Wiki Everything you wanted to know about Intelligent Octopus But Were Afraid To Ask

Why write this post?
A lot of people are starting to get interested in IO. I don't think Octopus do a very good job of spelling out the benefits in their website. They have some FAQs, but the same questions keep coming up over and over on the forums.

What is it?
In a nutshell, IO is a split tariff that gives you a cheap off-peak rate for charging your EV and other electrical items in the household, including home batteries.

Isn’t that the same as Octopus Go or Go Faster?
The principle is the same, but in exchange for some benefits which we’ll explain, you allow Octopus to control the timing of your EV charge, so they can choose low carbon intensity and/or cheap wholesale priced time slots.

So I’m not in control of my charge? I don’t like the sound of that!
Well yes…and no. You’re in control of how much to charge and when you want the car to be ready, just like you would be normally. Within those parameters, you’re allowing Octopus to control which half-hour slots the car chooses to get to that target % charge. And you can always override IO if you want to “bump charge” through the day.

OK, but what are the benefits you mentioned for this trade off?
First of all, you get a larger guaranteed off-peak window for using household appliances and charging home batteries, etc. It’s six hours between 23:30-05:30. Go, for example, is a fixed 4 hour window.
In addition, when IO schedules your EV charging slots it sometimes creates schedules that fall outside of the fixed, six hour window. If that happens your EV charging and all your household use in these extra-slots is also charged at off-peak rates.
I have frequently had schedules give me seven or more hours of off-peak rates. On one occasion, I had a total of ten hours of off-peak rates.

Am I eligible?
You need a smart meter and a compatible car and/or charger. Since you’re reading this here, I assume you’ve got or are thinking of getting a Tesla. IO works with the Tesla API to create the charging schedules. The advantage of this is that IO will work with any* home charger. If you have a charger with smart features, you need to disable them so that the charger acts as a dumb switch. IO will control everything via Tesla’s API to start and stop your charging.
*Even your granny charger - but you need to tell IO what the max throughput is when you go through setup so that it can work out your schedules properly.

Some of this sounds too good to be true.
Phantom drain caused by having smart charging enabled in the Octopus app has been fixed as of 30th August 2022. One small side effect appears to be that schedules sometimes take longer to appear in the app after plugging in.

Further questions (to be updated in the main thread body once the edit timer on this post expires)

I have two EVs, can I charge the other while on IO?
Not with IO scheduling the charging, but you can charge any other car in the fixed 23:30-05:30 off peak window or at any other time at peak prices.

What are the rates etc?
Octopus do a decent job of explaining the peak and off-peak rates along with contracts etc. Head over to their pages to discover that.

I asked for a target % of x, but I got less than x.
There are two or three reasons for this.

The first, most common reason, is that Tesla reports battery % differently depending on where you look. The API (that IO uses) reports the gross battery %. This is generally fixed but can fluctuate very slightly. The Tesla app shows usable %. Apps like Teslamate and Teslafi can display both. Quite often, there is a delta of 2-3% which may be down to battery temp or other factors. This usable % will often be recovered as the battery warms up during a drive.

Some users have reported charging % being way off, perhaps 10% or more. This could be down to an error in the onboarding process. Some of the charger database entries incorrectly assume the charger you are onboarding is the 11kW version, without actually saying so in the charger description. The Andersen A2 was an early example of this. If you suspect this may be the case, the easiest thing to do is go through the on-boarding again and choose "Generic 7.4kW charger". It won't affect your functionality on IO in any way.

Lastly, it has to be mentioned that occasionally IO just craps out. It may be down to a comms error, a server error at Octopus' end, or just reasons. IO is a beta product and it's wise to expect one or two quirks from time to time

 

[browellm]

So sounds like the sometimes is an always?

No, sometimes the entire charging schedule falls within the fixed six hour window.

I see it as too good to be true that it will give me whole house rate at cheap rate for the whole time period.

Get yourself a 7kW charger then.

ambiguous statements such as 'it sometimes creates schedules that...'

There's sod all ambiguous about it. Often the entire charge schedule falls within the 23:30-05:30 fixed off-peak window. It depends on grid demand, carbon intensity and other factors, what charge % you need and the speed of your charger.

Feels like there's a certain animostity to Octopus, or to me for some weird reason. I wrote the FAQ for nothing. If it's not to your liking, I'm really sorry. But it is correct, right down to the use of the word "sometimes".

