The future of smart tariffs just got complicated

This isn’t for the benefit of consumers. This is about profit maximisation. They are moving away from here is electricity, do what you want, to controlling where it’s used. It’s ok for a car, but not a battery. What next. Hot tub premiums? This is classic bait and switch. I have EVs, solar and house battery. I’m incredibly sceptical about this direction. In the same way smart hubs for electric monitoring will help you reduce your consumption. It doesn’t. It puts data and control into the hands of those whose existence is to extract profit for providing a service.

We should absolutely have a 6 hour toggle switch & that's for your max EV charge per day, no problem with that. These people who have been abusing the system spoil it for other's. Hence one reason for these changes now, however, the 11.30pm to 5.30am cheap energy window you should be able to use as much energy as you like for whatever you wish.

I don't understand why the electricity is only cheap for your EV? Surely it's cheap because there's a surplus? Supply and demand? Why should EV owners getter cheaper electricity than non EV owners? I thought the idea with Intelligent Octopus Go was that when the wind blows hard (for example), they can dump that into cars to reduce curtailment costs?

The biggest killer for me is Daily Standing Charges. They're just a stealth tax.

I don’t see the “new IOG” making a major difference, if any at all, in practice to most of us. Obviously there are a few (relatively) drivers who really do regularly use over 45 kWh/day (200 miles-ish) and they will be significantly affected, of course. However, having seen oh so many of the great deals one finds every now and again through life disappear when they became “too well-known”, it comes as no surprise or disappointment. It was great while it lasted but nothing lasts forever! I can think of a good few things that cause me far more concern than these changes to IOG but I’m sure you are right and the evolution of tariffs will continue and with gathering pace. (And I will get ever more confounded - nothing new there then!)

I read their email about the changes. I'm a smart guy, it was too complicated to understand, before even getting into how it might impact my costs or how I might need to change my charging behaviour.

I cannot help recalling when Octopus CEO Greg Jackson had a meeting with Stammer and since then there have been a number of changes being drip fed to customers.

We've got solar and batteries being installed in June and we run a small ev. I have a business at home which uses a notable amount of electricity too during the day, so I am not really looking to export, rather just cover my own usage. The one thing that concerns/intrigues me is that with the lost tax revenue from fuel sales as more folk move to EVs is there a chance a the system could be so intelligent that it charges additional taxes on electricity used to charge EVs. Personally I'm quite happy to pay taxes and appreciate that fuel duty and VAT revenue (excluding current world affairs effects on oil prices) but I just wonder if as we give ever more data to businesses etc... if this could be snuck in. Another great, informative video. J

The last thing we need is more complication in tariffs! I have no issue with limiting EV charging to 6 hours given the overnight cheap-rate window but then I am not a high-miler user of an EV. It might be better to just let us have the 6 hour off-peak rate and a 6 hour controlled bulk rate, e.g. anything that is, say, pulling more than 5kW over a 30min window. That would give people a 6 hour window for charging home batteries as well as a car, even if a car isn't plugged in; it would also mean that high-draw items such as an oven won't count towards the limit as they invariably only pull high power whilst warming to temperature, not maintaining it. The complication of course is that on Intelligent Go, Octopus seem to change the charging windows willy-nilly and every 5 minutes (slight exaggeration!) so would need integration without getting into the confusing demonics of Home Assistant. The worst of all worlds would be trying to work out what's best between an EV tariff, an ASHP tariff or a battery tariff - pick one and only one!!

Octopus could simplify Intelligent Go rather than complicate it. The core goal should be incentivising the shifting of demand to the times Octopus identifies as optimal for grid balancing and cheapest energy. Their systems know when that is and their API can communicate that to anything that can flex its demand. How that energy is ultimately used shouldn’t matter. If Octopus feel they’re giving out too many windows, then their servers shouldn’t give them out! For example, on a cold winter day with a running heat pump, minimal solar generation, and home batteries depleted by early afternoon: even if a car isn’t plugged in, it would be better to charge up the home batteries and boost the heat a bit if there is an afternoon surplus of cheap renewables to avoid being part of the teatime cooking peak? I have no issue with Octopus rationing the time windows — they know when surpluses exist, and that could total 6 hours one day, 2 hours another day, 10 hours another day, fair enough, because that’s what the grid needs. Any device (home battery, heat pump, EV, etc.) should simply be able to signal it is ready and receptive to use energy, provided it can time that demand precisely when Octopus wants. If your devices ask too much or don’t use it when offered, you’re just reducing your chances of getting a window later when you might truly need it, so it’s in everyone’s interest to use it properly. Isn’t that simpler? It is “when’s the meter turning?” that they should care about, not “is it turning car wheels?”.

