamps for the Solar and Water Meter stay between the EV charger and the old Henley Bock so the Solar CT never sees when the EV charger is pulling power and hence try to discharge the battery.

Not sure on the spec of the EV charger but I would hope that it includes its own CT clamp that would then go between the EV Charger and Meter so it can see when excess solar is being exported and then milk that off into the cars battery, from a couple I have read up about they need to see a decent amount of export showing before they will start diverting power, something like 1kW.

Assuming that the Battery is configured to allow a 0 export amount so it always tries to charge when exporting, and the iBoost is setup to allow a certain amount of export before diverting so the battery is prioritised that should give a scenario where the EV charger will only charge from excess solar once the battery is full and the Water is Fully Hot or until the point where the Battery and Water Heater are both pulling less than the excess solar mount, and also the EV will never charge from the battery as the Battery will never see its power usage. with the clamp being before the EV charger and the meter.



I have a water heater setup as well and my system currently work like this (With some caveats as I force charge the battery during off-peak as its cheaper than wasting solar but ignoring that)

The Battery is setup to not allow any export so when exporting excess solar if the battery is not fully charged it will start charging from the solar until export is 0, or it reaches its max charge rating, which does drop when the batteries get closer to being full.

The Water Heater clamp has to see at least 300w (This is built in and not adjustable for mine) being exported before it will start to divert power to the immersion heater so it wont start diverting any power to the immersion until either the battery is full or I'm exporting more power than the inverter can put into the battery.

This way the battery is prioritised first and then the water heater takes the next lot.

EDIT: Looked up the EV Charger and saw this in the FAQ

The charger comes with a CT clamp that must be fitted at the service origin to measure the main load on the property and discover any solar export. Once the clamp detects that you are exporting over 6A/1.4kW of energy back to the grid, the charger will be able to charge.

So as long as configured as I think with the Solar and iBoost CT clamps between the EV charger and Fuseboard and CT clamp for the EV charger between the charger and the meter it will divert excess solar to the EV charger once youre exporting over 1.4kW which should mean your battery and iBoost get prioritised for the excess power.

Yeah so the current system pretty much works like that (works very well actually hehe)
ie solar power does the following in this order.
-> cover home load
-> charge solar batteries (until 100%
-> heat hot water via iBoost
-> anything left gets exported to grid.

What I basically want is to add the ev charger to the end of the list, so anything left goes to the car charger (if the car is plugged in)
I will force charge the car between 11.30 and 5.30 to use my cheap rate as well, and just want this power to come directly from the grid, never from the batteries which I want to only power the house.

where it gets a bit tricky is octpus intelligent go can start the ev charger at any time (if car plugged in) to start charging it) i just want to make sure this power comes from the grid and not the battery ie a cloudy day etc.. and no solar power.

Rules for charger should be only use grid OR excess solar, never use solar battery.

 

[Fantazia2]

Yeah so the current system pretty much works like that (works very well actually hehe)
ie solar power does the following in this order.
-> cover home load
-> charge solar batteries (until 100%
-> heat hot water via iBoost
-> anything left gets exported to grid.

What I basically want is to add the ev charger to the end of the list, so anything left goes to the car charger (if the car is plugged in)
I will force charge the car between 11.30 and 5.30 to use my cheap rate as well, and just want this power to come directly from the grid, never from the batteries which I want to only power the house.

where it gets a bit tricky is octpus intelligent go can start the ev charger at any time (if car plugged in) to start charging it) i just want to make sure this power comes from the grid and not the battery ie a cloudy day etc.. and no solar power.

Rules for charger should be only use grid OR excess solar, never use solar battery.

So if they can wire in the EV Charger between Meter and the where the CT clamps are currently and then put the chargers CT clamp between the charger and meter that should be how it works.

Unfortunately the force Octopus charge will always use the excess solar if it is there, but with it setup like I suggested it will only use the solar that the Battery and iBoost are not using, the same as if they arent force charging.

With the solar CT clamp being between the house and the EV charger the solar/battery system will never see what is being used by the charger so never respond to it.

