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

 

[yessuz]

Yes, but when IO is scheduling extra charging slots, a Powerwall doesn't know about them. So when charging occurs outside any fixed window you've excluded in your PW settings, then it's going to discharge your battery first. You need to be able to interact with the IO API.

Most of the time, you never want to charge your car from your house battery.

but powerwall will still know to charge up during off-peak rate :/ can you override the charge schedules? I hope you do...

 

[cramsnik]

IO calculates how much time it needs to reach a desired charge level and SCHEDULES your charges, in order to achieve the target SOC in the 6 hr window.

You are still getting 6 hrs of off-peak rates regardless

So, despite what this says it's 23.30 - 05.30 regardless, why can it not just start charging at 23.30? If there happens to be some sort of glitch overnight which causes the Zappi to throw a wobbly and go offline it doesn't leave much wiggle room to complete the required 30% charge within the given time frame posted here.

 

[chwe]

View attachment 825066So, despite what this says it's 23.30 - 05.30 regardless, why can it not just start charging at 23.30? If there happens to be some sort of glitch overnight which causes the Zappi to throw a wobbly and go offline it doesn't leave much wiggle room to complete the required 30% charge within the given time frame posted here.

I presume because Octopus have worked out that energy prices will be cheaper/less carbon intensive later in the period. The idea is to help load balance the grid.

 

[browellm]

View attachment 825066So, despite what this says it's 23.30 - 05.30 regardless, why can it not just start charging at 23.30? If there happens to be some sort of glitch overnight which causes the Zappi to throw a wobbly and go offline it doesn't leave much wiggle room to complete the required 30% charge within the given time frame posted here.

Have you actually read the OP?

 

[browellm]

but powerwall will still know to charge up during off-peak rate

Only the static fixed rate.

can you override the charge schedules?

Not really, and certainly not with API access.

 

[WllXM]

Just seen pricing has gone up on IO - 40.13p peak rate, same 7.5p off-peak rate. Up from ~35p.

Same for GO tariffs too.

Gutted. A 30% increase…
Haven’t switched yet as my car was delayed. Now this is costing me ££s…

Can you even complete the switch if you don’t have the car to link IO to?

 

[btc1k]

View attachment 825066So, despite what this says it's 23.30 - 05.30 regardless, why can it not just start charging at 23.30? If there happens to be some sort of glitch overnight which causes the Zappi to throw a wobbly and go offline it doesn't leave much wiggle room to complete the required 30% charge within the given time frame posted here.

It's literally the entire point of the tariff to map the charge.

 

[cramsnik]

I presume because Octopus have worked out that energy prices will be cheaper/less carbon intensive later in the period. The idea is to help load balance the grid.

It's cheaper from 23.30 until 05.30 by default.

 

[chwe]

It's cheaper from 23.30 until 05.30 by default.

Cheaper for Octopus I meant, not cheaper for the consumer. I seem to recall (but might be mistaken) that Octopus will pay wholesale prices based on day-before half-hourly rates set for all suppliers. If they are paying less later in the 6 hour period that they offer cheap rates to consumers it makes sense for them to shift charges to that time, even if the consumer pays the same to Octopus.

 

[Mrklaw]

Cheaper for Octopus I meant, not cheaper for the consumer. I seem to recall (but might be mistaken) that Octopus will pay wholesale prices based on day-before half-hourly rates set for all suppliers. If they are paying less later in the 6 hour period that they offer cheap rates to consumers it makes sense for them to shift charges to that time, even if the consumer pays the same to Octopus.

You *always* get those 6 hours cheap rate.

depending on the car’s needs, the app will schedule based on whatever Octopus decides is important - carbon, wholesale price etc. That often inside that period but not necessarily.

The point for Octopus is that they can dynamically shift high overnight loads into more specific slots that help save them money and/or carbon generation.

In return they offer us a longer off peak window to encourage us to buy into that arrangement (as many may be hesitant to hand over control of charging the car)


Think about it - if you plug in every day for a small top up that may only take an hour - that doesn’t mean you suddenly only get an hour off peak. That wouldn’t make sense right?