I will probably end up migrating back over to Octopus' standard tariff and forget about the intelligent parts. 6 hours overnight is usually enough to get my EV back to 100% and the car is by far the biggest power consumer in my house and I even work from home so electricity is used all day. I don't have solar or a battery so there will be no need for any intelligence in my electricity supply.

So my understanding of the issue is not so much that people are getting cheap power for their battery but the way Octopus funds the cheap rate is through demand flexibility. So the grid says it wants 5MW of demand at 15:30 so Octopus lines up 5MW of demand from EV chargers(they know how much power at what rate each car needs). If everyone also starts charging batteries at the same time that demand goes from 5MW to maybe 7.5MW. The solution to me is that Octopus needs to integrate peoples home storage to the same system. I guess that's where their project Mercury was supposed to come in but everything seems to have gone quiet on that.

What do you think happens next with smart tariffs? Do suppliers eventually move toward: ⚡ EV-only cheap charging? ⚡ Dedicated battery tariffs? ⚡ Device-specific pricing? Or do you think customers should be free to use cheap-rate electricity however they want? Interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on where this is all heading.

My gut feeling is the government is looking at how to have a Higher Tax on electricity being used for car charging I know OHME have our Charging History, that could easily be handed to the government and Taxed separately at a higher rate than Household use

I think the tariff should reflect what the usage is and be restricted to that, I don't have an EV, but I'm effectively subsidising another customer's EV charge when wholesale is high. We really need a battery only, battery and EV and so on. Many times the EV charge is less than the Agile (which is supposed to be based on the actual wholesale price) which means Octopus are running at a loss on that account (great for the customer, but we need the company to be viable long term). I'm not against discounting EV / battery / heat pump against Standard tariff, but when Agile is 20p a unit why should I be subsidising an EV or heat pump customer? By all means when Agile is 5p, then pass that price on to the EV / Heat pump customers. Make the tariff relate to the usage & wholesale costs and give us all equal opportunity to save our cash. I can see how people use the loopholes, but it's not economically viable for many to replace a perfectly good car with an EV or boiler with a heat pump.

I’ve just had solar and batteries installed. Yesterday was the first time we didn’t take from the grid. No profit for octopus as a result, this isn’t good for a business so they will simply try something else to get the money out of us. I also expect the government to eventually tax us for using our money that’s already taxed to pay for solar and batteries and they will want to earn money from it. It’s got nothing to do with being green, they want money so will come up with ways to get the money.

There’s always a way round the rules, just choose a car with V2L. Smart charge the car then draw from the car to charge your EcoFlow batteries

Octopus has to maintain its profit margins as any business. The EV charge band is a win-win only providing the consumption figures map out as planned throughout 24hrs. Simples.

Octopus go is already for EV only, you can't sign up unless you give them your cars details. That's been the case for a few years now, they do not have an alternative for batteries and water unless you go agile. So if this means I can get something octopus go again until such time as I can afford to buy an EV, great.

More great content thank you. My view, be careful .... the early adopters and the tech savvy with Home assistant have been able to use the cheaper rate and the tech to reduce bills and even make money. That will slowdown as more get 'in on the game'. No different to the EV car tax, nothing then a bit more mainstream costs closer to ICE and then even charge per mile..... that was the early indicator the home energy market will follow. The best people can do it max their solar as this is the bit 'they' the suppliers and gov can do little about... bit like collecting free fire wood! It makes sense for suppliers to use my batteries and pay me more for doing so when they can sell at the highest price.... that is my thinking on the next steps. Octopus will allow me to arbitrage if they can decide when they take my export. Makes full sense for them to offer flexible export rates depending on demands on them for supply, I'd be happy with that, I'd feel like a partner to the grid and to octopus which is how is should be. Keep the excellent content coming.