Why does my charging stop suddenly when charging at home?

Hi ​@James107 ,

Please call the team in this case, it’ll be faster - 0330 175 9678.

Thanks

Hi ​@James107 and a warm welcome to the OVO Forum!

I’ve awarded your EV Forum badge 😁. 

I can see ​@Blastoise186 has stopped by and advised you should call the Charge Anytime team - please could you let us know whether you’ve been able to contact them yet? If calling isn’t the best option for you then you can email ovocharge@ovo.com. 

I’m also going to link you our Charge Anytime topic hub as you may find it useful going forwards:

Cheers!

Hey, did this get resolved at all as I have a similar issue 

Hi ​@Mfranny81 

Smart charging tariffs can deliver the required energy (charge) in isolated increments which is cheapest for the supplier. Other tariffs are fixed hours like midnight to 6am or similar. Charge Anytime aims to complete the charging by the target time. It doesn't mean the charging happens all in one go.

The question is: Does the car charge to the level required? If it does then all is well. If not, speak to the Charge Anytime team.

Peter 

I have an Audi EV and fairly often see charging start and stop for the reasons given above - the supplier (Ovo) decides when there is spare/cheap energy. Usually overnight, sometimes the afternoon, but always subject to interruptions. My car complains with “charging fault” when it stops, but the car then resets and is happy to continue with charging once power comes back. This suggests to me that it is not a supply-side issue but rather a car’s software designer not allowing for the fact that charging may be interrupted and needing the ability to automatically reset for when charging is restored. I would suggest that it is because German engineers assume perfectly available charging but as Audi have it right for at least one model, it can’t  be that!

Hi Nealeb,

Thanks for your reply. 

I originally thought this would be the case and to leave it and it should restart but alas it did not. 

As mentioned, the Merc worked without fault, just started and stopped as required and full when I needed it to be. 
 

The charging software for each manufacturer and sometimes each model is different and can react differently to discontinuous charging patterns. Some cars go to sleep when charging stops and won't wake up for the next charging slot. Unfortunately some car manufacturers don't write their software for discontinuous charging patterns but suppliers can sometimes find a work around to allow for this. Is your make and model on the list of compatible cars? You can speak to the Charge Anytime team about this. Sometimes it's on a beta test list where they are trying to find a work around.

It's all I have I'm afraid. I'm on my second EV but use continuous charging from another supplier because it never fails.

Peter 

​@Mfranny81 

You should take the advice that ​@Chris_OVO is going to give you but in general you need to do this. 

If you are on a single rate tariff then you set the timers in the car and you use the car's app.

If you are on a Time of Use tariff where the hours are fixed eg. a discount between the fixed hours of 23:30 and 05:30 then you use the car's timers/car's app. 

If you are on a ToU tariff where the supplier sets the discount charging times (including Charge Anytime) then you never set the car's timers or car's app. In that instance the supplier will set the charge point/car's timers to what ever slots are designated on a dynamic basis Setting the car's timers can mess up the whole system especially if the supplier is controlling the charge point.  Car manufacturers/dealers don't understand that because they don't understand what suppliers need to do in order to provide discount rates.

Peter 

I don't want to contradict what ​@Chris_OVO may have said to you but what you have said sounds very much like an incompatibility between how the car has been programmed to expect in the way of charging and the charging pattern that OVO need to use in order to make the discount viable.

It could, of course, be something else which is not working correctly and I hope that investigations will establish what the issue is. It's unfortunate that the complexity of this type of charging creates large grey areas where sometimes it can't be fully determined what is going wrong.

I hope the issue is identified and fixed but I've see this situation occur many times before and sometimes the owner comes up with a fix by carrying out a set of actions in a particular order which doesn't seem to make any sense but it just seems to work. Its that bizarre with some combinations of car make/model and supplier.

Peter