 

[ElectricPolice]

Mine is a similar setup - 3 kWp solar, Solis inverter and 7.2 kWh Pylontech batteries. Runs on the basis of any demand provided for by solar first, then battery then from the grid. Any changes to that and charging times etc have to be input directly onto the inverter as the software is pretty much 'read only'.

I had been wondering what to do in the summer; whether to set the battery to charge to less than 100% overnight given the fact the solar can easily fill the battery on a good day, but I suspect I'll leave it as it stands. The reason for this is that I'm only saving a maximum of 72p if I don't charge the battery at all overnight, but risk £2.95 (7.2 x 41p) if the weather is dreadful.

My only other 'refinement' is that if on a very sunny day we are exporting too much to the grid, I'll plug my wife's car in on the granny charger and direct any excess that way. (I appreciate a Givvi charger can do this automatically, but ours isn't that sophisticated)

At this stage I haven't got round to applying for the 4p export tariff and not sure I'll ever bother while the rate is so low. (Threw away £10.36 last year on that basis, mind, so may have to get my finger out)

I'm with you on the winter full battery charge but in the better weather I start to drop the overnight charge percentage right down.

If not charging the car overnight and also during last summer when we were all on holiday for a week I had no grid-battery charging at all and it ran right through without any grid usage for a number of days.

For the days when I have excess I too run the granny charger instead of putting it back to the grid, problem is balancing a low load on the car knowing I don't need a full charge to go anywhere.

It's a juggle, but good fun. Kind of like gambling, you win some you lose some...

As regards export, also like you I was getting 4p I think (with bulb)? Anyhow I applied for Octopus Outgoing Fixed which is 15p. They are on the case with this now as their T&C's state it only can't be used with Go. Sounds like summer might even see me make some daily profit??

 

[MrBadger]

Feels like there's a certain animostity to Octopus, or to me for some weird reason.

Sounds like you are trying to be a psychiatrist and coming to the wrong conclusions.

I’ve been with Octopus since their very early days and know from experience that they can imply one thing and mean something completely different.

It’s not animosity, just wanting to be clear of the facts especially when they are not clear to those that don’t know. Everything is simple to the initiated, for those that aren’t, there is a whole host of personal experience from people that I am sure are happy to provide clear guidance and clarification over and above a cut and paste of Octopus’ web site, which thankyou for doing, but still contains potential ambiguity that I wanted clarification on rather than simply quoting hence my frustration in trying to get a straight unambiguous answer.

 

[browellm]

Christ, I give up.

 

[Drew57]

Sounds like you are trying to be a psychiatrist and coming to the wrong conclusions.

I’ve been with Octopus since their very early days and know from experience that they can imply one thing and mean something completely different.

It’s not animosity, just wanting to be clear of the facts especially when they are not clear to those that don’t know. Everything is simple to the initiated, for those that aren’t, there is a whole host of personal experience from people that I am sure are happy to provide clear guidance and clarification over and above a cut and paste of Octopus’ web site, which thankyou for doing, but still contains potential ambiguity that I wanted clarification on rather than simply quoting hence my frustration in trying to get a straight unambiguous answer.

The tariff is actually quite simple:

1. IO permanently gives us 6 hours at the low rate (most of the IO charging slots I am given fall within that time period, ie tonight 23.30-00.30 & 01.30-05.30).
2. Any scheduled slots that fall either side of that are also at the low rate.
3. Everything else is at peak rate.
4. If the schedule changes dynamically overnight then any slots outside of the guaranteed 6 hours will either revert to peak or move to low rate accordingly.
5. Everything the smart meter records during all these IO slots are also at the same low rate, regardless of whether it's car, cars, battery charging, household appliances etc.

...So, 6 hours fixed period plus all variable IO slots are at low rate for anything used, everything else peak.

If we all use it as intended - to charge the registered car at the standard download speed of our charging device & make other 'reasonable use' of that lower rate then I would expect that Octopus will retain the tariff. Gaming the system for personal advantage would make it more likely that they will not.

 

[SteveJol]

@MrBadger if IO triggers the charge it is always at off peak rate. End of discussion. I really don't know why you're trying to over complicate things.