 

[chwe]

You *always* get those 6 hours cheap rate.

depending on the car’s needs, the app will schedule based on whatever Octopus decides is important - carbon, wholesale price etc. That often inside that period but not necessarily.

The point for Octopus is that they can dynamically shift high overnight loads into more specific slots that help save them money and/or carbon generation.

In return they offer us a longer off peak window to encourage us to buy into that arrangement (as many may be hesitant to hand over control of charging the car)


Think about it - if you plug in every day for a small top up that may only take an hour - that doesn’t mean you suddenly only get an hour off peak. That wouldn’t make sense right?

I think we are essentially saying the same thing. I.e. I am in agreement with you. In my responses above I was trying to explain why cramsnik's car was set to charge later in the 6 hour window...

 

[nxsynjs]

What is the minimum amount you need to charge the car in order for fulfill the requirements . I’ve seen something like ”allow it to charge” once a month” but what does that actually mean in terms of KWh. Not doing a lot of mile atm, so prob won’t need to charge a huge amount

 

[rotor2k]

So you prefer to reverse into a busy road?

I have great visibility, so yes.

 

[RedMod3]

IO doesn't just have a fixed period. Your PW won't know if IO schedules a charge from 08:00-10:00.

I'm not interested in the extra windows; I only want the 6 hours at the cheap rate; to me, IO seems like GO but with 6 hours not four.

 

[Mrklaw]

I'm not interested in the extra windows; I only want the 6 hours at the cheap rate; to me, IO seems like GO but with 6 hours not four.

fundamentally yes - but the entrance price for the 50% longer off peak hours is allowing Octopus to decide when to charge your car overnight. Seems a reasonable trade to me

 

[browellm]

I'm not interested in the extra windows; I only want the 6 hours at the cheap rate; to me, IO seems like GO but with 6 hours not four.

3. It is against the spirit and intention of the tariff - which is to avoid the old fashioned fixed off-peak schedules and promote a healthy grid. Others may disagree, but I've interpreted clauses in the T&Cs that Octopus could boot you off the tariff if you persistently charge in the fixed off-peak without having smart-charging enabled.

Effectively, you want something for nothing. I hope they button down on people who abuse it like this.

 

[RedMod3]

Effectively, you want something for nothing. I hope they button down on people who abuse it like this.

But why would I charge the car in the flexible period when I can charge the car for free using solar as I have done for many weeks? It would be silly to charge the car during the variable period and then have to dump surplus solar into the grid.

In winter the situation would be different; I will discuss with Octopus nearer to my contract renewal.

 

[browellm]

But why would I charge the car in the flexible period when I can charge the car for free using solar as I have done for many weeks? It would be silly to charge the car during the variable period and then have to dump surplus solar into the grid.

In winter the situation would be different; I will discuss with Octopus nearer to my contract renewal.

Your solar is irrelevant to the T&Cs of IO, believe it or not

If you want fixed off-peak charging, stay on Go while it's still around. Quite straightforward.

 

[yessuz]

Your solar is irrelevant to the T&Cs of IO, believe it or not

If you want fixed off-peak charging, stay on Go while it's still around. Quite straightforward.

but in this case:
1) he fully charges during day with Solar, for free.
2) plugs in with 80% SOC and target of 80% SOC at 5 pm.
3) IO schedules no charges outside periods. It schedules no charges at all. because - welp, no need.
4) He charges power wall during off-peak 23:30 - 5:30 as anything anyone would do.

So all in all, he acts in whole spirit and letter and Ts&Cs of IO yada yada yada.

where's the problem?! I do not understand.

 

[browellm]

but in this case:
1) he fully charges during day with Solar, for free.
2) plugs in with 80% SOC and target of 80% SOC at 5 pm.
3) IO schedules no charges outside periods. It schedules no charges at all. because - welp, no need.
4) He charges power wall during off-peak 23:30 - 5:30 as anything anyone would do.

So all in all, he acts in whole spirit and letter and Ts&Cs of IO yada yada yada.

where's the problem?! I do not understand.

Look, stop "contributing" if you want to keep coming up with stupid edge cases that don't apply for 5 months a year and are nothing to do with the tariff anyway.