@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk i came straight from Matts Channel to this Video ... But yeah, skipping through more of your Videos i saw its there fore quite some time
The filming was done last Oct, so I've been waiting patiently for the video to come out. It was a really fun day. It was kind of him to mention my channel too.
Really informative vids Tim! I swapped to IF yesterday and things are strange. First the battery charged to 75% last night and has been stuck in idle since - not charging even though is lovely and sunny outside. The Octopus app and website have my import tariff as intelligent, but the export as regular flux! Hope it'll resolve by tomorrow, if not I'll give them a call.
Hmm, yes, if it doesn't settle down it's worth giving them a call. My tariff stayed on Flux for a day or two as well but they sorted it after I contacted them, and they made sure to back-date the change to when Octopus started controlling my system so I didn't miss out.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Hi Tim, having thought about it a bit more and re watching your video I am about to switch over to IOF as a test. A couple of questions if you don’t mind Do you have a charge rate limit set on your inverter ? It seems to be charging at 2.5 kw, or is this modulated by OE to enable full charge by 16:00 ? I assume that any excess solar not used for charging is exported ?
@rkrbar the charge rate is 3.6 kW, so Octopus are charging it a bit slower than the maximum. Presumably because they have plenty of time to spread it out. And yes, any excess solar above that is exported (or it'll draw from the grid any extra that it needs if there's not enough solar at that time).
Octopus have changed the way IOF operates, they will charge the battery from the grid when an excess of green energy is available from the grid, usually overnight. My All in One has charged to 100% for the last two nights, somewhere between 02:00H and 05:00H I hope this helpful to all on IOF who may have noticed this behaviour in their system.
It seems it's all down to the wholesale electricity price. The last couple of nights have had cheaper power than during the day, hence charging overnight. Prior to that the price has been cheaper during the day. It's all very interesting.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkdid yours do the 30 mins charge and 30 mins discharge overnight? Slightly annoying cycling the battery during the off peak, given their FAQs say they'll make sure the battery charges when the price is low and discharge when the price is high.
I have the same issue with GivEnergy Inverter Eco mode. Eco mode gets automatically turned off at the start of a Timed Discharge period but has to be turned back on manually - if you remember! And there's the rub. I'm on IOG & typically try to dump any spare battery capacity (2 x 9.5kWh batts) back to the grid @15p.kWh before the cheap rate (7.5p.kWh) period starts at 11.30pm when I will re-charge the batteries, the car & run any appliances over night on the cheap rate. My time discharge starts at 6pm & runs the battery down to a min of 10% by 11.15pm or sooner depending on it's SOC at the start. After finishing the timed discharge I then have to remember to re-engage ECO mode manually which is a pain because quite often by then I will be in bed & asleep. If a Timed discharge can automatically turn off Eco mode it should also re-instate Eco mode after the time period finishes. I feel GE have some work to do on this operation logic & might need to talk to Octopus regarding remote control by them.
When I was on regular Flux I could do a timed discharge and afterwards eco mode would get turned back on automatically, so I never had that problem. It's something to do with the different generations of inverter.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Hi Tim. I'm on a GE 3.6kW Gen 2 Hybrid inverter & this seems to be a fairly common problem with many users so with a bit of luck GE will fix this at some point.🤞
I applied for this tariff yesterday after watching your videos and ‘Gary does’. Quite like the relaxed regime and the only exciting bit is how quickly octopus get it up and running - and will be intriguing to see how much solar I can stash in the grid before autumn.
I always enjoy your videos, I viewed this one a couple of weeks ago and again in the last few days after receiving a shock from my IHM. I had a battery fitted in February and IOF worked as expected ie filling the battery late morning/early afternoon and forced discharge to 20% 4-7pm. I use gas for heating and cooking so my electricity use is very very low, my IHD usually shows consumption of about 1 kWh when I get up. Last week it was as low as .7 kWh until Wednesday when it was 4.6 kWh, Thursday and Friday it was more than 5! I was relieved to see that it didn't take any more from the grid and discharged as usual 4-7. Also as Octopus showed I exported about 114 kWh and imported about 36 kWh for the week 27 May - 2 Jun, I'm not complaining! This morning it was back down to .7, in the small print of the FAQs it mentions that Octopus will sometimes take overnight.
Yes, it's a bit of a different style of tariff so it takes a bit of getting used to. Because the import and export rates are the same during the day it actually doesn't really matter that there is a lot of grid import, as long as it's balanced with a lot of grid export too. In fact you're better off using the grid rather than your battery outside of the peak hours because you then save your battery for exporting at that higher peak rate. I'm just about to publish my figures for IOF for May, as it happens, so you may be interested in that video too. It's worked out pretty well for us, I have to say!
I’ve switched from Flux to IOF, 9.5kw battery and 5kw solar, SE UK, We have not seen the odd behaviour Tim is seeing in the evenings. But most importantly I’m making a flipping fortune over standard Flux and the DIY method. Have nothing negative to say as I’m much better off in £ than Flux.
Tim , I am on it, already, thx for video, I got 30.3 kWh peak export one point , if in October I switch to intelligent go for winter , bear in mind You are not allowed to switch back in April agin as its less then 9 months.
No, you can switch between smart tariffs every 30 days, the only tariff that uses that 9 month rule is the tracker tariff (I confirmed this via email with them last year): octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/
We signed up for IO Flux on March 22nd, on the 23rd the pattern was like your examples: charging 10-4, discharge 4-7 plus a half hour window later in the evening, from the 24th it’s been much more sensible, charge 10-4, discharge 4-7. What’s differs to you is we only have the 9.5kwh battery, paired to a 5kw inverter, generation is roughly 1.5x consumption averaged across the year.
First day on Intelligent flux - yipeee- - I hope it is a learning tariff as this example shows the issue; - it pre-filled the 20kwh battery this morning.. but it was a very sunny day (been a while!).. so when the solar panels met and exceeded the 5kw export rate (5kw inverter) almost 3kw of excess solar had nowhere to go as the battery was still full(the panels were generating 8kw !) That energy was clipped / discarded for several hours. Filling the battery only half full on forecast sunny days makes more sense with this house. It still manages a full 5 kw of export for 4 to 7pm but a half full battery can be partly on standby able to swallow excess solar which can then be exported later instead of clipping it. So as I say it’s day 1 - it’ll be interesting to see if the tariff handles tomorrows sunny weather any differently now that it has noticed it clipped (discarded) so much power today. Will post results!
Yes, I think Octopus have not considered the clipping issue properly yet. My battery has also been filled overnight for the last few weeks, so clearly they're not considering letting excess solar do any of the work recently. It'd be worth letting them know about this so that they might consider tweaking the algorithm to better account for clipping. As they say it's still a beta tariff so might not be quite finished yet!
Thanks Tim for the great video. I am on IOF since last December, it was working fine in winter (i.e. charging from grid, discharging to grid 16:00-19:00) without the benefit of solar power obviously (I live in the north of Scotland). Then the sun kicked in and it was working very well until mid-May, when it stopped discharging from the battery from 16:00 to 17:00 completely using grid for the home demand on cloudy days - not good, then the export started at 17:00 leaving about 30-36% of battery at 19:00. Later on, like in your case, it discharged the battery to around 19% at the lower rate. I have contacted Octopus about 2 weeks ago, still waiting for reply.
How weird. Mine has more or less been behaving itself since I recorded this video (although now it's mostly charging overnight rather than during the day). I've never seen it start the discharge period later than 4pm. I hope you get an answer from Octopus soon, and that they can do something to fix it.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Today (and few times before) I have managed to override Octopus setting, but it only lasted for a few minutes and then I had to change the setting again and again until 17:00 when it started behaving normally. Of course this does not make any sense, I do not wish to spend my life correcting faulty software, Octopus automation should this for me. Hope they sort it out soon.
good to see this battery behaviour as when I used this tariff last year the battery was really underutilized and I think the tariff just wasn't ready for use.
It's definitely rarer when there's a bit of extra sun to help contribute to the export during the peak. So it might not happen very often during the sunnier months, with any luck.
That's strange about the import during the peak. We don't get that on our system in Oxfordshire. It tends to be timed quite well so that we do not import anything during the peak. However, the battery does sometimes get emptied down to 6% at 7pm and then immediately after 7pm gets topped up to 20% from the grid. I think it is on the days with lower solar that it goes below 20% and I'm happy for that to happen - my previous limit was set to 6% before they took it over so I think that Octopus are respecting that. Overall, I'm happy for them to do whatever they want (within reason) in exchange for the import-export parity (net metering as they call it in the USA).
Interesting, I've not seen mine drop below 20% at any time (my previous lower limit was just 4%). I'm also pretty happy for them to do what they like, so far it's been generally fairly sensible.
Looking at my graphs, (I've only been on it this week) 16th May looks like your graphs, but the 17th May vastly different with nearly all the battery charged from solar, but quite a choppy 4-7pm discharge, then I set ECO back on at 20:30. Currently generating 6.5kW from my 6kW array and holding getting it all even though inverter is only 5kW as the DC battery is taking 2.2kW, the house and grid getting 4kW. Clipping averted. Efficiency improved, partly as the battery has been drained enough to have capacity to store and limited charging rate.
Very Interesting, thank you for sharing. I am also on Intelligent Octopus Flux with a 9.5 kw battery. I would be happy to share some screen shots (if I knew how) of the past few days if you would like to compare.
Useful information. I signed up to this tariff few days ago, but I still fail to understand the reason why it stops discharge at 20% and never uses the 20% it as it leaves my battery mode as Eco (Paused) after discharge. I see no reason why it can't just discharge down to your predefined reserve SOC (mine is 4% default reserved for power cut)?
30.3p export rate for me in east anglia :-) Mine isn't re-engaging ECO mode either Why leave 20%? if it's not going to be used? I'd rather push everything to the grid from the battery, assuming solar will fully charge the battery the next day, also you are more likely to have battery capacity left to collect solar clipping above inverter size. I do like that battery and solar are exported between 4-7pm, so I've seen nearly 5kW per hour going out.
Yeah I wish you could set a % floor in the app, under the battery status tab. For those without EPS, there isn't any point saving any charge in case of a power cut. And even though I do have EPS, I still would like to discharge a bit more at peak rate, say down to 10%. IOF manages clipping by only activating the charge mode at 10am, and charging at about 1.5kW. I've seen no clipping all month, even on the sunniest days, due to this. I've been peaking at 6.8kW generation, which is great for my 5kW hybrid inverter! As for the eco mode, you may be financially better off drawing from the grid overnight. Take a look at the comparative power draw from the battery vs the grid - I see a consistent 30-40W extra being drawn from the battery in order to meet home demand, compared to when I'm drawing from the grid. Not sure why this is, but it may be down to inefficiencies in conversion, or possibly the operation of the battery/inverter itself.
I had a similar situation with my setup for the first few days - not discharging fully 4-7pm, and then dumping a bit in the later evening. But after a few days it seemed to figure it and now manages to get it to 20% at bang on 7pm most days. I always assumed this was just the system learning the capacity of your battery setup, because I don’t know if that info is passed over the API. I have the AIO, and I suppose one benefit of an AC-coupled battery is that they will empty it into the grid, and you will get any solar at that time in addition. So one benefit of having the two parallel inverters there
Yes, that's possible, although I still see the occasional day when it stops exporting before 7pm, even after a couple of weeks. It's usually when there is not much excess solar so the battery is exporting more quickly and reaches 27% quicker. I wonder if it's to do with the inverter/battery temperatures, and perhaps the AIO can cope with the high output for longer.