 

[ringi]

The tariff is actually quite simple:

1. IO permanently gives us 6 hours at the low rate (most of the IO charging slots I am given fall within that time period, ie tonight 23.30-00.30 & 01.30-05.30).
2. Any scheduled slots that fall either side of that are also at the low rate.
3. Everything else is at peak rate.
4. If the schedule changes dynamically overnight then any slots outside of the guaranteed 6 hours will either revert to peak or move to low rate accordingly.
5. Everything the smart meter records during all these IO slots are also at the same low rate, regardless of whether it's car, cars, battery charging, household appliances etc.

...So, 6 hours fixed period plus all variable IO slots are at low rate for anything used, everything else peak.

If we all use it as intended - to charge the registered car at the standard download speed of our charging device & make other 'reasonable use' of that lower rate then I would expect that Octopus will retain the tariff. Gaming the system for personal advantage would make it more likely that they will not.

For many people a 3kw charge would give more hours of cheap rate then a 7kw charger. I think Octopus should have had a maximum number of cheap rate charing slots per 24hr in the rules giving the option either not fully charger or used normal rate if the charge is too slow for the car usage.

 

[browellm]

For many people a 3kw charge would give more hours of cheap rate then a 7kw charger. I think Octopus should have had a maximum number of cheap rate charing slots per 24hr in the rules giving the option either not fully charger or used normal rate if the charge is too slow for the car usage.

They have given themselves wriggle room in the ToS to do just that. It's just that for whatever reason, possibly because the tariff it still in beta and they are in data collection mode, it's possible to get enormous amounts of off-peak schedule with low power charging.

 

[Skie]

I think Octopus should have had a maximum number of cheap rate charing slots per 24hr in the rules giving the option either not fully charger or used normal rate if the charge is too slow for the car usage.

Why? The whole point of IO is to allow Octopus to manage demand. For us the benefit is we get cheaper electricity overnight and for Octopus they can profit off their ability to smooth out the demand spikes, keeping wholesale prices from rising above what they’re charging us.

 

[Drew57]

For many people a 3kw charge would give more hours of cheap rate then a 7kw charger. I think Octopus should have had a maximum number of cheap rate charing slots per 24hr in the rules giving the option either not fully charger or used normal rate if the charge is too slow for the car usage.

Based on the large numbers of EVs with chargers within a relatively short distance of where I live (especially Crown Park Saighton Camp), every one seems to have a 7kWh device so I would suspect that relatively few owners opt to use a 10a UMC type.

Octopus have always been a very fair and reasonable company in my experience & historical customer behaviour probably matches that.

 

[HenryT]

As regards export, also like you I was getting 4p I think (with bulb)? Anyhow I applied for Octopus Outgoing Fixed which is 15p. They are on the case with this now as their T&C's state it only can't be used with Go. Sounds like summer might even see me make some daily profit??

That's a very interesting point - do please report back when you get clarification.

(Also, good prompt to switch of battery charging while away in summer)

 

[MrBadger]

@MrBadger if IO triggers the charge it is always at off peak rate. End of discussion. I really don't know why you're trying to over complicate things.

Thanks. It’s the contradictions of people’s experiences (like the 10 hour charge above) with longer than 6 hour off peak charges and Octopuses own T&C fair use policy stating max 6 hours off peak per 24 hours.

I’m happy with 6 hours, it’s 50% longer than I have now, which is useful when charging at 10A.

Hopefully IO support’s an easy to use ‘off peak only’/6hour charge regime that is a very common use case and not just their ‘car needs to be charged to x% by a certain time’ method which is very arbitrary if not using the car on a regular basis. Still looking for answers to that one and would apply to many doing 32A charging too.

 

[SteveJol]

Hopefully IO support’s an easy to use ‘off peak only’/6hour charge regime that is a very common use case and not just their ‘car needs to be charged to x% by a certain time’ method which is very arbitrary if not using the car on a regular basis. Still looking for answers to that one and would apply to many doing 32A charging too.

Not sure what answer you're after?

You set in the app (and can change this setting multiple times in a day if you like) that you would like you car charged to x% by y o'clock. If there are enough hours in the day Octopus will do their damnedest to meet that request, including giving more than the 6 hours of off peak if they need to. This really isn't complicated.

 

[waltonmark]

Quick IO report after my first proper night of use to see what it does…

Arrived home Thursday with 7% and plugged in, car set to start charging at 11:30 so no immediate charge. Bonus!

Set an IO charge for 90% by 09:00 the following day (Normally on Go this would be a 3 night event to get 83% charge) and waited to see what sort of schedule would be set?

