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Charge Anytime and Ohme Home Pro kWh usage figures don't match

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Starting a new conversation because I can’t find any info on the forum about this.

I have recently had an Ohme Home Pro EV charge point installed and signed up for the Charge Anytime add-on. I’ve been monitoring the Charge Anytime credits that have been applied to my account and they don’t seem to match the kWh consumption that is being reported in the Ohme app. I think everything is set up correctly and some Ovo credits have been applied, but the usage doesn’t look very much like what the Ohme app says I’ve used - my Ovo account is either missing some smart charging sessions or the smart charging kWh for each session are being underreported. I appreciate that there may be some delay between the chargepoint reporting the session and Ovo applying the charge credits, but Its been 4 days since I last plugged in and things have not caught up.

So the question for anyone with a similar setup is - how accurately do the Charge Anytime consumption figures match those that are reported by your charge point, and how quickly do the credits display on your Ovo account after completing an smart charging session?

(By the way, I do not have preconditioning enabled and these are scheduled charging sessions not max / boost charging, which I know would not be covered under the Charge Anytime tariff).

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Best answer by Dark 8 March 2023, 19:08

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Tim_OVO
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Thanks for the post, @Dark.

 

I’m keen to hear what other Charge Anytime Ohme smart charger customers say about their credits and usage figures. @mirving123 is one we know of. 

 

If you’re convinced of an error that needs OVO to look into, email the OVO Smart Home team on: smarthome@ovoenergy.com

 

For anyone else keen to learn more about Charge Anytime:

 

 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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If you’re convinced of an error that needs OVO to look into, email the OVO Smart Home team on: smarthome@ovoenergy.com

I did email the Smart Home team initially on 3rd Mar and was told that because Ovo is gathering 3rd party info from the charger there may be some delay and that “Typically any misinformation is updated within 2-5 working days.” However Ohme support - who are very responsive - tell me that the charger will “send the data across normally within the hour of the session completing”. I’ve asked smarthome@ovoenergy.com to look into the discrepancy but still waiting for an update.

 

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As a follow up to this, I just unplugged the Ohme to make a short journey BEFORE the scheduled overnight smart charging session had kicked in. When I returned home and plugged back in again I checked the Ovo account page (as I have been doing obsessively for the last week). I was pleasantly surprised to see that the charing credits now appear to show usage from my last actual smart charging session several days ago. This was the first time I had plugged in since that session.

Looking at previous behaviour regarding kWh consumed vs what is showing in the Charge Anytime credit looks to me like the Ovo Charge Anytime credit is one charging session (or at least one plugin) in arrears!

I will continue to monitor and am still interested in what other users are experiencing.

@Tim_OVO @simong and also @Blastoise186 in case you are interested

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As a follow up to this, I just unplugged the Ohme to make a short journey BEFORE the scheduled overnight smart charging session had kicked in. When I returned home and plugged back in again I checked the Ovo account page (as I have been doing obsessively for the last week). I was pleasantly surprised to see that the charing credits now appear to show usage from my last actual smart charging session several days ago. This was the first time I had plugged in since that session.

Looking at previous behaviour regarding kWh consumed vs what is showing in the Charge Anytime credit looks to me like the Ovo Charge Anytime credit is one charging session (or at least one plugin) in arrears!

I will continue to monitor and am still interested in what other users are experiencing.

@Tim_OVO @simong and also @Blastoise186 in case you are interested

I am finding that there is little correlation between the cost and kWh shown in my Ovo account, and that within the charging stats of my Ohme app. The reported readings are much higher (currently about 1.5x - 2x higher) in Ohme compared to the Ovo account. I have done about 3 charges so far since switching to Charge Anytime so it will be interesting to see how it progresses over the course of this month. At the moment it could be that Ovo is one charge behind, but too early to tell as I will need more charge cycles to get a better understanding and see if there is a pattern to it.

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BREAKING NEWS Ohme (who’s support is excellent) have just emailed me in response to my query to say this:

“Having spoken to OVO it appears they had an issue with some third party software that was causing the data we supplied to be delayed in its addition to the OVO pages.

They have said this issue is now resolved. Can you see the charging data as normal within the OVO environment?”

So maybe my theory about the Ovo data being one charging cycle in arrears was a red herring after all. Can you check now and see if your Ovo data looks more aligned with the Ohme?

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BREAKING NEWS Ohme (who’s support is excellent) have just emailed me in response to my query to say this:

“Having spoken to OVO it appears they had an issue with some third party software that was causing the data we supplied to be delayed in its addition to the OVO pages.

They have said this issue is now resolved. Can you see the charging data as normal within the OVO environment?”