Hi Tim. Great informative stuff as ever. I can’t use the tariff as I have a Solar Edge set up and on sunny days I’m minimising clipping by discharging and keeping my battery below 100% as long as I can. If I timed it perfectly I’d hit 100% at 4pm in time for the higher Flux export rate (and discharge session). I assume that the 4pm-7pm periods on the retail side are on approximation of what happens on the wholesale side. Supporting the grid = maximising Octopus’s margins.
exactly what i have started doing with my solaredge system. luckily i have the time now to monitor it myself & not rely on octopus doing it for me, 20% left in the battery in the evening would not work for us, just not enough so prefer to monitor myself
Yes, the peak 4-7pm period is closely aligned with the typical peak in the half-hourly wholesale prices. Sounds like you've got a good strategy going with your setup.
I do like it when people say just let it be, it doesn't matter when it charges discharge etc... well it does if it start charging up my battery during peak hours, then discharging it off-peak or not charging it at all and then charging it during peak hours. No idea how this works and would love to see a longer term analysis, but I have started to block internet access to my battery during peak hours and let it discharge from 4 to 7 at around 3021W. If you keep an eye on your logs, Octopus NEVER switches the ECO Mode ON after they are done, they always leave the battery in ECO OFF.
It doesn't charge during peak times. Ever. Discharging during off-peak makes no material difference to you, as I explained. It won't benefit you, sure, but it won't be detrimental, so no big deal. It sounds like you should be on regular Flux if you don't trust what Octopus are doing. It's been working pretty well for me, and I've just let it get on with things, as is its intended purpose.
If Intelligent Flux is like Intelligent Go, when Octopus decide to discharge your battery outside of the peak you should get paid at the peak rate. When I put my car on charge using Intelligent Go, I get my electric at 7.5p for any charging outside the night rate.
The website makes no mention of extra export periods being at the higher rate so I don't believe you get paid more outside of the 4-7pm window even when they're exporting. I'll be interested to see my bill at the end of the month though, to see if that's the case or not.
@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I found out about the intelligent go rate being different in a chat of Facebook and through the Ohme app. Octopus's information was vague, when I got my itemised bill it was very nice to see.
Great video. Thanks so much ❤. I am cooking between 6-7pm typically. So I’m thinking I’d be discharging my battery whilst importing from the grid to power my oven. Does this not significantly impact on the high export rate?
Your battery will be supporting your cooking before any excess goes out to the grid, you won't be importing and exporting at the same time. But don't worry too much about it, it just means you'll be exporting slightly less. We take the attitude that we just get on with our usual routine and let the battery handle itself. It won't make a huge difference to your earnings.
Informative video Tim. Have you found that you are making more money on the tariff? I can see that excess solar exported before 4pm is 7p higher than the standard Flux rate. We are unable to use this tariff as we have 2x10Kw SolarEdge batteries, but have exported all but two days this month without importing anything from the grid.
Great video, thank you; I was looking forward to it! Our pattern is the same with one big difference; our battery does start charging on solar as soon as the sun comes up, it doesn't wait until later like yours does. We have a larger array but smaller battery, i wonder if there's some threshold they use to decide when to start charging and how... That said, i do cheat a bit... I've got Home Assistant stopping the charge until 9:30 anyway, as then it's more likely to use the power above the AC limit, and i occasionally set it to force export manually on those days when it stops half an hour before the end of the peak period. I wonder whether Home Assistant can be made to notice if Octopus set it to eco/paused mode, and automatically change it back to eco...
For reference, I have found that if you have two discharge windows set on givenergy inverter - say one at 1600 to 1900 to 15% then 2300 to 2330 at 8% - the second target (ie 8%) will not be achieved as the givenergy inverter keeps it at the first level (15%) and ignores the second level set resulting in grid import even though 15% battery available.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I am using Intelligent Octopus Flux for export but it is Givenergy AIO causing the issue not the tariff. To resolve this, I am now only operating with one discharge window on my AIO setup.
I have found the exactly the same way on my battery, I have the AIO, they never switch the battery back to eco mode, but it doesn't really matter as it works out the same, I have not imported at the peak time but have only been on the tariff for a week or so, the hardest thing is to release control of the battery almost like not having one. One odd thing I have seen is the amount of export in the peak period, I have a limit of 7Kw and frequently see it between this and 9Kw when there is excess solar. Overall it looks like a better option so far.
I will stick with regular flux as I like to have a full battery to get me through the night. Mine just fills up with sun and exports from dinner time till about 8pm and then the battery kicks in which drops to 40% before bed. This month's electric was £2.
That's entirely up to you. Although on IOF you don't need to use the battery to support the house as the import and export rates are the same so it may as well come from the grid. Use my rule of thumb video to see if you'd actually end up better off on IOF instead (although it's entirely possible you'd be better with regular Flux anyway, of course).
OIF is just bonkers. Yesterday, it charged the batteries (2x 9.5) between 2-6am but I generated 26kw during the day. I could understand it if they were forecasting a low solar day. I’m sure previously it’s made decisions during the morning and then topped up the batts in time for the 4-7pm export. I’m still waiting to hear back from Octopus as they still ignore free power ups ie they don’t seem to charge the batts when it’s free.
They charged the batteries overnight because the wholesale price was cheaper than during the day. Charging during the day isn't "free" it has an opportunity cost equal to the export rate, so you won't miss out by it doing this. It'll cost you the same regardless of how they charge, as long as it's done outside of the 4-7pm peak period. That's the benefit of the export rate being the same as the import rate. It doesn't matter what you do during the off-peak period! If the battery charges overnight it costs more to charge but you have more excess solar to export during the day. If you charge during the day it'll cost less to charge but you have less solar to export. So in both cases you end up paying/being paid the same mount because the net import/export is the same over that time.
Yes I can see this as what I forgot is that any excess solar is going straight to the grid if the bats are full. It’s been less hassle with OIF especially on an 8 day holiday abroad!😊
It's a great tariff. It takes a bit of getting used to and you have to think about it differently but once you've got your head around it I think it works extremely well. I think I need to do another video to demonstrate what I described above, as a few folks have expressed confusion over that particular quirk.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I'm not sure that's entirely true. If you charge from the grid then discharge to the grid at the same rate then you lose an amount equivalent to the round-trip conversion efficiency, surely. And that's real £.
Interesting that the givenergy system can effectively switch off the battery completely. I would be interested to know if Octopus eventually include Growatt as sometimes the force discharge during the saving sessions does not always go to plan. Thanks for an interesting video
My initial thought is it would charge over night but I guess they want all that power for EV's. Not that I can get Intelligent but if they do ever move to support Solar Edge I will stay with regular Flux as my battery system is not big enough to cover that 3 hour peak period. It will be interesting to see what the final cost at the end of the month is. I have made around £21 profit thus far in May.
I assumed they'd charge overnight too, but I assume they have their reasons for charging during the day instead. I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May once I've had a full month.
I have been on IOF since the beginning of May as well. A smaller Givenergy set-up than yours, 5.2, but mine shows 18:55 discharging and 19:00 zero discharge and grid import with battery levels 21% - 25%.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk You can read the commands given to your system in the portal 'My Inverter' 'Remote Control' (gear top right) - go to bottom of page to 'Remote Control History' 'Download' (Down arrow bottom left) This gives a CSV file of all commands issued.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Givenergy appear to have changed their algorithm for my Intelligent Flux. It used to charge to 100% mid afternoon if solar hadn't taken it to 100% and discharged over the whole 16:00 to 19:00 period. Since 29 May charge to 100% starting 02:30 and discharge down to 20% starting at 17:30 at a higher rate. Have screen shots of report but not sure how to send them to you.
@@briangibbs3084 It's Octopus who issue the commands to your inverter, it's not GivEnergy. But I don't believe Octopus have changed the algorithm though, it's simply that the overnight wholesale electricity prices are now lower than the daytime prices and so they're charging overnight instead of during the day. I'll do an update at some point to show this. I've no idea why they'd wait until 17:30 to start the discharge though, that is odd.
Octopus buy electricity in advance by the half hour. They have to guess how much their punters are going to use for that half hour, and if they guess wrong they have to pay the spot market price for the difference. The spot market price might be negative, if there's a surplus of power on the grid, or very very *very* expensive if there's a shortage and people have to fire up very expensive generators. It's not surprising if Octopus use punters' batteries to even out some of the glitches, such as your 9pm discharges - there's no direct immediate benefit to the individual punter, but it helps keep that particular tariff, and Octopus' business model in general, sustainable, which is of general benefit to all their punters.
Yes, I assume it's to help support the grid, and that's fine by me. It'd be nice if that was made explicit on the website though, to prevent misunderstandings. I worked for EDF for five years so am quite familiar with how electricity demand/prices work.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk if you go back and look at historical Agile prices for those discharges at 9pm, you can see they're the highest rates for those evenings outside of peak time
That was my thought, that Octopus were using the batteries to do a bit of extra balancing of the grid outside of the peak window, but as 'they' wanted the extra discharge, they should provide a marginally better export rate then the day rate. Where the discharge to grid was ending before 7pm, it may again be massaging the overall grid demand, where the demand has dropped and the excess isn't benefiting the Octopus model. Or it might be your local area didn't need the extra power in that last half hour or so. Or a gas powered power station has started and is picking up the load. So many variables....
I suspect that the short post peak export period is Octopus using the collective capacity it has access to as a way to offset some grid demand at that time. Don’t know if there is some post dinner tea/coffee making demand spike aligned to regular TV scheduling perhaps. If this is the case, while it may make sense for Octopus from a demand management standpoint, it’s certainly not maximising your financial return. How does it compare with either IOG or standard Flux if you have any comparable data?
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk as an EV owner yourself, do you do a lot of EV mileage? And if you didn’t have an Intelligent Flux compatible battery, would you be on normal Flux or Intelligent Go through the Summer? We got our EV three weeks ago and I naturally swapped to Intelligent Go, but as we don’t do a lot of miles? I’m wondering if that might be for the winter and the normal Flux might still be better for the summer…..
@@twelvebears1971 my "rule of thumb" video covers all of that. We don't do many miles in the EV so the Flux tariffs work out better for us in the summer.
I'll happily take the small amount of standard-rate discharge for the 21.5p export rate. It's so much higher than the 15p export rate for Flux that you easily make it back. Even on a 4kWh generation day this week (oof) I broke even on IOF.
I wonder if they are using this tariff for your benefit or theirs? Also, you standing charge is £221.41/yr, mostly for benefitting the national grid as I'd hope you'd be a nett exporter at the end of the year. I just feel the solar we have including our FIT solar is in our control which is one of the reasons we went down this route. Now we may lose that independence for a few pence. Can you override this system?
You can't override the system if you're on this tariff. There's no reason a tariff can't be for the benefit of both the consumer and supplier, it's not one or the other. It definitely worked out best for us over the Summer (see my stats videos for the numbers). And you can switch away at any time, you don't lose control permanently. Regular Flux gives you more control but not as much payout during the height of Summer; that's your call to make.
Don't mind what Octopus does with my battery outside of peak (e.g. 4pm-7pm) but I have also noticed something strange. At 4pm my battery is 100% SOC but constrained to 639W output (versus it's total 6,000W output). It's cloudy now, so if I boil the kettle I have to pay high rate for the electricity from the grid (after the first 639W of course). Or if I make an early dinner where I need to put the oven on using 3kW from the grid at Peak also. This does not make sense: 1 - As a consumer I don't want to pay a premium for my electricity when I have 13.5kWh in my battery 2 - The grid does not want me to draw from it at this peak time either. I don't get what Octopus is doing during the Peak time. Anyone else seen this constrained output with a full battery forcing Grid Import at Peak rate?
Yeah, I've seen that a few times, usually only for the first half an hour of the peak period at most. It is a bit odd. So far it's not caused me to import from the grid at that time and it generally picks up shortly after and exports at the full rate for the rest of the peak period. I have no idea why it would do that though.