Anyhow a schedule appeared as attached…View attachment 903129So I therefore changed my car start time to 23:00 to match and not cause a conflict. 10h of charging planned

Had no idea what to expect but it did it’s thing and charged right through. How this is viable for Octopus I don’t know, but according to the OP’s multiple posts smart schedule = off peak rate. So I’m expecting all this to be at 10p. I will have to wait for my bill to see what has actually happened as I don’t know another way to get a live pricing?

As it happened I got nervous at 7am and stopped it in the car as it was depleting my house battery and I knew it was going to be a dull day. I then forgot about it and when checked an hour later it was continuing to charge and house battery down to 20%. So much for that idea. Next time I’ll try and reduce the charge state to so it doesn’t restart .

If this is what it does then definitely a no brainer as to get a full charge overnight is impressive. It meant that last night I switched Smart charging off and plugged the wife’s Y in for 6h straight = 54% uplift from a 23:30 start time

It did mean that my total grid use for yesterday exceeded the 100kW for the first time though…

Hi, I get my Tesla on 03/03 and will start the process to switch to IO then. Can I ask, do you schedule your charge via the Tesla screen / app or via the octopus app? Thanks

 

[Astrape]

Thanks. It’s the contradictions of people’s experiences (like the 10 hour charge above) with longer than 6 hour off peak charges and Octopuses own T&C fair use policy stating max 6 hours off peak per 24 hours.

I’m happy with 6 hours, it’s 50% longer than I have now, which is useful when charging at 10A.

Hopefully IO support’s an easy to use ‘off peak only’/6hour charge regime that is a very common use case and not just their ‘car needs to be charged to x% by a certain time’ method which is very arbitrary if not using the car on a regular basis. Still looking for answers to that one and would apply to many doing 32A charging too.

IO tariff is clearly intended to give them control of the charging slots. For IO to have control they have to know when you need you car charged by and how many %. I dont see any way around that.

However they also allow at the moment (perhaps because of beta) use of 6 hour window, and use of low power chargers with long low rate periods resulting.

I expect that at some point in the future they will revisit these last two use cases if they result in additional costs to the IO financial profit/loss. But that is a big IF. Promoting electric car use a major driver for the foreseeable future, and they may take the view that some people are constrained to using 10A chargers, and should be supported by the tariff because the numbers doing so are too small to bother over.

It seems clear that at present IO is one big experiment, they dont know how much load it can shift around, they dont know how fine control of charging slots it can give them, they dont know how people will behave in response to the tariff structure and implementation. They also dont know how it will integrate with battery storage, or night storage heaters, until they add those devices into the control. For now its one big experimental information gathering exercise, and until they tell us otherwise, it makes no difference at all how you use the tariff because whatever you do its just information on their side.

IO’s lack of intervention for long length low power charger slots, and users only using 11:30 to 5:30 make it clear they are not for now bothered about deviations from the terms and conditions. In that context it seems prudent to not to fuss over people using those variations. One day Octopus may review application of the terms and conditions, but we have no way of knowing when that will be or what direction they will go in. Heated language over precisely what the terms mean seems unnecessary.

 

[goRt]

Hi, I get my Tesla on 03/03 and will start the process to switch to IO then. Can I ask, do you schedule your charge via the Tesla screen / app or via the octopus app? Thanks

Octopus app
But set the car to not start until 23:30 (octopus will override)

 

[Skie]

No, the IO tariff doesn't report extra slots is schedules outside of the fixed period, so comparison tools like Octopus Watch aren't accurate either. The only way to do it would be to locally log the GraphQL API planned dispatches, or wait for your bill.

Octo-aid can grab them on the day if you manually initiate it, but obviously if they change it won’t track those.

 

[Yuff]

IO tariff is clearly intended to give them control of the charging slots. For IO to have control they have to know when you need you car charged by and how many %. I dont see any way around that.

However they also allow at the moment (perhaps because of beta) use of 6 hour window, and use of low power chargers with long low rate periods resulting.

I expect that at some point in the future they will revisit these last two use cases if they result in additional costs to the IO financial profit/loss. But that is a big IF. Promoting electric car use a major driver for the foreseeable future, and they may take the view that some people are constrained to using 10A chargers, and should be supported by the tariff because the numbers doing so are too small to bother over.

