New V2G trialist and my installation experience - how much have trialists actually saved on bills from this setup?

Hi @IbrahimEV and thanks for posting here on the Forum.

Could you clarify what you mean by “I did not expect the unlooping work to be carried out by Western Power”?

Not all installations are identical because houses have different distribution boards, and may or may not already have Smart meters present.

Did your house have a feed shared with an adjacent property?

And could you also complete your Forum Profile page? As we’re fellow customers, we look there for basic information about you and your site.

Thanks.

Hi,

Bit of background: I was already an OVO customer for 5 years and had a smart meter installed a couple of years ago by OVO.  My house was, as you correctly noted, connected to the adjoining property which appeared rare for my road as per the bod who came out with the streets plans - apparently there is no way of knowing beforehand until something like this comes along. 

The work involved digging a trench from my house to the end of my drive and another large hole on the pavement, which blocked off access to pedestrians for over a week until it was fully reinstated but was largely hassle free for me, aside from having to move one of my cars on to a neighbour's drive for the duration. 

I joined the forum last night; didn't realise there was a profile page tbh but now addressed 👍

Ty

Thanks @IbrahimEV - I’m assuming that your Smart meter was already a SMETS1, so it didn’t require “down-grading” from a SMETS2.

I’ve been looking into the Looped Supply situation recently for another reason. We’ve got a Discussion Topic here about Who Owns What on the Distribution Board in your house. There I referred to a document called Cut-out Types & Ratings Guidance which is used to identify devices when there isn’t actually fault with the installation. The Looped Supply issue is Item-6 (page 10).

The reason that we’re generally interested in the installation process for these V2G chargers from Kaluza, is that it turned out to be far more onerous and expensive than had been supposed.

Indeed the costs have been so significant that the V2G Trial Applications have been ceased, and it will now continue with only half the number of test sites originally expected.

There are clearly some lessons to be learned from this. In effect the charger is costing twice as much as it should… and if it were being provided as a costed service, then it would have a longer ROI (Return of Investment) and a resultant lower market share.

There’s a special Topic here where we can ask whatever we want from members of Kaluza staff. I think this point of installation complexity needs to be raised there so we can discuss what should happen in future.

And, incidentally, I do happen to have access to Western Power’s network maps, through which I’m beginning to understand how old and out-of-spec are sections of the network. I’ve quite easily been able to find other houses with looped supplies, so they’re not that rare.

Ofgem is currently developing the list of targets which the Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) must achieve under the forthcoming RIIO-ED2 revenue-constraint process. I fully expect the inspection and upgrading of domestic distribution boards to feature in this next phase of the process.

Hi @IbrahimEV and welcome to the OVO forum and the Vehicle to Grid (V2G) trial!

One of our forum mods will be looking at your comments today or tomorrow, and if need be can get some more info to you from the Kaluza / OVO Smart Home team (who would be the team on hand to support you if you emailed).

I love @Transparent’s reply above. Loads of info there, and the link to the Kaluza Ask me Anything topic is the pick of the bunch for something you should have a click at and a read/post. 

Also, to answer your question on which V2G trialists have made a saving, and more info on how they’ve found the charger a year on, this topic is a must read! Thanks to @Mikeyoung and @jp1 for their detailed posts sharing the stats!!! I’m also expecting a monthly blog post from @D10hul - see the last one for April/May/June here

Last thing to you, Ibahim, I did tweak this topic title and made it into a blog, making it easier for others to find. 

Hi,

Thanks for the updates and links.  I find the cost saving element the most interesting on a personal level (but still curious how it works on a corporate/governmental level having worked within Finance for a major electricity corporation) so these stats do get me excited!

I’m still trying to get my EV Everywhere updated and following another phone call today, I need to wait 10 days for the system to revert back to ‘old-world’ before I can have my account updated to EV Everywhere as the new system doesn’t allow it - that’s technical level of the summary I was provided with.

I did a bit of searching on this forum and it seems the export credits appear separately?  I hope this is the case as my usage presumably will increase as my vehicle has been plugged in nonstop since 31 Jul.  Do I need to be on the EV Everywhere in order to receive credits or is that just an additional option?

In terms of looped supplies, this was not known by the surveying engineering so perhaps would be good if they could come armed with this information beforehand so as to not have surprise communication post-survey that this additional delay/work will be required first.  That said, as I understood from one of the engineers who was on his penultimate day the trial is ending soon for new installations(?)

Hi @IbrahimEV, I can confirm that the V2G Trial and EV Everywhere are separate, as such, this delay in joining EV Everywhere will not affect your export credits at all. Exports are calculated on the last day of the month and typically added within the first five working days of the month. 

I hope this helps. 

May I just ask for clarification @IbrahimEV ?

Are you saying that your site received a pre-installation visit from an OVO/Kaluza engineer, and yet he did not pick up the Looped Supply issue?

If so, that’s very odd.

Not only would I have expected such a visit to be based on the guidance in the Cut-out Types & Ratings Guidance document, but also you would think that he/she would have accessed the same Western Power mapping system which I’ve got. It uses different shades of blue line to identify the number of phases connecting to houses. So a looped supply is relatively easy to spot.

@Ash_OVO are you able to comment on this, or is it another query to add to the Kaluza Ask me Anything topic?

@Ash_OVO Thanks; that's a relief.

@Transparent Yes, this was my experience.  After the engineer had completed the survey and reported back to HQ with photos etc of my property, I received communication (I can't recall whether email or call) a few days later to inform me of this looped issue. 

It may well have been the case the surveying engineer knew of it but did not mention it to me. 

Ibrahim

Oh, that’s OK @IbrahimEV - I thought you meant that they’d actually turned up to install the charger before realising it was a looped supply!

I imagine the engineer did what was right. Having done the on-site bit, he then checked Western Power’s maps.

I have now had my v2g a couple of months and last month managed to export 299.99kwh! Having had UKpowernetworks have to adjust the voltage at the local transformer, it has now been stable, reliable and great! My long range leaf certainly appreciates it. I have yet to work out what that means in money (due to billing complications) but @Kaluza have been fantastic in all thier support. It only took 8 engineers about 1 working day each to get mine up and running but i have had a lot of complications (all perfectly acceptable in a trial) and the DNO visited 6 times too!!! I think every engineer locally now knows where i live!