Guess they are more desperate later in the 4-7pm window than at the start, so would rather take from the grid and have full battery ready for later when the load ramps up. I think, and I may get this wrong, cost wise it doesn't matter as any battery I would have used would not be available to discharge. Also annoyed OE won't set the minimum level to be less than 20%. The battery never supports the house in the evening so this argument of leaving SOC to support doesn't make sense. Plus when I control the battery I discharge down to 4% as I want to use the capacity I paid for and it's sold as a 100% depth of discharge battery...
@@TonetheBoneI think it’s possible a 100% full battery can’t discharge initially at maximum discharge rate - I’d noticed the same thing at different times of the day.
On Intelligent Go the charging algorithm will sometimes charge outside of the designated off peak period. The electricity used for that charging is charged at the off peak rate, even if it's in the peak period. Perhaps a similar principle applies to intelligent flux? Have you checked the export pricing on your bill for those periods outside the normal peak period?
I've not had a bill yet, but I expect the export rate is no different to what is described on the website. There is no mention of extra higher export rates outside of the peak period, so I believe it's exported at the day rate. I'll certainly be checking the bill when it arrives though.
Surely the ultimate goal is to store enough energy in the batteries from solar that you can effectively go off grid permanently. How much do you actually make from the forced discharge that you could use later in the evening. The oven will always draw from the grid to give longevity to the battery if at a low state of charge
I don't think so, at least not in the UK where everyone will need to import during the winter (and we don't get many power cuts, and can change supplier easily). The ultimate goal is an efficient, reliable system for the whole country. The grid should be a useful market for those will excess to sell to those that need power.
Hi Tim thanks for your videos. Bottom line is, is Intelligent Flux better for the planet and are you saving money and or making money please? Thanks Trevor
I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video once I've got a full month's worth of data but yes, I believe this is making me more money than any other tariff would, and is helping support the grid.
Been on IOF since April, I’m still not convinced ? Making £40 a month after my gas a lecy usage. Don’t like the charge to 100% every night as although weather not been great it clips. Don’t like discharging battery every evening to 20% sometimes still discharging at 21:30, why not stop at 19:30 then only gas to charge battery a small amount, I’m paying for ac to dc conversion and back again for an off peak rate discharge. I’m now considering getting an ohme charger and going on IOG ( was on Go over winter cars a Jeep not supported) That way I can simply charge battery every night at 7p and discharge during day at 15p ? Weather not been as sunny so struggling to do 2 times generation?
With the new prices for July I reckon IOG is gonna be the best choice for a lot of people for the whole year, but I'll be doing a video about that shortly. Clipping is definitely the one shortcoming of the way Octopus are currently running IOF. It's fine for us as we don't get clipping, but for those who do I can see how that'd be annoying.
There's no need to use the battery to support your house overnight. Because the import and export rates are the same you may as well import from the grid to cover your load, otherwise you'd just recharge at the same rate the next day. I assume the bottom 20% is reserved for emergencies.
From what I understand unless you have an offline switch thing, if the grid goes out so does your battery, to avoid electrocuting the electrician fixing the grid. So this looks indistinguishable from buying a battery 20% smaller, or a separate offered battery at 20% the size. I suspect it’s some (probably unfounded) nervousness about running the battery to 0%.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk wow. Thanks. That is interesting! I’m regularly seeing 60+ if left to its own devices and others have reported even higher. I’m in dialogue with Octopus but it seems their algorithm doesn’t take operating temps into the equation. This is probably a shortcoming of the GE API but if I were running a system like this I’d definitely want to be able to monitor temperature and use this as one of the control factors. I am currently using (with Octopus’ agreement) a Home Assistant automation to cap it below 60 and this seems to be doing the job.
@@ArheddisVarkenjaab you know, I was wondering if inverter temperature was what was causing the discharge to be stopped prior to 7pm, but from what you're saying I guess that's not the case. Interesting. Well, I've managed to get this video in front of the guys at Octopus so hopefully they'll get back with some answers to my questions soon and we'll know why they're doing what they're doing.
Not seeing the export happening with my 13.5kWh AIO after peak rate, tends to limit battery output to around 4.3kW - with a couple of drops to 2 or 3kW for 5+ minutes - which seems to be enough to deplete the 80% over the 3 hour window (with the occasional pause and few minutes grid import - seems to happen just before 6:30pm and it retains enough to run the last 30 minutes again at 4.2/4.3kW)
I just got this, beware. Monitor your battery and solar usage. Long story short, I phoned Givenergy as mine did not seem to be acting correctly. Apparently, the API supplied from Octopus was at fault when I switched to IOF. The system had been set to Amsterdam time. Givenergy were great and fixed it while I was on the phone. Informed Octopus, they are yet to get back to me with any compensation.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkif the battery was 100% charged from solar, I guess a bit of off peak discharging wouldn't matter too much? Although that depends on the weather of course!
@@petegale9598 it actually doesn't matter if it's charged from solar or grid, as the equivalent cost would be the same (since charging from solar means you miss out on the export, which is the same as the import rate). So any forced export after 7pm is effectively cost neutral to the customer (ignoring conversion losses).
OK. So do they charge the battery with solar only? If solar is being produced at a rate higher then the charging rate, does this get exported? In winter, will they charge during the normal hours from the grid and then discharge during peak? This is price and emissions arbitrage I guess.
They charge from the grid and solar. If the solar is more than the charging rate any excess gets exported, yes. Charging only ever happens outside of the peak times. Discharging tends to happen during peak times but sometimes they discharge for a few minutes outside of peak times too, as shown in the video.
Hi there. I’ve been on IOF for a week now and have noticed that my battery has not gone above 75% since moving to this tariff. So far IOF has charged my battery to just over 70% each night, but not charged it up fully via grid or solar ahead of 4-7pm discharge period. There’s been plenty of solar to use and just a bit annoying not to utilise this 30% during peak. Has anyone experienced similar and have advice to share? Perhaps I need to wait longer than a week and it will sort itself out. Thanks.
That is odd. My battery has always reached close to 100% before 4pm. If it persists it might be worth a call to Octopus to see if there's something stopping it fully charging.
Thanks Tim. Great info video and now I’m convinced to switched from basic Flux to intelligent flux. A couple questions, now and again the battery and inverter have software upgrades available, does Octopus take charge of that too ? or do I still take control of the process?, I also have a GivEnergy EV charger which I set to only draw from solar when when the sunshines as I do a small mileage in my Zoe (5,000 miles per year), so do I have full control of me EV charger? I think answer will be yes. And by the way I now have 3x 9.5kW batteries and hybrid 5kW inverter and solar all on the latest software. I’ll be interested to hear your comments. And thanks again for all you do. My wife and I are into our 70’s and it would be great not to keep adjusting things ourselves particularly if my wife was left on her own as I am the one that does the technology stuff around the home. Hopefully I’ve still got a few more years left in me yet.
Good questions. You are still responsible for updating your inverter and battery firmware when on IOF, Octopus won't do that for you. Interestingly IOF is actually a really good tariff for this as you can set your firmware updating after 7pm and you know that any discharging and recharging of your batteries will all happen at the same tariff rate so you won't lose out! As for the EV charger, yes, you retain full control over that. I think IOF is a great tariff for just getting on with your life and not worrying about what your system is doing.
@@malcolmbennett4325 oh wow, great job! Mine had some sort of glitch that Octopus had to fix so I switched from Go to regular Flux for a month while they sorted it out. Once they'd fixed whatever had gone wrong it was all very easy after that.
Although I have three 9.5kW batteries , batt one now has 25%. batt two has 43% and batt three has 50% charge but now it’s 9pm and it’s past 7 o’clock past peak export but it’s pulling power from the grid where as pre IOF I would still be using the batteries , I don’t get why it’s doing that? Is this one for GivEnergy to fix?
I have been on IOF for 6 days now, and yesterday was the only day where it charged the battery to 100% by 4 pm. Every other day, it had no charge schedule enabled, and Eco mode was off. This meant that I was dumping solar to the grid (or not if it was cloudy) at 15:40 even though my battery is sitting on 85%. Is that something that you have observed?
Am i right to think this doesn't really work financially for EV users? (whether battery or not?) FIngers crossed, Ive just moved to Intelligent Go (literally this this afternoon.) Only needed me to plug unplug and reboot the charger 27 times (well it felt like that). Anyway assuming it works as advertised then its nice and simple, charge battery overnight at 7.5, export at 15. Whereas on IOF I'd be charging the car at 21p. And running the house at 21p vs 7.5 (assuming my house runs from the battery). Ether way IOG is very straightforward with fixed times (discounting any extra sessions) for cheap electric for both house (via battery) and car. IOF seems somewhat complex to monitor and keep track of what its doing (I appreciate its easy to *use* if it works as advertised)
It depends whether (overall) you import or export. Watch Tim's "rule of thumb" video for the details, but if you import more than you export, you're better with Intelligent Go where the price is lower. If you mostly export, you want the higher unit price of Flux.
@@robinbennett5994 thanks. I've only had solar for 6 weeks so don't know what my export will be but I do have a big system. My forecast is 9000 kWh PV and I use roughly 6000 (50/50 house /car) So on that basis it would work. As I've just switched to IOG I'll stay as is and monitor the situation And I'll check out the rule of thumb video.
Yup, as Robin suggested, the "rule of thumb" video should cover your question. You should have an estimate of what your monthly generation should be from your installer, or else you can use the PVGIS tool to work it out for yourself: re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/
No EV charging? I suspect that Intelligent Octopus Go is a better tariff if you charge an EV at home. Certainly, that is the case for me with 500kWh per month charged at home, even though I have a big PV array (10.8kWp)
I used intelligent flux earlier this year (too early given that I have an ASHP). What annoyed me most was that I had 3kw capacity to discharge my AC-charger for the 9.5 kw battery, but Octopus consistently reduced the max discharge power to around 2.5 kw. This meant I was drawing from the grid at peak hours. I gave them some feedback so was wondering, is yours discharging at max power now?
Yup, mine discharges at 3.6kW, but I have more capacity than you, so I suspect they reduced it so as not to fully deplete your battery in the three hours. If they discharged quicker you'd run out before 7pm.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk From a cost perspective, that doesn't really matter though does it? Hitting 20% battery capacity before 7pm does mean that you would import a bit based on demand on the higher rate. However, the only real factor for the battery in terms of cost is how much capacity you have. It's always going to discharge 80% of your battery, so you will always earn (Capacity) x (0.80) x (Export Tariff) in that 4-7 slot. Solar exported and home consumption will affect your overall figures, but they won't affect how much you get out of your battery. Whether you get to 20% at 6 pm or 7 pm won't matter. Shifting your consumption to avoid being high in that time period will have an impact for sure.
@@chrisbrinks2298 true, but it also makes sense to spread it evenly across the three hours in either case. Your inverter will probably heat up less that way.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Yes that is true. For us, the battery owners, it would be best to calculate the lowest discharge rate to empty 80% of the battery over 3 hours. However, Octopus may be setting it differently for each 30 minute period to handle spikes in grid demand. We've given up that control in exchange for better export rates.
@@chrisbrinks2298 I suspect they are doing a bit of that too, I agree. I've seen the discharge rate change during the three hour window occasionally. Sometimes it starts a bit lower for the first half hour then ramps up for the rest, for example.