So maybe my theory about the Ovo data being one charging cycle in arrears was a red herring after all. Can you check now and see if your Ovo data looks more aligned with the Ohme?

Still a disparity on mine. If I look at My Cars Cost in my Ovo account it shows £2.85 and 28.4 kWh for March, where as in my Ohm app for March it shows £4.46 and 44.6kWh.

It would be good if when you clicked ‘See the Breakdown’ in the Ovo account it actually gave you a breakdown of each charging session with the costs and kWh used each time you did a charge. This could then easily be compared to the individual sessions in the Ohme app.

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Is this Ohme figure of 44.6 kWh just for usage during Smart Charging sessions? Have you max charged / boost charged at any point or used preconditioning as I think this will show in the Ohme app totals - at least it does for me - but isn’t included as part of the Charge Anytime credit calculation. I agree that the breakdown of each charging session in the Ovo account pages would be very useful and I’ve no idea why they’ve chosen not to show this. 

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Is this Ohme figure of 44.6 kWh just for usage during Smart Charging sessions? Have you max charged / boost charged at any point or used preconditioning as I think this will show in the Ohme app totals - at least it does for me - but isn’t included as part of the Charge Anytime credit calculation. I agree that the breakdown of each charging session in the Ovo account pages would be very useful and I’ve no idea why they’ve chosen not to show this. 

I have not done any boost charging or preconditioning, all 3 charges this month have been smart charging only. Not sure what you mean by ‘max charged’? I have set a schedule on the Ohme to reach 100% by 07:00 each day. My wife doesn't let the car get too low on charge, so when plugging in around 6pm, it only needs 2-3 of hours to reach full charge during the smart charging period (which seems to be from 10pm typically).

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Not sure what you mean by ‘max charged’?

Max charge is just the feature on the Ohme that overrides the charging schedule and just charges to full as quickly as possible - you can activate it through the Ohme interface. Its same as boost charging.

Tim_OVO
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This is great feedback and insight. If anyone else new to Charge Anytime can share their experiences this is a good place to document them and I will continue to make the teams aware!

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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UPDATE - I put my wife's car on for another charge last night. After unplugging this morning and giving it a few hours I checked the monthly usage stats in both the Ohme app and my Ovo account. As previously discussed, they don't match. 

Now, when I plug in, the smart charging doesn't start charging until about 10pm normally, and it finishes charging in the early hours of the following day, so it is spread over two days. When I look in the Ohme app, I can see the charge sessions for each day i.e yesterday when it started, early hours of today when it finished. The difference in £ and kWh that I am seeing between Ovo and Ohme matches exactly the charging stats for today (i.e the post midnight bit). So it seems Ovo is not including the incurred charges after midnight…...until you next do a charge, when it then adds it to the totals.

I did the same calculation for the previous charging session as I had the figures recorded in my post above, and guess what, the difference matches exactly the bit of charging after midnight.

This does seem to indicate that Ovo is not including the most recent charging data that occurs after midnight in its totals, so is always one charging session behind when reporting the totals.

@Dark Perhaps you can see if this is also the case for you?

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So far my charging has never straddled midnight, but based on what I am logging I’m going back to my original assertion that OVO doesn’t apply a credit for a given charge until after you have carried out a subsequent charge. This seems a bit weird but agrees with what you’ve just described. 

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Thanks again for sharing these details, @simong. The team would really like to take your details and have a look. Please can you email the OVO Smart Home team with your Ohme ID in the email and a link to this topic? 

 

Email address to send this to is: smarthome@ovoenergy.com 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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Thanks again for sharing these details, @simong. The team would really like to take your details and have a look. Please can you email the OVO Smart Home team with your Ohme ID in the email and a link to this topic? 

 

Email address to send this to is: smarthome@ovoenergy.com 

 

Done - I have emailed them the link and my Ohme user id as requested

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I am also finding that my figures don’t match and the missing kwh don’t match any one charge so can’t be a case of one hasn’t been added yet.  I have looked on both my Ohme charge app and on my cars app and both those match (car is very slightly under the charger so assume that is where some is lost whilst charging) but they are both VERY close to each other. I have listed them per day (so from 12.01 - 12.00 each day) and then what my OVO app says.

 

Used each day                        running total            Showing in OVO account

10/3 - 0.4 kwh                           0.4 kwh

11/3 - 14.2 kwh                           14.6 kwh

13/3 - 23.7 kwh                          38.3 kwh                        

14/3 - 25.9 kwh                         64.2 kwh                        36.27 kwh

15/3 - 16.3 kwh                          80.5 kwh

16/3 - 10.2 kwh                          90.7 kwh                        76.74 kwh  (for some reason they have only updated my account twice with readings so first figure appeared after a few days and then stayed the same until today when it updated to the second reading)

 

So even if this was not showing the last charge as that was only today (although they state they take ½ hourly readings to keep it up to date) that still doesn’t work out as the difference is 13.96 kwh which does not match any of the charging sessions so doesn’t seem like they have just not added one on yet. 