It seems clear that at present IO is one big experiment, they dont know how much load it can shift around, they dont know how fine control of charging slots it can give them, they dont know how people will behave in response to the tariff structure and implementation. They also dont know how it will integrate with battery storage, or night storage heaters, until they add those devices into the control. For now its one big experimental information gathering exercise, and until they tell us otherwise, it makes no difference at all how you use the tariff because whatever you do its just information on their side.

IO’s lack of intervention for long length low power charger slots, and users only using 11:30 to 5:30 make it clear they are not for now bothered about deviations from the terms and conditions. In that context it seems prudent to not to fuss over people using those variations. One day Octopus may review application of the terms and conditions, but we have no way of knowing when that will be or what direction they will go in. Heated language over precisely what the terms mean seems unnecessary.

I have a 7kw charger but I can’t risk charging at 32amps in the 6 hr off peak window as I have already blown a 60amp fuse when everything was on, batteries, heat pumps, immersion etc
national grid put a 100amp fuse in but an 80amp in the sub main, which my electrician is changing to a 100amp.
i plug the car in at 6pm and it gives me a schedule until 4am but a lot of the time it charges before the stated off peak window and not during the 23:30-05:30 slot and doesn’t reach the set SOC anyway.
i assume IO is happy with that.
I needed the car at 6am this morning with 100% battery, when i went to bed the car was at 165 miles charging at 16 amps , I woke up at 3am and it wasn’t charging and at 170miles. 3 hrs at 32 amps would get me to 100% but would put me over 21kw, which on an 80amp fuwe makes me a bit jittery.
in the end even though I had a schedule until 6am it was stop start so I did a bump charge, the first one stopped after about 20 mins, the second bump charge worked through to 100% and I dropped it to 16amps when it touched just under 22kwh, several times.
my bill is due tomorrow so I’ll see what is going on

 

[RedMod3]

I have a 7kw charger but I can’t risk charging at 32amps in the 6 hr off peak window as I have already blown a 60amp fuse when everything was on, batteries, heat pumps, immersion etc
national grid put a 100amp fuse in but an 80amp in the sub main, which my electrician is changing to a 100amp.
i plug the car in at 6pm and it gives me a schedule until 4am but a lot of the time it charges before the stated off peak window and not during the 23:30-05:30 slot and doesn’t reach the set SOC anyway.
i assume IO is happy with that.
I needed the car at 6am this morning with 100% battery, when i went to bed the car was at 165 miles charging at 16 amps , I woke up at 3am and it wasn’t charging and at 170miles. 3 hrs at 32 amps would get me to 100% but would put me over 21kw, which on an 80amp fuwe makes me a bit jittery.
in the end even though I had a schedule until 6am it was stop start so I did a bump charge, the first one stopped after about 20 mins, the second bump charge worked through to 100% and I dropped it to 16amps when it touched just under 22kwh, several times.
my bill is due tomorrow so I’ll see what is going on

I have a 100A fuse with PWs, heat pumps and immersion, and I too am very near the 100A limit; I will try and keep below 95A. but it is hard. I may reconfigure my Tesla charger to only charge at 16A.

 

[PITA]

Octopus Go expires soon, and I'm planning on jumping across to Intelligent Octopus. But have a couple of questions.

We'll have two electric cars this year. Tesla Model 3 (which will be registered with Octopus) and a Skoda Enyaq VRS.

We'll have three wall chargers at home. 2 x 22kW which are wired direct to Grid (through the smart meter). 1 x 7kW which is wired to Powerwalls & Solar & Grid (through the Gateway2).

Questions

1) If the Tesla is registered with Octopus IO, can I unplug the 22kW Grid Charger, plug in the 7 kW charger and easily force charge from the Powerwalls (Solar) during the day ? ... no Grid use. Which App would I use? (Tesla, Octopus or Zappi)

2) When on Octopus IO Tariff, can I still download my Octopus Account Excel Spreadsheets showing smart meter use stats?

3) Am I correct in my understanding...

Plug the Tesla into it's 22kW wall charger on Octopus IO and let it do it's thing...

Plug the Skoda into it's seperate 22kW wall charger and schedule Grid Charging (11:30 to 05:30)

Powerwalls will be charging as normal during night (11:30 to 05:30)

... and Octopus won't kill me for this?

Because if this is true, it'll really spread the amp loading better over longer periods. Brilliant news.