Octopus Intelligent at 7.5p and Export Fixed at 15p

[AdamMGEV]

So I now have Octopus Intelligent so between 11:30pm - 05:30am its 7.5p.

I also have solar and a home battery. Is it now worth me charging my house battery to 100% overnight and exporting the battery and excess solar during the day? Will it affect the life of the battery more than I will get paid for export?

Thanks

 

[Jomarkh]

Yes, I charge mine to 98% every night.
The only issue is extra slots as it drains the house battery

 

[AdamMGEV]

Yes, I charge mine to 98% every night.
The only issue is extra slots as it drains the house battery

So when should I drain the battery, say 10:30pm - 11:30 pm to say 20% SOC? Then the house still has some to last until 11:30 until I start to charge again and its cheap until 05:30am?

I don't think i'll have much issue with daytime drainage because I rarely charge my Skoda Enyaq at home and if I do i'll plug it in late in the evening so it doesn't have chance to charge during the day. My MG4 then just charges on a scheduled charge at the cheap overnight rate.

 

[BrianthatiscalledBrian]

So I now have Octopus Intelligent so between 11:30pm - 05:30am its 7.5p.

I also have solar and a home battery. Is it now worth me charging my house battery to 100% overnight and exporting the battery and excess solar during the day? Will it affect the life of the battery more than I will get paid for export?

Thanks

Hi, What charger do you have ? I have a Wallbox Pulsar MAX but not supported by Octopus (even though this is the model they promote for installs). Oddly they only seem to support older Wallbox models, some even retired ones.
EDIT 181123: Wallbox Pulsar MAX now supported on Octopus App, can't get IOG to work though..

 

[Jomarkh]

Hi, What charger do you have ? I have a Wallbox Pulsar MAX but not supported by Octopus (even though this is the model they promote for installs). Oddly they only seem to support older Wallbox models, some even retired ones.

I am on IOG with a Wallbox Plus and thought the Max was listed.

 

[AdamMGEV]

Hi, What charger do you have ? I have a Wallbox Pulsar MAX but not supported by Octopus (even though this is the model they promote for installs). Oddly they only seem to support older Wallbox models, some even retired ones.

Very strange as they do list it. I have an Anderson which isn't supported but because I have a skoda Enyaq which is supported my charger doesn't matter. Then my MG4 just charges as it always has, I.e non intelligent.

 

[johnb80]

So I now have Octopus Intelligent so between 11:30pm - 05:30am its 7.5p.

I also have solar and a home battery. Is it now worth me charging my house battery to 100% overnight and exporting the battery and excess solar during the day? Will it affect the life of the battery more than I will get paid for export?

Thanks

The short answer is yes, it will affect battery life.

Batteries generally have a 4000 cycle life (80% capacity deemed to be end of life). A cycle is a full charge / discharge of the battery. 4000 cycles is around 11 years. There are some cells like EVE, they have a 6000 cycle lifespan but they tend to be found in DIY batteries rather than commercially available batteries. Assuming it's a 5kWh battery and 3kWh is exported daily, the total income over the 11 years is around £900 in total. Only you can decide if it's viable for you. I have Octopus Intelligent too, I charge our 21 kWh batteries every night and only use it ourselves running heatpumps etc, looking on Octoaid, we only use 1.7% of energy at peak prices, all the rest is at 7.5p. The good way to earn money is from the saving sessions, if you havent signed up yet do it, if you know how to work the system you can make some good earnings.

 

[AdamMGEV]

The short answer is yes, it will affect battery life.

Batteries generally have a 4000 cycle life (80% capacity deemed to be end of life). A cycle is a full charge / discharge of the battery. 4000 cycles is around 11 years. There are some cells like EVE, they have a 6000 cycle lifespan but they tend to be found in DIY batteries rather than commercially available batteries. Assuming it's a 5kWh battery and 3kWh is exported daily, the total income over the 11 years is around £900 in total. Only you can decide if it's viable for you. I have Octopus Intelligent too, I charge our 21 kWh batteries every night and only use it ourselves running heatpumps etc, looking on Octoaid, we only use 1.7% of energy at peak prices, all the rest is at 7.5p. The good way to earn money is from the saving sessions, if you havent signed up yet do it, if you know how to work the system you can make some good earnings.