 

I wanted to keep my eye on it as don’t normally charge at home as my car has free charging so usually go out and charge due to the prices of charging at home, so when I saw this smart charging offer was happy to see that I could now use the easier option as can just charge overnight but if they are not actually discounting all of the electric used then it will not be worth it.  I have my Ohme set to only use electric under 10p per kwh, do not use boost charge as just plug it in all night and once car is on charge i check on my Ohme app that it shows smart charging just to be sure so cannot figure out why the discrepancy.  Will continue to charge occasionally at home for rest of the month to see if it evens out at all and then decide whether to continue.  I just wonder how many customers are just seeing a discount on their bill and not actually checking the figures assuming that they are correct and not actually receiving the full amount.

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What I know so far:

As you’ve seen, there is a delay between smart charging (scheduled through the app) and the credits appearing in your Ovo account page.

The credits seem to be added based on the kWh usage on the last day you smart charged - as @simong has found this means a charging ‘session’ that spans midnight will have some of its kWh usage counted as belonging to the following day and so the credit for that session will be added to your Ovo account in two chunks. I suppose this is logical as Ovo can’t know what you are going to use until the end of the day.

Here’s the most confusing thing I have noticed: your Ovo account doesn’t seem to update daily usage data unless you do another smart charge. This means if I don’t charge on a particular day then the credits owed from the previous day won't show up.

I haven’t worked out yet what it is that triggers the Ovo account to add the credit from the last day of charging, whether it is (A) plugging in to the Ohme (B) completing a charge session or (C) unplugging at the end.

What I can say is that Ovo does seem to catch up eventually: all of my smart charing session are accounted for bar the last one on 15th (yesterday) - but I haven’t charged again since then and I expect it will turn up when I next plugin.

 

 

 

 

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I think though trial and error I’ve worked out what is going on

Ovo tracks daily smart charge usage reported by Ohme in 24hr blocks

Ovo will only add up total usage for a given day when it receives additional usage data timestamped with a later date (I assume this is to make sure it is not going to receive any further usage reports for the day in question e.g if an upload from Ohme has been delayed)

The charger reports usage only when you stop a charging session by unplugging

So your Ovo credits are always going to be at least 1 day in arrears and maybe longer depending on your charging habits

 

Tim_OVO
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Thanks for sharing this insight, @Dark.

 

The terms and conditions for Charge Anytime specifically say: “OVO takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the data received from your EV charger or compatible EV and therefore the accuracy of the Charge Anytime Credits paid using that data” …“Please consult with your charger manufacturer or compatible EV manufacturer if you are concerned about the accuracy of data recorded.”


Would you be able to check with Ohme that the data being sent to OVO (Kaluza) is accurate please?

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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Thanks for sharing this insight, @Dark.

 

The terms and conditions for Charge Anytime specifically say: “OVO takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the data received from your EV charger or compatible EV and therefore the accuracy of the Charge Anytime Credits paid using that data” …“Please consult with your charger manufacturer or compatible EV manufacturer if you are concerned about the accuracy of data recorded.”


Would you be able to check with Ohme that the data being sent to OVO (Kaluza) is accurate please?

@Tim_OVO I don’t have any problem with the accuracy of the data from the Ohme - I have worked out how to correlate Ohme kWh consumed to Ovo kWh credits and they match pretty well. The observations I have made relate to how Ovo calculates the credits and how quickly they appear in response to the Ohme data. I expected the credits to be applied per charge session, and so would appear soon after the session completed. What I have found is that they are calculated based on daily kWh and therefore don’t appear until Ovo has confirmed the full day’s usage (well, this is my assumption but seems to be holding up sop far).

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Does the rate charged for normal electricity use increase when signed up for Charge Anytime?

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Does the rate charged for normal electricity use increase when signed up for Charge Anytime?

Nope!

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Hi guys, so I'm new to all this. I have an ohme home pro charger, however my car (Kia niro EV 2023) isn't compatible with the OVO smart charge app. I have linked my charger to my OVO account, my first big charge was Sunday and I plugged it in and set the equivalent of about 50kwh of charge over 14 hours. On my OVO account it says I have been charged around £16 for the charge, but on the ohme app it says £5.06. 

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Did you do the Sunday charge as a scheduled charge via the Ohme app, or did you boost/max charge it via the Ohme (app or charger) for an immediate hit?

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I set it to put a certain amount of charge in, I've screen shot the pages, do these make sense?

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