What time does cheaper EV rate apply on Charge Anytime?

Thanks for replying. I still don’t really understand why you would use the boost/immediate charge function at a higher rate. Surely you can just set the time you need the full charge to be reached for one,two,three..hours time and it will start charging immediately (at the lower rate).

I think the boost function is to be used in case your situation changes and you need a top up charge quickly. The timed function doesn’t necessarily switch on full immediately 

I understood that the system will charge when electricity is low carbon/off peak - so it won’t necessarily start charging immediately as you suggest @craig310 

It might be useful to know roughly when the “green” times would be, so that you could know when to plug in your car. If it’s going to be roughly after 10:00pm say, then you just need to remember to plug in before bedtime. If it’s going to be greener at 4:00pm, then you might need to plug in between daily journeys. Many of us would not just by default plug the car in after every journey, especially if you need to position the car in a particular place on your drive.

The thing is @lee_surrey the green ‘slots’ vary and so aren’t exactly the same. 
You can take a look at the forecasted green generation times from National Grid for a clue. 
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/great-britains-monthly-electricity-stats

They feature on an app too

Thanks for your answer @BPLightlog. I can see that it’s a little unpredictable as to when your car will charge. I suppose what I’m trying to work out is, what happens if there are no slots designated “green” in between you plugging in and the scheduled “charge by” time. For instance, if I plug in my car at 10:00pm to be charged by 8:00am the next morning, what will win out? a) My request to have my car fully charged, or b) the network’s need to be “green”. And if the answer is a), then would the car just get charged at normal household rates? And if it’s b), I would be pretty annoyed if there had been no green slots overnight and my car didn’t have enough charge to go to work.

It seems that, as the marketing blurb says “Charge Anytime, the clue’s in the name” what it’s really saying is that it’s not Charge Anytime you want, but Charge Anytime Ovo wants.

Thanks,Lee.

On the marketing ‘blurb’ you will see the note on ‘greenest’ times rather than green .. they say

4 Our smart tech aims to charge your car when the grid has more renewable energy in it, within the time you’ve set. Meaning it’s less likely your EV will be charged by energy from fossil fuels. 

@lee_surrey your scenario is always option a. If you set a ready by time, your EV will be charged by that ready by time at the discounted 10p per kWh. You don’t have to worry about the green slots, it’s all done for you. If there are none, your car will still charge and at the lower rate. The only time you will be charged the full rate is if you select ‘urgent charge’. 

Thanks guys. This is exactly the type of certainty I’m looking for. So basically, it will charge any time you want, at the 10p/kWh rate, as long as you put in a bit more effort and modify your “charge by” time for that day. It also gives you the choice to be “greener” too by setting a longer “charge by” window, like overnight, to allow the network to use greener power.

I just tested this theory and at 2:00pm I plugged my partially charger car in and told the app I needed the car by 2:30pm. After about 5 minutes, it started charging and continued even past 2:30pm. My Ovo app also reported about 50p increase in the amount I’d saved, proving it was using the correct 10p/kWh rate.

Thanks for all your help,
Lee.

Nice @lee_surrey!

I am slightly surprised that the app allowed you to set a ready by time for 14:30 when you set it at 14:00. I’m curious to hear from other Charge Anytime customers on how it works:

@Dark, @FatOldSun is there usually a set amount of time in the future a ‘ready by’ time can be set?

If I want to start charging immediately, I set a ready by time which is sooner than the time it would take to fully charge the car. This generally works, although I’ve not tried during peak times e.g. 4-7pm.

@lee_surrey do you get the option to set any ready by time, even if it’s an hour or half an hour in the future, and in the afternoon? 

Yes. As you can see from this pic, I just set (at 9:50) “ready by” to happen by 11:00 today.

@Tim_OVO So at 10:15, I plugged the car in (battery at 94%) having told it I needed it by 11:00 as above. 5 minutes later, it’s now charging at the full 7kW rate.

Good to know this, @lee_surrey - all thanks to Kaluza Flex technology!

Anyone here able to help as I can’t get an answer from OVO HQ. What happens with the situation that the Smart charging App doesn’t work with the car you have but the charger does. I am unable to use the OVO charge anytime app, so how do I know when to get the 10p rate of charge and don’t  charge when it’s the full rate. Seems to be very much a finger in the air to check which way the winds blowing. Has anyone got an answer to this, thanks.

Hi @IanEV , the system works automatically once you’ve set your ‘charge by’ time. It picks the greenest slots of power to be used and charges the vehicle at the preferential rate. You get the savings shown in the following month. 
 

This might explain better from another post - 

The Charge Anytime app is used for direct to vehicle (D2V) control. Where a customer has an eligible vehicle but does not have an eligible charger, they should use the D2V app. Where a customer has an eligible charger (regardless of whether or not their vehicle is eligible), they should use the charger app.

The difference between the two at the moment is that the D2V customer will see savings in their D2V app, whilst the charger customer can see savings in a page called “Your EV” in the My OVO account.

If a customer has an eligible charger and has downloaded the D2V app, they are likely to be setting schedules in multiple apps which will cause a conflict in commands being sent to charge the battery. As a result they may miss their ready by times and will probably not be able to reconcile their Charge Anytime credits.

A question on this,

is there usually a set amount of time in the future a ‘ready by’ time can be set?

What's stopping me coming home at 1pm with a 50% battery and setting a schedule (therefore charging at 7p) to start at 1.30pm? 

Nothing stopping you .. but it might not be ‘ready’ by that time

Yeah it might not be ready, but I am getting the discounted rate straight away. By doing this way (creating a schedule) ok getting instant cheap charging rather than the full rate.

Am I missing something?

I don’t think so. The system tries to look at emissions and match need to requirement. If you need the EV within a few hours, it will try to match this but I guess if there’s too much instant demand, there may be a flag on your account

Thanks ,I'm hoping other Charge anytime users can confirm this please?

@E-golf you cant set a Start time only a ready by time. 

If you plug in at 50% at 1pm you will need 2 & bit hours to get you to full. If you set your charge by time to 3:30pm then it may fully charge 100% but I dont think it will be certain, if you set your charge by time to 6pm im sure it will always be full by then.  

I know the change over to electric can be worrying/stressful But I think your overthinking, looking for problems that wont really effect you.

So far this month Ive used 163.1Kw mostly overnight charges but one was a daytime charge costing £11,41 thanks to anytime. at the normal rate that would have been £41.18 so its saved me just over £30 so far this month. 

If anyone's interested Ive done a comparison @ 40mpg that would have cost me £96 in petrol. By the end of the month it will be over £100 cheaper to run an EV 

My overriding though is we all need to be careful.

The Anytime tariff will continue to be cheap while the majority of users normally give the system as long as possible to charge during the cheapest times of day and night. It is also better for the environment.

I wouldn't recommend this fast charging during the day becomes the norm for lots of people, else everyone will ultimately suffer on the Anytime plan. Peak time electricity costs can be eye wateringly expensive for OVO to purchase. There needs to be a level of personal responsibility with these sort of tariff.