Whether they can do that with the space left in there is another thing as I think they would need to fit another henley block and also Im sure they need to fit an isolation switch after the Meter as well.

 

[russdx1]

So if they can wire in the EV Charger between Meter and the where the CT clamps are currently and then put the chargers CT clamp between the charger and meter that should be how it works.

Unfortunately the force Octopus charge will always use the excess solar if it is there, but with it setup like I suggested it will only use the solar that the Battery and iBoost are not using, the same as if they arent force charging.

With the solar CT clamp being between the house and the EV charger the solar/battery system will never see what is being used by the charger so never respond to it.

Whether they can do that with the space left in there is another thing as I think they would need to fit another henley block and also Im sure they need to fit an isolation switch after the Meter as well.

Would you be able to draw on my electric box where you mean as i'm really stupid

Yeah so the charger comes with a isolator but it sits under the electric box (or can go in garage) but they seem to want to put it directly under the electronic box, The guy rekens he can fit the extra blocks in there

 

[russdx1]

A user on another pv forum says don't bother with using the solar directly for the car, just export it for the $$$ and let octopus intelligent do its thing and use the cheap night rate / excess grid power for the charger and just install everything grid side, is there much savings using excess solar directly?

 

[taz turbo]

A user on another pv forum says don't bother with using the solar directly for the car, just export it for the $$$ and let octopus intelligent do its thing and use the cheap night rate / excess grid power for the charger and just install everything grid side, is there much savings using excess solar directly?

It all depends on your tariff rates, I use as much solar energy as I can, until peak rate, then I stick it back into the grid at 30p/kWh. If I have little electricity requirements the following day I also set the inverters to discharge the batteries into the grid during peak, my inverters can discharge at 10.5kWh, so with my peak rate export just over 30kWh at 30p/kWh, it’s almost worth going on holiday just for that

 

[Fantazia2]

A user on another pv forum says don't bother with using the solar directly for the car, just export it for the $$$ and let octopus intelligent do its thing and use the cheap night rate / excess grid power for the charger and just install everything grid side, is there much savings using excess solar directly?

Theres no exact answer to this really, it depends on how much you get paid for export vs how much you pay for the EV charging import, if you getting a higher rate per kWh exported than you would pay for importing at whatever time/rate then yes dont both with using the solar to charge your vehicle.

i.e. if you get 15p/kWH for export and you are paying 7p/kWh at the cheapest rate you would get more back for exporting the same amount of energy you imported

If you only say 5p/kWh for export and you were paying 7p/kWh or more then it would be worth charging from the excess solar as you would get less back from export than you would pay to import.

That specified EV charger can bet setup without the CT clamp so it never sees the solar export and so only charges when its told to, but you do loose the current limiting control with can be a factor depending on what else is installed in the house and what your supply limit is 80a/100a etc, but you may be able to program the charger to not use excess solar and still have the CT clamp in place.

Have seen a YT video recently where due to what they had in the house already and a limited incoming supply they needed to use the CT clamp so the charge rate could be limited so it didnt max out the incoming supply if other items in the house were being used, like an electric Aga, Immersion Heater, HotTub etc.

 

[russdx1]

Theres no exact answer to this really, it depends on how much you get paid for export vs how much you pay for the EV charging import, if you getting a higher rate per kWh exported than you would pay for importing at whatever time/rate then yes dont both with using the solar to charge your vehicle.

i.e. if you get 15p/kWH for export and you are paying 7p/kWh at the cheapest rate you would get more back for exporting the same amount of energy you imported

If you only say 5p/kWh for export and you were paying 7p/kWh or more then it would be worth charging from the excess solar as you would get less back from export than you would pay to import.

That specified EV charger can bet setup without the CT clamp so it never sees the solar export and so only charges when its told to, but you do loose the current limiting control with can be a factor depending on what else is installed in the house and what your supply limit is 80a/100a etc, but you may be able to program the charger to not use excess solar and still have the CT clamp in place.

