Do you have Solar Panels & Charge Anytime? We’d love to hear your thoughts

Hi ​@Ben_OVO 

Thanks for responding.

Charge Anytime actually logged a complaint on my behalf without me asking which was great.

All I and I’m sure others would like to know is a rough estimate of if and when the compatibility issue will be resolved. As I think I mentioned on my earlier post, Ohme themselves stated to me that they have no compatibility issues with Ovo and solar so this conflicting information is very worrying.

Thanks for asking for more info internally. 

😓

​@Chris_OVO sorry, why is this information liked?

I have provided Ohme with the link to this thread via their webchat. They also advised this must be a new issue as they were unaware of it. They are, “going to ask the energy team here to look into the OVO anytime tariff and how it operates with solar” and get back to me. Will try to remember and update here after.

Ohme yesterday to me, “I've got confirmation that solar boost is not currently available with our chargers and OVO anytime. Effectively the way that their tariff is set up means that they don't allow us to enable solar boost as it would affect the way the tariff works. As this is effectively an OVO decision there's not much we can do our end. Sorry that there's some conflicting information out there I'm going to see if we can make it much clearer on our website and help centre articles”

​@Gwallace thank you for letting us know Ohme’s response to you and, once again, apologies for the lack of Solar compatibility. Hopefully at some point that compatibility may be introduced but, as I say, Charge Anytime have confirmed there are currently no plans for this at the moment.

Cheers ​@Ben_OVO I think in the meantime I’ll switch back to my old energy supplier so I can at least get a cheaper overnight tariff. Will revisit Ovo in a year or so to see how things are. Thanks again :)

​@Gwallace it’s a shame to lose you as a customer, I hope that in future we have some EV setups that will suit you. Keep an eye open on our website and, of course, on this Forum - we still welcome you as a Forum member and these pages will be updated whenever there are changes to our Products and offerings. 

This is a generic problem. Every EV model has a different method of control (even models within a manufacturer’s range), every charge point has a different method of control, most of them with their own servers or now obsolete, every solar system, every battery system and every energy supplier's system is different. You could say that everyone has a unique system with a unique set of issues to be resolved.

Attempts have been made to standardise some of these like an open EV charging protocol but it has never caught on as such. You can make some of it work together most of the time but it's essentially the definition of a nightmare if you want to integrate EV charging into an existing system.

Simpler is better

Peter

I've got storage heaters, electric car, solar panels but no battery. The car is not compatible, I use a granny charger because it does all I need and, because my garage is a long distance from the house, it would be expensive to upgrade the electric cabling to support a charger. 

I suppose the problem is that you're buying my surplus electricity at 15p and don't want to sell it back to me at 7p. Really, you're paying too much for the export.

If I used my neighbours charger, and paid them, that's more or less what would be happening. I'm too embarrassed to ask!

I bought the solar panels from you but I would be better off financially if I'd bought a compatible charger. 

Suppose, though, that you only paid 7p for the export, and charged 7p for charging the car. How would that work out? If it had to be made more attractive, could there be bonuses for adjusting the use to certain times.