Yes i was thinking of buying two more 5kw batteries. But I worked out I wont make my money back for say 10 years so not worth it.

On average we use 7.5-8kw a day without charging cars.

We have usable 9.6kw battery which covers our house. So I figure charge my battery to 100%. If its a bad day I know I have plenty of juice to power the house, if its a good day then I will export or just put more washing on etc.

I will get an air pump next year so I am hoping charging it to 100% plus solar topping up will be enough to power the house and heat pump so I will never use the daily rate, only the 7.5p. I don't think it can ever really be worth buying loads of batteries to charge and sell at peak times, I guess I'll only do it for convenience to 100% and whatever goes goes.

 

[johnb80]

Yes i was thinking of buying two more 5kw batteries. But I worked out I wont make my money back for say 10 years so not worth it.

On average we use 7.5-8kw a day without charging cars.

We have usable 9.6kw battery which covers our house. So I figure charge my battery to 100%. If its a bad day I know I have plenty of juice to power the house, if its a good day then I will export or just put more washing on etc.

I will get an air pump next year so I am hoping charging it to 100% plus solar topping up will be enough to power the house and heat pump so I will never use the daily rate, only the 7.5p. I don't think it can ever really be worth buying loads of batteries to charge and sell at peak times, I guess I'll only do it for convenience to 100% and whatever goes goes.

Fogstar batteries say 15kWh £2532
Inverter 6kW £1500
Total spend £4032

Installation £250

Total Cost £4272.

Savings = 7.5p x 15.5 = £1.13 per day.
Days to pay for the system = 3568 or 10 years.

 

[AdamMGEV]

Fogstar batteries say 15kWh £2532
Inverter 6kW £1500
Total spend £4032

Installation £250

Total Cost £4272.

Savings = 7.5p x 15.5 = £1.13 per day.
Days to pay for the system = 3568 or 10 years.

EXACTLY!

So I can get another 9.6kWh usable battery installed on top of what I have now for £3360 as I already have the inverter etc.

Based on that it's 7.5p x 9.6 = 72p.

Days to pay that off would be 4666 days or 12.7 years. Just not worth it is it.

 

[johnb80]

EXACTLY!

So I can get another 9.6kWh usable battery installed on top of what I have now for £3360 as I already have the inverter etc.

Based on that it's 7.5p x 9.6 = 72p.

Days to pay that off would be 4666 days or 12.7 years. Just not worth it is it.

Yup the numbers arent quite so attractive for feeding back into the grid. They are much better of course if you size the battery to meet what you use everyday (which youve already done with your existing battery?).
If youre importing an average of say 10 kWh per day at peak rate:

Battery £2500
Inverter £1500

Total Spend £4000

Installation £250

Savings = (29.6p - 7.5p) x 10 = £2.21 per day

Days to pay it off = 1923 or 5.2 years which is much better, if theres already a suitable inverter onsite it gets considerably better.

 

[Paul V Smith]

So I now have Octopus Intelligent so between 11:30pm - 05:30am its 7.5p.

I also have solar and a home battery. Is it now worth me charging my house battery to 100% overnight and exporting the battery and excess solar during the day? Will it affect the life of the battery more than I will get paid for export?

Thanks

A word of warning something I have learnt since signing up to Intelligent Go. If you have home solar Batteries as I have and plug your car in for charging using the OCPP it will drain your batteries and also take grid power, so if your charging the car, switch off the batteries. However, I tend to use the solar & batteries mainly to charge my car, but I have been told by Octopus if I don’t frequently use and switch on the OCPP to charge my car they will disconnect me from that Tariff. I would say this Tariff isn’t really suitable if you have solar panels and batteries, so switch to Octopus Go with 4 hours cheap rate, with no restrictions.