Morning Tim, interesting video as always. I tried to switch to IOF from Go at the end of March , after a month Octopus were still unable to connect to my battery , an issue I understand several customers are having . So I switched to Flux & Octopus compensated me for the higher export rate I would have benefited from had they been able to connect to my battery & provide the IOF tariff. I have a 3.6 Hybrid Gen 3 inverter with a 3.69kW array and a 5.2kW battery . Looking at your rule of thumb video and my consumption and solar generation over the last month think Flux maybe the better tariff for me ! Over the last 2 months the solar has generated 2.58 times the consumption and only 4% imported from the grid, so the solar & battery provide all the energy I need for the house with 58% of the solar being exported !!! Any thoughts
I also had trouble switching to IOF initially, so switched to regular Flux instead for April until Octopus were able to fix the problem. It turned out that was a good thing to do anyway (see my "did I choose the right tariff for April" video). With such high generation it sounds like IOF would be better for you right now given the super high export rates.
Hi @TimAndkatsGreeWalk. It’s been since early April but Octopus have not been successful getting my battery connected. I have sent and received over a dozen emails to the hello account. Very frustrating. Can you share how you managed to get Octopus to get your device setup? A short video covering the steps would be informative.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thsnks , but if i don’t need to pull from grid why pay for the grid to power the house & charge the battery until 7pm when the solar is going it for nothing ? If you deduct the cost of drawing from the grid which IOF does the advantage of the higher export between 4 & 7 is reduced ! Also i tend to cook between 6&7 so would probably have to pay the higher grid import to cover reduced power available from the battery !
@@frrcap I sent an email saying I couldn't connect properly in early April, then just switched to regular Flux. Three weeks later I got an email saying it had been fixed and I could try again. That's it. Gary, on the other hand, signed up and got connected immediately. No idea why mine didn't work initially.
@@AlanS-uu5sy9vy8o using solar isn't free, it has an opportunity cost equal to the export rate. That's why if you've got high generation relative to your consumption IOF will beat IOG. Don't forget that the day export rate on IOF is also super high. If your consumption is high then the low import rate for IOG wins. Regular Flux has lower export rates than IOF but a lower off-peak import rate, so will win under certain other conditions. It's all there in the rule of thumb video. You asked for my thoughts and I stand by what my rule of thumb video says, which in your case would suggest IOF is best for you with a generation/consumption ratio of 2+.
My 19kwh batteries discharge from 16:00 till 21:00,21:30 every night !! Which for me means I’m paying the ac/dc then dc/ac conversion everyday ? Not a lot but it’s still an unnecessary cost to me ?
Yeah, I tend to have a few extra periods of force discharging outside of the 4-7pm period too. But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really make much difference (see my May stats video and upcoming June stats video for proof). The higher export rates overall mean it still wins out over the other tariffs, assuming you have a high generation to consumption ratio (see my rule of thumb tariff video).
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkI think with larger batteries it consistently goes well past the 7pm peak, Just looked at June bill figures I made around £35 pound but that takes into account all my gas and all my electric usage ( including the standing charge) I charge a PhEV daily as well. We used. 660kwh and exported 859kwh. Was a very bad solar gen month here last month so all in all not bad generated 800kwh Still looking to install an ohme for winter iog but maybe not if IOF ok?
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk thanks Tim it’s what I was thinking hence get the ohme installed last year I did GO I could charge my batteries cheap period to 100% plus my car over night cheap the batteries lasted the day so all electricity is off peak but export was low rate. I know I won’t recoup charger cost but it future proofs. Keep producing these utubes really useful thanks
Tim/Kat - I'm having an install from Octopus of Solar (14 panels with Giv-Energy battery 9.5 kwh and a 5kw inverter) and a Heat Pump (air-source Daikin EDLA 09DA3V3 9kw). By July 10th the two installations should be complete. Have you any thoughts about the best tariff?
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thanks for the helpful advice. An Octopus man made a pre-install visit and mentioned Eddi for the hot water. I see you have this. Would you recommend it?
@@NigelPJ no, that wouldn't make sense if you have a heat pump for your hot water because your heat pump will be 300+% efficient at turning electricity into heat, whereas the eddi powers the backup immersion heater, which is only 100% efficient. You're better off having your water heated by your heat pump on a schedule (e.g. using cheap overnight power) and then any excess solar would be exported instead. With the very good export rates nowadays that's a better use of your excess solar than diverting into your hot water. Hopefully that makes sense. I'll be removing our eddi once we get a heat pump hot water cylinder and passing it on to my in-laws who still use gas for their hot water.
Last week my battery discharged at 3600W for 2 hours, very little solar generation, and my inverter went up to 77°C and I've also seen the Battery Management System hit 68°C.
@@cheeky_farquar are you happy with that? I have no reference point to know if that's ok or not just that normally it runs around mid 40's even when exporting solar at 5k. Yet when exporting at 3.6 from the battery it jumps up.
@@Joe-lb8qn I did write a detailed reply for you but RUclips generated an error so lets just say that it's not ideal. My situation is the same as yours running the inverter at full wack is fine but discharging at 3600w is a big problem. This morning I discovered a new? setting "Inverter Discharge Power Percentage" (see GivEnergy Portal, Inverter, Remote Control) which allows you to limit the achievable Discharge Rate. I've set mine to 90% so that even if Octopus set the Discharge Rate to 3600w, which they will and do, it will only be able to discharge at a 3240w max. I'm expecting to have to decrease this further to about 85% but will try this tonight. I am currently working with GivEnergy on this issue and they have escalated to R&D for further testing so hopefully some sort of resolution may come in the near future.
Surprised it doesn’t kick it back to “eco” just before 7 - it’s a no brainer. Actually it should probably just run eco for most of the time when it isn’t topping up, or force discharging… particularly during the morning peak. Those extra periods are why they give you an extra slots, supporting their national usage - as opposed to regular flux. Compare with Igo and go
Using eco mode in the peak period I agree with. But there's no need to use the battery during the off-peak period because the import and export rates are the same, so you may as well just use the grid.
You’re right - it just feels wrong, particularly that they don’t trigger it for other peak times (no benefit to you directly, but a benefit to the grid)
This is what is stated on my Octopus bill. Could you pay less? Remember - it might be worth thinking about switching your tariff or supplier. For your electricity (on meter point 2200021297572) Good news, you're already on our cheapest tariff. We'll let you know if this changes. For your gas (on meter point 4229577509) You could save £93.35 a year by switching to Octopus 12M Fixed, which is more than the early exit fee of £75.00 per fuel on your current tariff. It may involve changing how you pay or your meter setup - contact our team to find out more.
You can switch between smart tariffs every 30 days without charge. It sounds like you're on a fixed tariff though, which I assume has different terms and conditions: octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/
It seems to me that they are paying very little for having given up charge/discharge control of your battery system, it seems like you are getting 7p for each kWh of battery use. On IO Go I'm getting a 20p discount for load shedding my car charging and I'm also getting this discount on my house electricity that is not supplied by solar. I'm a bit surprised that Octopus can't be more competitive on this tarif. Look forward to seeing the monthly figures
That's true for the battery side of things, but you should remember that you're also getting a very high rate (22 or 30p) for all your export. I think that's the real benefit, and the ideal setup would be more panels and a smaller battery.
The export rates apply to all export so all your excess solar too, don't forget. 21p/kWh is the best daytime export rate available, and 28p/kWh is almost twice what you can get on IOG for export during the peak period. That's where the benefit lies. You're getting that exceptional export rate as payment for Octopus controlling your batteries. I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May once I've had the full month, and I'm confident it'll beat IOG for me over the Summer months (but IOG will win from Oct-Apr according to my rule of thumb video).
Keep the battery cells healthy by never discharging completely says the experts so I set it to 20% to extend battery life. Could all be lies who knows.
That's partly true, but the GivEnergy batteries have a built-in battery management system that accounts for that so you don't need to worry about it. Just use you batteries as much as you want.
I haven't lost control, I've given control to Octopus. That is the point of this tariff and something I was well aware of and prepared for. I'll do another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May in due course, for sure.
Large enough array that your generation to consumption ratio is over the threshold described in my rule of thumb video. And a 9.5+ kWh battery, probably, but it might work ok with less.
Tim, appreciating that you are trying this out for us... Not sure if the utilities' and customers' goals are aligned, set and forget might lead to some minor pillaging by the utility companies....
@@mjp0815 gotcha. Well, I don't mind them trying to make a profit, especially if I'm getting paid quite a bit at the same time too, so in that respect I'd say our goals are pretty well aligned with this tariff.
Yes, but they shouldn't be doing it at the expense of the customer. Although these extra export periods outside of the peak period don't really negatively affect the customer really, it's the peak import that could be slightly detrimental.
Nothing like real world experience. Thanks for sharing!
No problem, that's what I'm here for!
came to this place because of the dude who gifted you this odd looking ball on the shelf. Love your content!
Nice, you spotted that, huh? It's been in the background of my videos for months. I think you're the first to notice it!
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk i came straight from Matts Channel to this Video ... But yeah, skipping through more of your Videos i saw its there fore quite some time
The filming was done last Oct, so I've been waiting patiently for the video to come out. It was a really fun day. It was kind of him to mention my channel too.
Really informative vids Tim! I swapped to IF yesterday and things are strange. First the battery charged to 75% last night and has been stuck in idle since - not charging even though is lovely and sunny outside. The Octopus app and website have my import tariff as intelligent, but the export as regular flux! Hope it'll resolve by tomorrow, if not I'll give them a call.
Hmm, yes, if it doesn't settle down it's worth giving them a call. My tariff stayed on Flux for a day or two as well but they sorted it after I contacted them, and they made sure to back-date the change to when Octopus started controlling my system so I didn't miss out.
Interesting video. Currently on Flux but using Home assistant and Predbat. Will be watching out for your monthly update.
It's been an interesting experiment, for sure.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Hi Tim, having thought about it a bit more and re watching your video I am about to switch over to IOF as a test. A couple of questions if you don’t mind Do you have a charge rate limit set on your inverter ? It seems to be charging at 2.5 kw, or is this modulated by OE to enable full charge by 16:00 ? I assume that any excess solar not used for charging is exported ?
@rkrbar the charge rate is 3.6 kW, so Octopus are charging it a bit slower than the maximum. Presumably because they have plenty of time to spread it out. And yes, any excess solar above that is exported (or it'll draw from the grid any extra that it needs if there's not enough solar at that time).
Hi Tim,
Good points made reference finishing in peak period, let’s hope Octopus get the message.
Alan.
I'm going to see if I can get them to watch the video and give me a response. We'll see what they say!
Octopus have changed the way IOF operates, they will charge the battery from the grid when an excess of green energy is available from the grid, usually overnight. My All in One has charged to 100% for the last two nights, somewhere between 02:00H and 05:00H
I hope this helpful to all on IOF who may have noticed this behaviour in their system.
It seems it's all down to the wholesale electricity price. The last couple of nights have had cheaper power than during the day, hence charging overnight. Prior to that the price has been cheaper during the day. It's all very interesting.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkdid yours do the 30 mins charge and 30 mins discharge overnight? Slightly annoying cycling the battery during the off peak, given their FAQs say they'll make sure the battery charges when the price is low and discharge when the price is high.
@@petegale9598 yes, it did, very strange behaviour. No idea why it would have done that.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk hmm, today it charged up a bit around 9am and is now exporting to the grid. Not what their FAQ says! 🤔
@@petegale9598 interesting, mine charged for half an hour earlier and is now charging again. No discharge at any point.
I have the same issue with GivEnergy Inverter Eco mode. Eco mode gets automatically turned off at the start of a Timed Discharge period but has to be turned back on manually - if you remember! And there's the rub.
I'm on IOG & typically try to dump any spare battery capacity (2 x 9.5kWh batts) back to the grid @15p.kWh before the cheap rate (7.5p.kWh) period starts at 11.30pm when I will re-charge the batteries, the car & run any appliances over night on the cheap rate.
My time discharge starts at 6pm & runs the battery down to a min of 10% by 11.15pm or sooner depending on it's SOC at the start. After finishing the timed discharge I then have to remember to re-engage ECO mode manually which is a pain because quite often by then I will be in bed & asleep. If a Timed discharge can automatically turn off Eco mode it should also re-instate Eco mode after the time period finishes. I feel GE have some work to do on this operation logic & might need to talk to Octopus regarding remote control by them.