Have seen a YT video recently where due to what they had in the house already and a limited incoming supply they needed to use the CT clamp so the charge rate could be limited so it didnt max out the incoming supply if other items in the house were being used, like an electric Aga, Immersion Heater, HotTub etc.

So import rate is 7p kw between 11.30 and 5.30 and if they have excess power for the charger
export rates are the following, I usually start to export from about 1pm to about 7ish)

Hmm so yeah I do seem to get more for the export then I would for the import, so maybe the other guy is right, on this particular tariff. Might be worth just putting charger on the grid and keep it simple...

 

[Fantazia2]

So import rate is 7p kw between 11.30 and 5.30 and if they have excess power for the charger
export rates are the following, I usually start to export from about 1pm to about 7ish)

Hmm so yeah I do seem to get more for the export then I would for the import, so maybe the other guy is right, on this particular tariff. Might be worth just putting charger on the grid and keep it simple...
View attachment 278765

If that is the case, another thing to consider is whether to use your batteries at all between 11:30pm to 5:30am if you get charged for everything imported at the 7p rate as you will get more exported for the solar at the higher rate as you wont need to charge your batteries as much in the morning, and also maybe even consider charging your battery at the cheaper rate so you end up exporting more solar during the day.

Thats what I currently do but its getting close to point for me of not being worth it due to my rates being closer together, this is when you take into account the efficacy losses of the charge/discharge process as there are losses involved in the inverters i.e. it takes slightly more than 1KWh of power to put 1KWh of charge into the battery when charging and then when discharging you get slightly less than 1KWh of power out from 1kWh of the batties capacity.

Its all a balancing game to get the best out of it.

 

[russdx1]

If that is the case, another thing to consider is whether to use your batteries at all between 11:30pm to 5:30am if you get charged for everything imported at the 7p rate as you will get more exported for the solar at the higher rate as you wont need to charge your batteries as much in the morning, and also maybe even consider charging your battery at the cheaper rate so you end up exporting more solar during the day.

Thats what I currently do but its getting close to point for me of not being worth it due to my rates being closer together, this is when you take into account the efficacy losses of the charge/discharge process as there are losses involved in the inverters i.e. it takes slightly more than 1KWh of power to put 1KWh of charge into the battery when charging and then when discharging you get slightly less than 1KWh of power out from 1kWh of the batties capacity.

Its all a balancing game to get the best out of it.

Yeah in winter the batteries will 100% be night charging with the car as wont be any export in the day, But in summer does seem like its best to try and charge batteries & car using 7p night rate and then export in day using the higher rate. I wonder if I get enough time to charge both? Will have to play.

I'm thinking best go down grid route now and not bother trying to charge car from solar...

 

[Calimori]

Yeah, my comment about only being charged for the Net usage isn’t shown in any bills. They charge us VAT on what they sell us but we can’t charge them VAT on what we sell domestically back.

For my setup, the effort to decide to charge battery at super off peak, vs charge by solar, based on the predicted weather yield, would not make a material difference.

Getting an EV and the reduce kw and longer charger period might make a significant difference

 

[Fantazia2]

Yeah, my comment about only being charged for the Net usage isn’t shown in any bills. They charge us VAT on what they sell us but we can’t charge them VAT on what we sell domestically back.

For my setup, the effort to decide to charge battery at super off peak, vs charge by solar, based on the predicted weather yield, would not make a material difference.

Getting an EV and the reduce kw and longer charger period might make a significant difference

I wonder if there is some VAT element in the background that gets paid for export and they just dont put it on the bills, as its not like we would get the VAT anyway as it would go to the HMRC.

Imagine having to do a VAT return every year for your solar exports.

At the moment I only tend to charge on the evening and early morning when on the lower rate as during the day by the time I get to then the battery is full from the solar.

Was fairly easy to setup on my inverter anyway set it to timed mode and added a timer for the set times so it charges and then doesnt discharge during those times and works in auto mode any time there isnt a schedule set, can even set different charge rates and how much % to charge the battery too.