 

[johnb80]

A word of warning something I have learnt since signing up to Intelligent Go. If you have home solar Batteries as I have and plug your car in for charging using the OCPP it will drain your batteries and also take grid power, so if your charging the car, switch off the batteries. However, I tend to use the solar & batteries mainly to charge my car, but I have been told by Octopus if I don’t frequently use and switch on the OCPP to charge my car they will disconnect me from that Tariff. I would say this Tariff isn’t really suitable if you have solar panels and batteries, so switch to Octopus Go with 4 hours cheap rate, with no restrictions.

It's a simple fix to move the feed to the zappi to a point prior to the CT for your solar / battery setup. Doing this would stop zappi taking any power from your battery system. The other way is via Home Assistant, you also gain the advantage of charging the batteries when the car is charging during peak time under Octopus control.

 

[AdamMGEV]

A word of warning something I have learnt since signing up to Intelligent Go. If you have home solar Batteries as I have and plug your car in for charging using the OCPP it will drain your batteries and also take grid power, so if your charging the car, switch off the batteries. However, I tend to use the solar & batteries mainly to charge my car, but I have been told by Octopus if I don’t frequently use and switch on the OCPP to charge my car they will disconnect me from that Tariff. I would say this Tariff isn’t really suitable if you have solar panels and batteries, so switch to Octopus Go with 4 hours cheap rate, with no restrictions.

To get around this I set my home battery to charge at 1% during the period octopus schedules the charge. I also plug it in as close to 11:30pm ad possible and ask octopus to finish at 5.30am

 

[EVsince2016]

The short answer is yes, it will affect battery life.

Batteries generally have a 4000 cycle life (80% capacity deemed to be end of life). A cycle is a full charge / discharge of the battery. 4000 cycles is around 11 years. There are some cells like EVE, they have a 6000 cycle lifespan but they tend to be found in DIY batteries rather than commercially available batteries. Assuming it's a 5kWh battery and 3kWh is exported daily, the total income over the 11 years is around £900 in total. Only you can decide if it's viable for you. I have Octopus Intelligent too, I charge our 21 kWh batteries every night and only use it ourselves running heatpumps etc, looking on Octoaid, we only use 1.7% of energy at peak prices, all the rest is at 7.5p. The good way to earn money is from the saving sessions, if you havent signed up yet do it, if you know how to work the system you can make some good earnings.

Domestic batteries have switched to LFP so now have a much longer life than this. Tesla Powerwall is mostly still old tech though.

 

[johnb80]

Domestic batteries have switched to LFP so now have a much longer life than this. Tesla Powerwall is mostly still old tech though.

Car to provide a link? EVE cells are LifeP04 and theyre quoted at 6000 cycles to be down to 80%. I havent found any longer life predictions than this.

 

[AdamMGEV]

Car to provide a link? EVE cells are LifeP04 and theyre quoted at 6000 cycles to be down to 80%. I havent found any longer life predictions than this.

My cheap Pylontech US5000 batteries have a 8000 cycle 15 year claimed life.

 

[Coulomb]

Pylontech US5000 batteries have a 8000 cycle 15 year claimed life.

Hmmm. Claims are cheap, it seems to me. Once some unscrupulous vendor makes an exaggerated claim, some not-as-unscrupulous vendors feel that they have to make the same claim to compete. and there is a race to fantasy land.

This is why we need battery testing farms.

 

[johnb80]

My cheap Pylontech US5000 batteries have a 8000 cycle 15 year claimed life.

Devil is in the detail

The industry standard for end of life is usually 80% capacity, sometime 70%, Pylontech - 60%!

Loads of suppliers quote the 8000 cycles that you say yet Pylontech say >6000

J

 

[AdamMGEV]

Devil is in the detail

The industry standard for end of life is usually 80% capacity, sometime 70%, Pylontech - 60%!

View attachment 21771

Loads of suppliers quote the 8000 cycles that you say yet Pylontech say >6000

View attachment 21772
J

Always someone to bring you back down isn't there lol