Consider automation - perfect timing of the discharge and never forget to re-enable eco.
@@JohnR31415That's all well and good, but you the customer are having to compensate for their inadequate coding
When I was on regular Flux I could do a timed discharge and afterwards eco mode would get turned back on automatically, so I never had that problem. It's something to do with the different generations of inverter.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Hi Tim. I'm on a GE 3.6kW Gen 2 Hybrid inverter & this seems to be a fairly common problem with many users so with a bit of luck GE will fix this at some point.🤞
I applied for this tariff yesterday after watching your videos and ‘Gary does’. Quite like the relaxed regime and the only exciting bit is how quickly octopus get it up and running - and will be intriguing to see how much solar I can stash in the grid before autumn.
Did you manage to sign up successfully?
I always enjoy your videos, I viewed this one a couple of weeks ago and again in the last few days after receiving a shock from my IHM. I had a battery fitted in February and IOF worked as expected ie filling the battery late morning/early afternoon and forced discharge to 20% 4-7pm. I use gas for heating and cooking so my electricity use is very very low, my IHD usually shows consumption of about 1 kWh when I get up. Last week it was as low as .7 kWh until Wednesday when it was 4.6 kWh, Thursday and Friday it was more than 5! I was relieved to see that it didn't take any more from the grid and discharged as usual 4-7. Also as Octopus showed I exported about 114 kWh and imported about 36 kWh for the week 27 May - 2 Jun, I'm not complaining! This morning it was back down to .7, in the small print of the FAQs it mentions that Octopus will sometimes take overnight.
Yes, it's a bit of a different style of tariff so it takes a bit of getting used to. Because the import and export rates are the same during the day it actually doesn't really matter that there is a lot of grid import, as long as it's balanced with a lot of grid export too. In fact you're better off using the grid rather than your battery outside of the peak hours because you then save your battery for exporting at that higher peak rate. I'm just about to publish my figures for IOF for May, as it happens, so you may be interested in that video too. It's worked out pretty well for us, I have to say!
I’ve switched from Flux to IOF, 9.5kw battery and 5kw solar, SE UK, We have not seen the odd behaviour Tim is seeing in the evenings. But most importantly I’m making a flipping fortune over standard Flux and the DIY method. Have nothing negative to say as I’m much better off in £ than Flux.
Oh yes, I'm raking it in. That's the main thing at the end of the day. And helping support the grid while I'm doing it!
Tim , I am on it, already, thx for video, I got 30.3 kWh peak export
one point , if in October I switch to intelligent go for winter , bear in mind You are not allowed to switch back in April agin as its less then 9 months.
No, you can switch between smart tariffs every 30 days, the only tariff that uses that 9 month rule is the tracker tariff (I confirmed this via email with them last year): octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/
We signed up for IO Flux on March 22nd, on the 23rd the pattern was like your examples: charging 10-4, discharge 4-7 plus a half hour window later in the evening, from the 24th it’s been much more sensible, charge 10-4, discharge 4-7. What’s differs to you is we only have the 9.5kwh battery, paired to a 5kw inverter, generation is roughly 1.5x consumption averaged across the year.
Interesting. I'm still seeing extra half hours after 7pm, but that's ok.
Love this tariff. I can stop nagging my family about having too many appliances on at once!
It's a very easy tariff to live with, for sure.
Very informative
Thank you Tim
I ll stay on IOG all year round
Not a bad choice.
First day on Intelligent flux - yipeee- - I hope it is a learning tariff as this example shows the issue;
- it pre-filled the 20kwh battery this morning..
but it was a very sunny day (been a while!)..
so when the solar panels met and exceeded the 5kw export rate (5kw inverter) almost 3kw of excess solar had nowhere to go as the battery was still full(the panels were generating 8kw !)
That energy was clipped / discarded for several hours.
Filling the battery only half full on forecast sunny days makes more sense with this house.
It still manages a full 5 kw of export for 4 to 7pm but a half full battery can be partly on standby able to swallow excess solar which can then be exported later instead of clipping it.
So as I say it’s day 1 - it’ll be interesting to see if the tariff handles tomorrows sunny weather any differently now that it has noticed it clipped (discarded) so much power today.
Will post results!
Yes, I think Octopus have not considered the clipping issue properly yet. My battery has also been filled overnight for the last few weeks, so clearly they're not considering letting excess solar do any of the work recently. It'd be worth letting them know about this so that they might consider tweaking the algorithm to better account for clipping. As they say it's still a beta tariff so might not be quite finished yet!
Grid balancing I think. Total discharge time is probably the same - you just have a little phasing going on.
Yes, I assume it's something to do with that.
Really interesting share there chap. Thanks
No problem.
Thanks Tim for the great video. I am on IOF since last December, it was working fine in winter (i.e. charging from grid, discharging to grid 16:00-19:00) without the benefit of solar power obviously (I live in the north of Scotland). Then the sun kicked in and it was working very well until mid-May, when it stopped discharging from the battery from 16:00 to 17:00 completely using grid for the home demand on cloudy days - not good, then the export started at 17:00 leaving about 30-36% of battery at 19:00. Later on, like in your case, it discharged the battery to around 19% at the lower rate. I have contacted Octopus about 2 weeks ago, still waiting for reply.
How weird. Mine has more or less been behaving itself since I recorded this video (although now it's mostly charging overnight rather than during the day). I've never seen it start the discharge period later than 4pm. I hope you get an answer from Octopus soon, and that they can do something to fix it.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Today (and few times before) I have managed to override Octopus setting, but it only lasted for a few minutes and then I had to change the setting again and again until 17:00 when it started behaving normally. Of course this does not make any sense, I do not wish to spend my life correcting faulty software, Octopus automation should this for me. Hope they sort it out soon.
@@MalgorzataSzczepanska-b6t yeah, that must be annoying. It definitely shouldn't be doing that. Keep pestering Octopus and hopefully they'll sort it.
good to see this battery behaviour as when I used this tariff last year the battery was really underutilized and I think the tariff just wasn't ready for use.
Interesting, I hadn't realised it had changed so much. I didn't manage to try it out last year but I'm glad I've been able to do so this Summer.
Oh wait I found a day when ours imported at 1850-1900! 16th of May. Haven't noticed it doing that on any other day.
It's definitely rarer when there's a bit of extra sun to help contribute to the export during the peak. So it might not happen very often during the sunnier months, with any luck.
That's strange about the import during the peak. We don't get that on our system in Oxfordshire. It tends to be timed quite well so that we do not import anything during the peak.
However, the battery does sometimes get emptied down to 6% at 7pm and then immediately after 7pm gets topped up to 20% from the grid.
I think it is on the days with lower solar that it goes below 20% and I'm happy for that to happen - my previous limit was set to 6% before they took it over so I think that Octopus are respecting that.
Overall, I'm happy for them to do whatever they want (within reason) in exchange for the import-export parity (net metering as they call it in the USA).
Interesting, I've not seen mine drop below 20% at any time (my previous lower limit was just 4%). I'm also pretty happy for them to do what they like, so far it's been generally fairly sensible.
Looking at my graphs, (I've only been on it this week) 16th May looks like your graphs, but the 17th May vastly different with nearly all the battery charged from solar, but quite a choppy 4-7pm discharge, then I set ECO back on at 20:30.
Currently generating 6.5kW from my 6kW array and holding getting it all even though inverter is only 5kW as the DC battery is taking 2.2kW, the house and grid getting 4kW.
Clipping averted. Efficiency improved, partly as the battery has been drained enough to have capacity to store and limited charging rate.
I found that Octopus reverted any changes I made quite quickly so I just let them manage it.
Totally off topic but loved seeing you on Matts video and didn't know what your day job is! #ynwa
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed that. It was a fun day!
Check the day ahead wholesale prices and see if they correlate with the behaviour you saw
An interesting thought.
Very Interesting, thank you for sharing. I am also on Intelligent Octopus Flux with a 9.5 kw battery. I would be happy to share some screen shots (if I knew how) of the past few days if you would like to compare.
Thank you for the offer, but I'm not sure how best to do that. I assume it's more or less the same pattern?
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk More or less the same but frequently doesn't discharge the battery below 40%.
Great information hank you!
No problem.
Useful information. I signed up to this tariff few days ago, but I still fail to understand the reason why it stops discharge at 20% and never uses the 20% it as it leaves my battery mode as Eco (Paused) after discharge. I see no reason why it can't just discharge down to your predefined reserve SOC (mine is 4% default reserved for power cut)?
I'm not sure either, but I'm guessing it's to leave some in case of power cuts for your EPS to use.
30.3p export rate for me in east anglia :-)
Mine isn't re-engaging ECO mode either
Why leave 20%? if it's not going to be used?
I'd rather push everything to the grid from the battery, assuming solar will fully charge the battery the next day, also you are more likely to have battery capacity left to collect solar clipping above inverter size.
I do like that battery and solar are exported between 4-7pm, so I've seen nearly 5kW per hour going out.
I don't know why they keep 20% in reserve, I assume it's for emergencies.
Yeah I wish you could set a % floor in the app, under the battery status tab. For those without EPS, there isn't any point saving any charge in case of a power cut. And even though I do have EPS, I still would like to discharge a bit more at peak rate, say down to 10%.
IOF manages clipping by only activating the charge mode at 10am, and charging at about 1.5kW. I've seen no clipping all month, even on the sunniest days, due to this. I've been peaking at 6.8kW generation, which is great for my 5kW hybrid inverter!
As for the eco mode, you may be financially better off drawing from the grid overnight. Take a look at the comparative power draw from the battery vs the grid - I see a consistent 30-40W extra being drawn from the battery in order to meet home demand, compared to when I'm drawing from the grid. Not sure why this is, but it may be down to inefficiencies in conversion, or possibly the operation of the battery/inverter itself.
I had a similar situation with my setup for the first few days - not discharging fully 4-7pm, and then dumping a bit in the later evening. But after a few days it seemed to figure it and now manages to get it to 20% at bang on 7pm most days. I always assumed this was just the system learning the capacity of your battery setup, because I don’t know if that info is passed over the API. I have the AIO, and I suppose one benefit of an AC-coupled battery is that they will empty it into the grid, and you will get any solar at that time in addition. So one benefit of having the two parallel inverters there
Yes, that's possible, although I still see the occasional day when it stops exporting before 7pm, even after a couple of weeks. It's usually when there is not much excess solar so the battery is exporting more quickly and reaches 27% quicker. I wonder if it's to do with the inverter/battery temperatures, and perhaps the AIO can cope with the high output for longer.
Hi Tim. Great informative stuff as ever. I can’t use the tariff as I have a Solar Edge set up and on sunny days I’m minimising clipping by discharging and keeping my battery below 100% as long as I can. If I timed it perfectly I’d hit 100% at 4pm in time for the higher Flux export rate (and discharge session). I assume that the 4pm-7pm periods on the retail side are on approximation of what happens on the wholesale side. Supporting the grid = maximising Octopus’s margins.
exactly what i have started doing with my solaredge system. luckily i have the time now to monitor it myself & not rely on octopus doing it for me, 20% left in the battery in the evening would not work for us, just not enough so prefer to monitor myself
Yes, the peak 4-7pm period is closely aligned with the typical peak in the half-hourly wholesale prices. Sounds like you've got a good strategy going with your setup.
I do like it when people say just let it be, it doesn't matter when it charges discharge etc... well it does if it start charging up my battery during peak hours, then discharging it off-peak or not charging it at all and then charging it during peak hours. No idea how this works and would love to see a longer term analysis, but I have started to block internet access to my battery during peak hours and let it discharge from 4 to 7 at around 3021W. If you keep an eye on your logs, Octopus NEVER switches the ECO Mode ON after they are done, they always leave the battery in ECO OFF.
