Introducing Charge Anytime - next generation EV charging

Why is Ovo not interested in improving their Ev charging scheme. I have been asking them for a year. Both my car and home charge point are not on their very limited options. I have a Kia Ev6 car, the most popular in UK. And a Rolec Smart charger.  Also I have solar panels. They say I cannot have a reduced tariff rate like all their competitors.  Why. 

It’s not just OVO that has to approve those EV’s and Chargers. The respective manufacturers also have to play ball too. If any manufacturer refuses to collaborate, it’s game over instantly.

Additionally, only the Indra chargers currently support the Solar Matching required to make OVO Charge Anytime compatible with Solar Panels. If you have one, it can be configured the right way fairly easily, especially if the Solar compatibility features have already been set up during the charger install.

Alas, Rolec hasn’t - at this time - got any agreements with OVO that I know about and it’s ultimately down to them to be open to working with OVO. Only then can Charge Anytime support be expanded to Rolec.

As for Kia? Errmm… Let’s just say that the suppliers that did get to collaborate with Kia are having nightmares with the API being unreliable, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.

Hi,

I have an Aclara SGC1311 smart meter. We moved in and went with our original electricity provider from the old house. Our smart meter won’t talk to the provider and has never sent them a reading in the year we have lived here. We are paying estimate bills most of the time.

I am looking to get an electric car with an Economy7 or EV tariff. My father is ill and can’t regulate his temperature so uses air conditioning even in the winter overnight so our usage is different compared to most and we would likely suit an economy7 tariff. 
 

That being said, after some digging it seems our meter may be too old. I’ve heard it can be converted to S1+ with the DCC, however is this good enough to get cheaper overnight electricity? 
 

Any idea roughly how much it would cost to upgrade our meter to a SMETS2 with overnight tariff? If we switched to OVO so they need a SMETS2 meter for EV charging tariff?

Thanks 

Hi @fluffy1234 , there are a few things to consider:

1. If your current meter can’t be upgraded any meter swap would be free
2. Depending on your current tariff, you might not be able to get economy 7
3. There are several options if you nail down your ideal needs

There is a check that you can use for your meter https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

but any updates from S1 models should have already happened 

Hi,

The link says we have SMETS1 and can’t get smart meter readings. The energy provider we rang them this morning and they have basically said tough luck, it’s quite a common issue and we will have to give manual meter readings for the foreseeable future. When we switch to this provider they told us the meter was compatible, it looks like maybe somebody lied.
 

any ideas what to do?

thanks 

Perhaps this might help

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/smets-1-and-2-new-smart-meter-generation

Heres what the DCC says

https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/current-programmes/smets1-enrolment-and-adoption/

Can’t remember who you’re with but it might be worth a try to switch and upgrade

Interesting that the results say that you can switch to a supplier who can support your meter in smart mode, so it may be worth making enquiries with other suppliers to see if they will be able to get the readings. I assume no data is getting as far as the DCC system? (check using n3rgy.com)

Does BPLightogs advice help @fluffy1234?

I've recently purchased a Mazda MX30 EV, but can't see it on the list of approved EV for OVO's EV tariff. Does anyone know if the lost of approved EV's gets updated periodically, or if Mazda's EV is excluded for a particular reason? Thanks! 

Howdy @AdamJS ,

The list gets updated whenever new EVs are added to the supported list.

What Charger do you have? That might work instead.