It doesn't charge during peak times. Ever. Discharging during off-peak makes no material difference to you, as I explained. It won't benefit you, sure, but it won't be detrimental, so no big deal. It sounds like you should be on regular Flux if you don't trust what Octopus are doing. It's been working pretty well for me, and I've just let it get on with things, as is its intended purpose.
If Intelligent Flux is like Intelligent Go, when Octopus decide to discharge your battery outside of the peak you should get paid at the peak rate.
When I put my car on charge using Intelligent Go, I get my electric at 7.5p for any charging outside the night rate.
The website makes no mention of extra export periods being at the higher rate so I don't believe you get paid more outside of the 4-7pm window even when they're exporting. I'll be interested to see my bill at the end of the month though, to see if that's the case or not.
@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I found out about the intelligent go rate being different in a chat of Facebook and through the Ohme app. Octopus's information was vague, when I got my itemised bill it was very nice to see.
Great video. Thanks so much ❤. I am cooking between 6-7pm typically. So I’m thinking I’d be discharging my battery whilst importing from the grid to power my oven. Does this not significantly impact on the high export rate?
Your battery will be supporting your cooking before any excess goes out to the grid, you won't be importing and exporting at the same time. But don't worry too much about it, it just means you'll be exporting slightly less. We take the attitude that we just get on with our usual routine and let the battery handle itself. It won't make a huge difference to your earnings.
Informative video Tim. Have you found that you are making more money on the tariff? I can see that excess solar exported before 4pm is 7p higher than the standard Flux rate.
We are unable to use this tariff as we have 2x10Kw SolarEdge batteries, but have exported all but two days this month without importing anything from the grid.
I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May once I've got a full month's worth of data, but yes, it's looking very good.
Great video, thank you; I was looking forward to it! Our pattern is the same with one big difference; our battery does start charging on solar as soon as the sun comes up, it doesn't wait until later like yours does. We have a larger array but smaller battery, i wonder if there's some threshold they use to decide when to start charging and how...
That said, i do cheat a bit... I've got Home Assistant stopping the charge until 9:30 anyway, as then it's more likely to use the power above the AC limit, and i occasionally set it to force export manually on those days when it stops half an hour before the end of the peak period.
I wonder whether Home Assistant can be made to notice if Octopus set it to eco/paused mode, and automatically change it back to eco...
How weird. I think I need to get Octopus to explain the algorithm to me in all its gory detail.
For reference, I have found that if you have two discharge windows set on givenergy inverter - say one at 1600 to 1900 to 15% then 2300 to 2330 at 8% - the second target (ie 8%) will not be achieved as the givenergy inverter keeps it at the first level (15%) and ignores the second level set resulting in grid import even though 15% battery available.
Interesting. I assume you mean when not using IOF?
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I am using Intelligent Octopus Flux for export but it is Givenergy AIO causing the issue not the tariff. To resolve this, I am now only operating with one discharge window on my AIO setup.
@@turingtrading5301 but on IOF Octopus control your system you don't need to do anything yourself.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk On Octopus Flux not Int Octopus Flux (typo) so I retain control.
@@turingtrading5301 ah, gotcha.
I have found the exactly the same way on my battery, I have the AIO, they never switch the battery back to eco mode, but it doesn't really matter as it works out the same, I have not imported at the peak time but have only been on the tariff for a week or so, the hardest thing is to release control of the battery almost like not having one. One odd thing I have seen is the amount of export in the peak period, I have a limit of 7Kw and frequently see it between this and 9Kw when there is excess solar. Overall it looks like a better option so far.
It's definitely a different way to use your battery, for sure. It takes some getting used to but overall I'm very pleased with how it's gone so far.
I will stick with regular flux as I like to have a full battery to get me through the night. Mine just fills up with sun and exports from dinner time till about 8pm and then the battery kicks in which drops to 40% before bed. This month's electric was £2.
That's entirely up to you. Although on IOF you don't need to use the battery to support the house as the import and export rates are the same so it may as well come from the grid. Use my rule of thumb video to see if you'd actually end up better off on IOF instead (although it's entirely possible you'd be better with regular Flux anyway, of course).
IOF is great for us during the summer months as the export rates are so much better than standard Flux. But it only works with Givenergy for now.
OIF is just bonkers. Yesterday, it charged the batteries (2x 9.5) between 2-6am but I generated 26kw during the day. I could understand it if they were forecasting a low solar day. I’m sure previously it’s made decisions during the morning and then topped up the batts in time for the 4-7pm export. I’m still waiting to hear back from Octopus as they still ignore free power ups ie they don’t seem to charge the batts when it’s free.
They charged the batteries overnight because the wholesale price was cheaper than during the day. Charging during the day isn't "free" it has an opportunity cost equal to the export rate, so you won't miss out by it doing this. It'll cost you the same regardless of how they charge, as long as it's done outside of the 4-7pm peak period. That's the benefit of the export rate being the same as the import rate. It doesn't matter what you do during the off-peak period! If the battery charges overnight it costs more to charge but you have more excess solar to export during the day. If you charge during the day it'll cost less to charge but you have less solar to export. So in both cases you end up paying/being paid the same mount because the net import/export is the same over that time.
Yes I can see this as what I forgot is that any excess solar is going straight to the grid if the bats are full. It’s been less hassle with OIF especially on an 8 day holiday abroad!😊
It's a great tariff. It takes a bit of getting used to and you have to think about it differently but once you've got your head around it I think it works extremely well. I think I need to do another video to demonstrate what I described above, as a few folks have expressed confusion over that particular quirk.
Yes, a working example using my message as an example - I’d be ok with that
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I'm not sure that's entirely true. If you charge from the grid then discharge to the grid at the same rate then you lose an amount equivalent to the round-trip conversion efficiency, surely. And that's real £.
Interesting that the givenergy system can effectively switch off the battery completely.
I would be interested to know if Octopus eventually include Growatt as sometimes the force discharge during the saving sessions does not always go to plan.
Thanks for an interesting video
They have a "request a different battery system" form on their website which might be worth using to suggest they add Growatt.
My initial thought is it would charge over night but I guess they want all that power for EV's. Not that I can get Intelligent but if they do ever move to support Solar Edge I will stay with regular Flux as my battery system is not big enough to cover that 3 hour peak period.
It will be interesting to see what the final cost at the end of the month is. I have made around £21 profit thus far in May.
I assumed they'd charge overnight too, but I assume they have their reasons for charging during the day instead. I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May once I've had a full month.
I have been on IOF since the beginning of May as well. A smaller Givenergy set-up than yours, 5.2, but mine shows 18:55 discharging and 19:00 zero discharge and grid import with battery levels 21% - 25%.
Interesting. I guess they discharge your battery more slowly if you have less capacity?
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Seems to be the case. They discharge my 9.5kWh battery such that if there's no excess solar then it hits 22% right at 7pm
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk You can read the commands given to your system in the portal
'My Inverter' 'Remote Control' (gear top right) - go to bottom of page to 'Remote Control History' 'Download' (Down arrow bottom left)
This gives a CSV file of all commands issued.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Givenergy appear to have changed their algorithm for my Intelligent Flux. It used to charge to 100% mid afternoon if solar hadn't taken it to 100% and discharged over the whole 16:00 to 19:00 period.
Since 29 May charge to 100% starting 02:30 and discharge down to 20% starting at 17:30 at a higher rate.
Have screen shots of report but not sure how to send them to you.
@@briangibbs3084 It's Octopus who issue the commands to your inverter, it's not GivEnergy. But I don't believe Octopus have changed the algorithm though, it's simply that the overnight wholesale electricity prices are now lower than the daytime prices and so they're charging overnight instead of during the day. I'll do an update at some point to show this. I've no idea why they'd wait until 17:30 to start the discharge though, that is odd.
Octopus buy electricity in advance by the half hour. They have to guess how much their punters are going to use for that half hour, and if they guess wrong they have to pay the spot market price for the difference. The spot market price might be negative, if there's a surplus of power on the grid, or very very *very* expensive if there's a shortage and people have to fire up very expensive generators. It's not surprising if Octopus use punters' batteries to even out some of the glitches, such as your 9pm discharges - there's no direct immediate benefit to the individual punter, but it helps keep that particular tariff, and Octopus' business model in general, sustainable, which is of general benefit to all their punters.
Yes, I assume it's to help support the grid, and that's fine by me. It'd be nice if that was made explicit on the website though, to prevent misunderstandings. I worked for EDF for five years so am quite familiar with how electricity demand/prices work.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk if you go back and look at historical Agile prices for those discharges at 9pm, you can see they're the highest rates for those evenings outside of peak time
That was my thought, that Octopus were using the batteries to do a bit of extra balancing of the grid outside of the peak window, but as 'they' wanted the extra discharge, they should provide a marginally better export rate then the day rate.
Where the discharge to grid was ending before 7pm, it may again be massaging the overall grid demand, where the demand has dropped and the excess isn't benefiting the Octopus model. Or it might be your local area didn't need the extra power in that last half hour or so. Or a gas powered power station has started and is picking up the load. So many variables....
I suspect that the short post peak export period is Octopus using the collective capacity it has access to as a way to offset some grid demand at that time. Don’t know if there is some post dinner tea/coffee making demand spike aligned to regular TV scheduling perhaps. If this is the case, while it may make sense for Octopus from a demand management standpoint, it’s certainly not maximising your financial return. How does it compare with either IOG or standard Flux if you have any comparable data?
I assume it's for grid balancing, yes. I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May once I've got a full month's worth of data.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk as an EV owner yourself, do you do a lot of EV mileage? And if you didn’t have an Intelligent Flux compatible battery, would you be on normal Flux or Intelligent Go through the Summer? We got our EV three weeks ago and I naturally swapped to Intelligent Go, but as we don’t do a lot of miles? I’m wondering if that might be for the winter and the normal Flux might still be better for the summer…..
@@twelvebears1971 my "rule of thumb" video covers all of that. We don't do many miles in the EV so the Flux tariffs work out better for us in the summer.
I'll happily take the small amount of standard-rate discharge for the 21.5p export rate. It's so much higher than the 15p export rate for Flux that you easily make it back. Even on a 4kWh generation day this week (oof) I broke even on IOF.
The second grid export looks like tea toast supper time
It varies with time from day to day though.
I wonder if they are using this tariff for your benefit or theirs? Also, you standing charge is £221.41/yr, mostly for benefitting the national grid as I'd hope you'd be a nett exporter at the end of the year.
I just feel the solar we have including our FIT solar is in our control which is one of the reasons we went down this route. Now we may lose that independence for a few pence. Can you override this system?
You can't override the system if you're on this tariff. There's no reason a tariff can't be for the benefit of both the consumer and supplier, it's not one or the other. It definitely worked out best for us over the Summer (see my stats videos for the numbers). And you can switch away at any time, you don't lose control permanently. Regular Flux gives you more control but not as much payout during the height of Summer; that's your call to make.
Don't mind what Octopus does with my battery outside of peak (e.g. 4pm-7pm) but I have also noticed something strange.
At 4pm my battery is 100% SOC but constrained to 639W output (versus it's total 6,000W output). It's cloudy now, so if I boil the kettle I have to pay high rate for the electricity from the grid (after the first 639W of course). Or if I make an early dinner where I need to put the oven on using 3kW from the grid at Peak also.
This does not make sense:
1 - As a consumer I don't want to pay a premium for my electricity when I have 13.5kWh in my battery
2 - The grid does not want me to draw from it at this peak time either.
I don't get what Octopus is doing during the Peak time.
Anyone else seen this constrained output with a full battery forcing Grid Import at Peak rate?
Yeah, I've seen that a few times, usually only for the first half an hour of the peak period at most. It is a bit odd. So far it's not caused me to import from the grid at that time and it generally picks up shortly after and exports at the full rate for the rest of the peak period. I have no idea why it would do that though.
Guess they are more desperate later in the 4-7pm window than at the start, so would rather take from the grid and have full battery ready for later when the load ramps up.
I think, and I may get this wrong, cost wise it doesn't matter as any battery I would have used would not be available to discharge.
Also annoyed OE won't set the minimum level to be less than 20%. The battery never supports the house in the evening so this argument of leaving SOC to support doesn't make sense. Plus when I control the battery I discharge down to 4% as I want to use the capacity I paid for and it's sold as a 100% depth of discharge battery...
@@TonetheBoneI think it’s possible a 100% full battery can’t discharge initially at maximum discharge rate - I’d noticed the same thing at different times of the day.
On Intelligent Go the charging algorithm will sometimes charge outside of the designated off peak period. The electricity used for that charging is charged at the off peak rate, even if it's in the peak period. Perhaps a similar principle applies to intelligent flux?
Have you checked the export pricing on your bill for those periods outside the normal peak period?
I've not had a bill yet, but I expect the export rate is no different to what is described on the website. There is no mention of extra higher export rates outside of the peak period, so I believe it's exported at the day rate. I'll certainly be checking the bill when it arrives though.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Fair enough. Would be cheeky of them to miss an opportunity to export at a higher price and then export later at a lower price.
Surely the ultimate goal is to store enough energy in the batteries from solar that you can effectively go off grid permanently. How much do you actually make from the forced discharge that you could use later in the evening. The oven will always draw from the grid to give longevity to the battery if at a low state of charge
I don't want to go off-grid with export rates this high. I'm making money on this tariff, if I was off-grid I'd not be able to do that.
I don't think so, at least not in the UK where everyone will need to import during the winter (and we don't get many power cuts, and can change supplier easily). The ultimate goal is an efficient, reliable system for the whole country. The grid should be a useful market for those will excess to sell to those that need power.
Hi Tim thanks for your videos. Bottom line is, is Intelligent Flux better for the planet and are you saving money and or making money please?
Thanks
Trevor
I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video once I've got a full month's worth of data but yes, I believe this is making me more money than any other tariff would, and is helping support the grid.
Been on IOF since April, I’m still not convinced ? Making £40 a month after my gas a lecy usage.
Don’t like the charge to 100% every night as although weather not been great it clips. Don’t like discharging battery every evening to 20% sometimes still discharging at 21:30, why not stop at 19:30 then only gas to charge battery a small amount, I’m paying for ac to dc conversion and back again for an off peak rate discharge.
I’m now considering getting an ohme charger and going on IOG ( was on Go over winter cars a Jeep not supported)
That way I can simply charge battery every night at 7p and discharge during day at 15p ?
Weather not been as sunny so struggling to do 2 times generation?
With the new prices for July I reckon IOG is gonna be the best choice for a lot of people for the whole year, but I'll be doing a video about that shortly. Clipping is definitely the one shortcoming of the way Octopus are currently running IOF. It's fine for us as we don't get clipping, but for those who do I can see how that'd be annoying.
It looks like the bottom 20% of your battery is never used, aka wasted, shouldn’t that be used to service the load overnight?
Or it’s reserved for power cuts?
There's no need to use the battery to support your house overnight. Because the import and export rates are the same you may as well import from the grid to cover your load, otherwise you'd just recharge at the same rate the next day. I assume the bottom 20% is reserved for emergencies.
From what I understand unless you have an offline switch thing, if the grid goes out so does your battery, to avoid electrocuting the electrician fixing the grid.
So this looks indistinguishable from buying a battery 20% smaller, or a separate offered battery at 20% the size.
I suspect it’s some (probably unfounded) nervousness about running the battery to 0%.
@@gazebotree the GivEnergy system has EPS built in so you can use the battery in a power cut.
Leaving a chunk in the tank will extend battery life significantly.
Tim, good video, thanks. What sort of inverter temperatures are you seeing during the 4pm-7pm forced discharge period?
That's a good question, I do need to check that, actually. I checked last year when exporting using regular Flux but I forget what it leveled out at.
Ok, I just checked and it seems to level out at about 48.5 deg most days, occasionally reaching just over 49.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk wow. Thanks. That is interesting! I’m regularly seeing 60+ if left to its own devices and others have reported even higher. I’m in dialogue with Octopus but it seems their algorithm doesn’t take operating temps into the equation. This is probably a shortcoming of the GE API but if I were running a system like this I’d definitely want to be able to monitor temperature and use this as one of the control factors. I am currently using (with Octopus’ agreement) a Home Assistant automation to cap it below 60 and this seems to be doing the job.
@@ArheddisVarkenjaab you know, I was wondering if inverter temperature was what was causing the discharge to be stopped prior to 7pm, but from what you're saying I guess that's not the case. Interesting. Well, I've managed to get this video in front of the guys at Octopus so hopefully they'll get back with some answers to my questions soon and we'll know why they're doing what they're doing.
That .60p standing charge is frightening! 😢
Yup, it's crazy.
It's the more normal 47.8p if you are in east anglia/fens.
Not seeing the export happening with my 13.5kWh AIO after peak rate, tends to limit battery output to around 4.3kW - with a couple of drops to 2 or 3kW for 5+ minutes - which seems to be enough to deplete the 80% over the 3 hour window (with the occasional pause and few minutes grid import - seems to happen just before 6:30pm and it retains enough to run the last 30 minutes again at 4.2/4.3kW)
Very interesting.
I just got this, beware. Monitor your battery and solar usage. Long story short, I phoned Givenergy as mine did not seem to be acting correctly. Apparently, the API supplied from Octopus was at fault when I switched to IOF. The system had been set to Amsterdam time. Givenergy were great and fixed it while I was on the phone. Informed Octopus, they are yet to get back to me with any compensation.
That's interesting, definitely one to keep an eye on.
Discharge after 7pm might be to optimise Octopus's energy trading activities
Yes, quite likely.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkif the battery was 100% charged from solar, I guess a bit of off peak discharging wouldn't matter too much? Although that depends on the weather of course!
@@petegale9598 it actually doesn't matter if it's charged from solar or grid, as the equivalent cost would be the same (since charging from solar means you miss out on the export, which is the same as the import rate). So any forced export after 7pm is effectively cost neutral to the customer (ignoring conversion losses).
OK. So do they charge the battery with solar only? If solar is being produced at a rate higher then the charging rate, does this get exported? In winter, will they charge during the normal hours from the grid and then discharge during peak? This is price and emissions arbitrage I guess.
They charge from the grid and solar. If the solar is more than the charging rate any excess gets exported, yes. Charging only ever happens outside of the peak times. Discharging tends to happen during peak times but sometimes they discharge for a few minutes outside of peak times too, as shown in the video.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thanks for clarifying.
Hi there. I’ve been on IOF for a week now and have noticed that my battery has not gone above 75% since moving to this tariff. So far IOF has charged my battery to just over 70% each night, but not charged it up fully via grid or solar ahead of 4-7pm discharge period. There’s been plenty of solar to use and just a bit annoying not to utilise this 30% during peak. Has anyone experienced similar and have advice to share? Perhaps I need to wait longer than a week and it will sort itself out. Thanks.
That is odd. My battery has always reached close to 100% before 4pm. If it persists it might be worth a call to Octopus to see if there's something stopping it fully charging.
Thanks Tim. Great info video and now I’m convinced to switched from basic Flux to intelligent flux. A couple questions, now and again the battery and inverter have software upgrades available, does Octopus take charge of that too ? or do I still take control of the process?, I also have a GivEnergy EV charger which I set to only draw from solar when when the sunshines as I do a small mileage in my Zoe (5,000 miles per year), so do I have full control of me EV charger? I think answer will be yes. And by the way I now have 3x 9.5kW batteries and hybrid 5kW inverter and solar all on the latest software. I’ll be interested to hear your comments. And thanks again for all you do. My wife and I are into our 70’s and it would be great not to keep adjusting things ourselves particularly if my wife was left on her own as I am the one that does the technology stuff around the home. Hopefully I’ve still got a few more years left in me yet.
Good questions. You are still responsible for updating your inverter and battery firmware when on IOF, Octopus won't do that for you. Interestingly IOF is actually a really good tariff for this as you can set your firmware updating after 7pm and you know that any discharging and recharging of your batteries will all happen at the same tariff rate so you won't lose out! As for the EV charger, yes, you retain full control over that. I think IOF is a great tariff for just getting on with your life and not worrying about what your system is doing.
I got on the IOF within 10mins of registration. So smooth
@@malcolmbennett4325 oh wow, great job! Mine had some sort of glitch that Octopus had to fix so I switched from Go to regular Flux for a month while they sorted it out. Once they'd fixed whatever had gone wrong it was all very easy after that.
Although I have three 9.5kW batteries , batt one now has 25%. batt two has 43% and batt three has 50% charge but now it’s 9pm and it’s past 7 o’clock past peak export but it’s pulling power from the grid where as pre IOF I would still be using the batteries , I don’t get why it’s doing that? Is this one for GivEnergy to fix?
Oops I see it’s just sorted itself out, now send power to the grid.and house as I would expect.
I have been on IOF for 6 days now, and yesterday was the only day where it charged the battery to 100% by 4 pm. Every other day, it had no charge schedule enabled, and Eco mode was off. This meant that I was dumping solar to the grid (or not if it was cloudy) at 15:40 even though my battery is sitting on 85%. Is that something that you have observed?
I showed everything that I'd observed in the video. It's been much the same since then. It generally gets close to 100% every day before 4pm.
Am i right to think this doesn't really work financially for EV users? (whether battery or not?)
FIngers crossed, Ive just moved to Intelligent Go (literally this this afternoon.) Only needed me to plug unplug and reboot the charger 27 times (well it felt like that).
Anyway assuming it works as advertised then its nice and simple, charge battery overnight at 7.5, export at 15. Whereas on IOF I'd be charging the car at 21p. And running the house at 21p vs 7.5 (assuming my house runs from the battery).
Ether way IOG is very straightforward with fixed times (discounting any extra sessions) for cheap electric for both house (via battery) and car.
IOF seems somewhat complex to monitor and keep track of what its doing (I appreciate its easy to *use* if it works as advertised)
It depends whether (overall) you import or export. Watch Tim's "rule of thumb" video for the details, but if you import more than you export, you're better with Intelligent Go where the price is lower. If you mostly export, you want the higher unit price of Flux.
@@robinbennett5994 thanks. I've only had solar for 6 weeks so don't know what my export will be but I do have a big system. My forecast is 9000 kWh PV and I use roughly 6000 (50/50 house /car) So on that basis it would work. As I've just switched to IOG I'll stay as is and monitor the situation And I'll check out the rule of thumb video.
Yup, as Robin suggested, the "rule of thumb" video should cover your question. You should have an estimate of what your monthly generation should be from your installer, or else you can use the PVGIS tool to work it out for yourself: re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/
No EV charging? I suspect that Intelligent Octopus Go is a better tariff if you charge an EV at home. Certainly, that is the case for me with 500kWh per month charged at home, even though I have a big PV array (10.8kWp)
We do have an EV, but don't do many miles. See my rule of thumb tariff video for more details on why this tariff works better for us int he Summer.
Would an 8-panel array and 9.5kw batter be considered large?
I'd say that's a pretty typical system. I have 18 panels and 14 kWh of battery, for reference, which is a bit larger than most installs.
I used intelligent flux earlier this year (too early given that I have an ASHP). What annoyed me most was that I had 3kw capacity to discharge my AC-charger for the 9.5 kw battery, but Octopus consistently reduced the max discharge power to around 2.5 kw. This meant I was drawing from the grid at peak hours. I gave them some feedback so was wondering, is yours discharging at max power now?
Yup, mine discharges at 3.6kW, but I have more capacity than you, so I suspect they reduced it so as not to fully deplete your battery in the three hours. If they discharged quicker you'd run out before 7pm.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk From a cost perspective, that doesn't really matter though does it? Hitting 20% battery capacity before 7pm does mean that you would import a bit based on demand on the higher rate. However, the only real factor for the battery in terms of cost is how much capacity you have. It's always going to discharge 80% of your battery, so you will always earn (Capacity) x (0.80) x (Export Tariff) in that 4-7 slot. Solar exported and home consumption will affect your overall figures, but they won't affect how much you get out of your battery. Whether you get to 20% at 6 pm or 7 pm won't matter. Shifting your consumption to avoid being high in that time period will have an impact for sure.
@@chrisbrinks2298 true, but it also makes sense to spread it evenly across the three hours in either case. Your inverter will probably heat up less that way.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Yes that is true. For us, the battery owners, it would be best to calculate the lowest discharge rate to empty 80% of the battery over 3 hours. However, Octopus may be setting it differently for each 30 minute period to handle spikes in grid demand. We've given up that control in exchange for better export rates.
@@chrisbrinks2298 I suspect they are doing a bit of that too, I agree. I've seen the discharge rate change during the three hour window occasionally. Sometimes it starts a bit lower for the first half hour then ramps up for the rest, for example.
Morning Tim, interesting video as always. I tried to switch to IOF from Go at the end of March , after a month Octopus were still unable to connect to my battery , an issue I understand several customers are having . So I switched to Flux & Octopus compensated me for the higher export rate I would have benefited from had they been able to connect to my battery & provide the IOF tariff. I have a 3.6 Hybrid Gen 3 inverter with a 3.69kW array and a 5.2kW battery . Looking at your rule of thumb video and my consumption and solar generation over the last month think Flux maybe the better tariff for me ! Over the last 2 months the solar has generated 2.58 times the consumption and only 4% imported from the grid, so the solar & battery provide all the energy I need for the house with 58% of the solar being exported !!! Any thoughts
I also had trouble switching to IOF initially, so switched to regular Flux instead for April until Octopus were able to fix the problem. It turned out that was a good thing to do anyway (see my "did I choose the right tariff for April" video). With such high generation it sounds like IOF would be better for you right now given the super high export rates.
Hi @TimAndkatsGreeWalk. It’s been since early April but Octopus have not been successful getting my battery connected. I have sent and received over a dozen emails to the hello account. Very frustrating. Can you share how you managed to get Octopus to get your device setup? A short video covering the steps would be informative.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thsnks , but if i don’t need to pull from grid why pay for the grid to power the house & charge the battery until 7pm when the solar is going it for nothing ? If you deduct the cost of drawing from the grid which IOF does the advantage of the higher export between 4 & 7 is reduced ! Also i tend to cook between 6&7 so would probably have to pay the higher grid import to cover reduced power available from the battery !
@@frrcap I sent an email saying I couldn't connect properly in early April, then just switched to regular Flux. Three weeks later I got an email saying it had been fixed and I could try again. That's it. Gary, on the other hand, signed up and got connected immediately. No idea why mine didn't work initially.
@@AlanS-uu5sy9vy8o using solar isn't free, it has an opportunity cost equal to the export rate. That's why if you've got high generation relative to your consumption IOF will beat IOG. Don't forget that the day export rate on IOF is also super high. If your consumption is high then the low import rate for IOG wins. Regular Flux has lower export rates than IOF but a lower off-peak import rate, so will win under certain other conditions. It's all there in the rule of thumb video. You asked for my thoughts and I stand by what my rule of thumb video says, which in your case would suggest IOF is best for you with a generation/consumption ratio of 2+.
My 19kwh batteries discharge from 16:00 till 21:00,21:30 every night !! Which for me means I’m paying the ac/dc then dc/ac conversion everyday ? Not a lot but it’s still an unnecessary cost to me ?
Yeah, I tend to have a few extra periods of force discharging outside of the 4-7pm period too. But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really make much difference (see my May stats video and upcoming June stats video for proof). The higher export rates overall mean it still wins out over the other tariffs, assuming you have a high generation to consumption ratio (see my rule of thumb tariff video).
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkI think with larger batteries it consistently goes well past the 7pm peak,
Just looked at June bill figures I made around £35 pound but that takes into account all my gas and all my electric usage ( including the standing charge) I charge a PhEV daily as well.
We used. 660kwh and exported 859kwh.
Was a very bad solar gen month here last month so all in all not bad generated 800kwh
Still looking to install an ohme for winter iog but maybe not if IOF ok?
@@johnd3309 I would definitely consider switching to IOG over Winter. Once the solar dries up IOF becomes a very poor tariff, unfortunately.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk thanks Tim it’s what I was thinking hence get the ohme installed last year I did GO I could charge my batteries cheap period to 100% plus my car over night cheap the batteries lasted the day so all electricity is off peak but export was low rate. I know I won’t recoup charger cost but it future proofs.
Keep producing these utubes really useful thanks
Tim/Kat - I'm having an install from Octopus of Solar (14 panels with Giv-Energy battery 9.5 kwh and a 5kw inverter) and a Heat Pump (air-source Daikin EDLA 09DA3V3 9kw). By July 10th the two installations should be complete. Have you any thoughts about the best tariff?
Well, as it happens: ruclips.net/video/xz8XRwHcgC4/видео.htmlsi=Y4JwUA-H9gPD8F-c
Also: ruclips.net/video/cZ3VsnuEM9k/видео.htmlsi=X95f7CIBYGY9VN_L
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thanks for the helpful advice. An Octopus man made a pre-install visit and mentioned Eddi for the hot water. I see you have this. Would you recommend it?
@@NigelPJ no, that wouldn't make sense if you have a heat pump for your hot water because your heat pump will be 300+% efficient at turning electricity into heat, whereas the eddi powers the backup immersion heater, which is only 100% efficient. You're better off having your water heated by your heat pump on a schedule (e.g. using cheap overnight power) and then any excess solar would be exported instead. With the very good export rates nowadays that's a better use of your excess solar than diverting into your hot water. Hopefully that makes sense. I'll be removing our eddi once we get a heat pump hot water cylinder and passing it on to my in-laws who still use gas for their hot water.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thanks Tim, that makes sense. Having one less thing to consider is a bonus!
Have you checked your inverter temp when exporting. Mine will jump up to about 65DegC after less than an hour which i find worrying.
It maxes out at about 50 deg after about two and a half hours then settles down. Seems ok, but I'm keeping an eye on it.
Last week my battery discharged at 3600W for 2 hours, very little solar generation, and my inverter went up to 77°C and I've also seen the Battery Management System hit 68°C.
@@cheeky_farquar are you happy with that? I have no reference point to know if that's ok or not just that normally it runs around mid 40's even when exporting solar at 5k. Yet when exporting at 3.6 from the battery it jumps up.
@@Joe-lb8qn I did write a detailed reply for you but RUclips generated an error so lets just say that it's not ideal. My situation is the same as yours running the inverter at full wack is fine but discharging at 3600w is a big problem. This morning I discovered a new? setting "Inverter Discharge Power Percentage" (see GivEnergy Portal, Inverter, Remote Control) which allows you to limit the achievable Discharge Rate. I've set mine to 90% so that even if Octopus set the Discharge Rate to 3600w, which they will and do, it will only be able to discharge at a 3240w max. I'm expecting to have to decrease this further to about 85% but will try this tonight. I am currently working with GivEnergy on this issue and they have escalated to R&D for further testing so hopefully some sort of resolution may come in the near future.
Surprised it doesn’t kick it back to “eco” just before 7 - it’s a no brainer.
Actually it should probably just run eco for most of the time when it isn’t topping up, or force discharging… particularly during the morning peak.
Those extra periods are why they give you an extra slots, supporting their national usage - as opposed to regular flux. Compare with Igo and go
Using eco mode in the peak period I agree with. But there's no need to use the battery during the off-peak period because the import and export rates are the same, so you may as well just use the grid.
You’re right - it just feels wrong, particularly that they don’t trigger it for other peak times (no benefit to you
directly, but a benefit to the grid)
Tim how would this effect some one who’s electric car charges 60 kw a week. Still better than intelligent go?
You’ve got to generate 1.5 times your usage to make this better than Intelligent go IIRC - check the mentioned rule of thumb video.
I'd suggest watching my rule of thumb video for that answer.
You mentioned about changing your tariff for the winter.I thought Octopus charged you an extra £75 if you do not keep your tariff for 1 year.
Nope - exit fees are quite sane.
This is what is stated on my Octopus bill.
Could you pay less?
Remember - it might be worth thinking about switching your tariff or supplier.
For your electricity (on meter point 2200021297572)
Good news, you're already on our cheapest tariff. We'll let you know if this changes.
For your gas (on meter point 4229577509)
You could save £93.35 a year by switching to Octopus 12M Fixed, which is more than the early exit fee of £75.00 per fuel on your current tariff. It may involve changing how you pay or your meter setup - contact our team to find out more.
You can switch between smart tariffs every 30 days without charge. It sounds like you're on a fixed tariff though, which I assume has different terms and conditions: octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/
It seems to me that they are paying very little for having given up charge/discharge control of your battery system, it seems like you are getting 7p for each kWh of battery use. On IO Go I'm getting a 20p discount for load shedding my car charging and I'm also getting this discount on my house electricity that is not supplied by solar. I'm a bit surprised that Octopus can't be more competitive on this tarif. Look forward to seeing the monthly figures
That's true for the battery side of things, but you should remember that you're also getting a very high rate (22 or 30p) for all your export. I think that's the real benefit, and the ideal setup would be more panels and a smaller battery.
The export rates apply to all export so all your excess solar too, don't forget. 21p/kWh is the best daytime export rate available, and 28p/kWh is almost twice what you can get on IOG for export during the peak period. That's where the benefit lies. You're getting that exceptional export rate as payment for Octopus controlling your batteries. I'll be doing another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May once I've had the full month, and I'm confident it'll beat IOG for me over the Summer months (but IOG will win from Oct-Apr according to my rule of thumb video).
Keep the battery cells healthy by never discharging completely says the experts so I set it to 20% to extend battery life. Could all be lies who knows.
That's partly true, but the GivEnergy batteries have a built-in battery management system that accounts for that so you don't need to worry about it. Just use you batteries as much as you want.
It feels almost as if you have lost control, I guess the proof will be when you show us the full month's income/cost
I haven't lost control, I've given control to Octopus. That is the point of this tariff and something I was well aware of and prepared for. I'll do another "did I choose the right tariff" video for May in due course, for sure.
What constitutes a 'large' array and battery?
Large enough array that your generation to consumption ratio is over the threshold described in my rule of thumb video. And a 9.5+ kWh battery, probably, but it might work ok with less.
Octopus, masquerading as a guinea pig 🐙🦑 🐷
You what?
Tim, appreciating that you are trying this out for us... Not sure if the utilities' and customers' goals are aligned, set and forget might lead to some minor pillaging by the utility companies....
@@mjp0815 gotcha. Well, I don't mind them trying to make a profit, especially if I'm getting paid quite a bit at the same time too, so in that respect I'd say our goals are pretty well aligned with this tariff.
Of course Octopus are a business that has to make money, they will game the system as well to make sure they can utilise as much profit as they can.
Yes, but they shouldn't be doing it at the expense of the customer. Although these extra export periods outside of the peak period don't really negatively affect the customer really, it's the peak import that could be slightly detrimental.