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Can I please check my understanding of how intelligent tariffs work. I've written out the following as a guide and would like some feedback to see if I've got it right - then I'll edit to correct. Thank you.
Intelligent Tariffs allow your energy supplier to decide when your EV charges at times that are convenient to them while maintaining your low off-peak tariff. So your car might charge between 9-11pm and 2-3am but you still pay your cheap rate.
In return for letting your energy supplier decide when your car charges, you gain additional cheap rate hours and lower rates for all your other appliances: for example, Intelligent Octopus offers 6 hours of cheap rate at 7.5p/kWh as opposed to Octopus Go offering 4 hours at 9.5p/kWh.
However, in order to use an intelligent tariff, your energy supplier needs to be able to remotely control when your car charges. There are two ways this can be done:
1. Via your car: if your car is supported, the energy supplier can set a schedule directly on the car (your EVSE is set to dumb mode).
2. Via your EVSE: if yours is supported, the energy supplier can set a schedule on the EVSE to charge your car at the right times (your car has no schedule set).
Intelligent tariffs support a select groups of cars or EVSEs. You need EITHER a supported car OR a supported EVSE. Having both is no advantage. You cannot use an intelligent tariff without support of one kind or other: there is no way for your energy supplier to control the schedule of the charging session.
With a supported car, the car can tell the energy supplier how much charge needs to be added according to the car's current state of charge and the currently set charge level (e.g. 80%).
With a supported EVSE, it cannot know what the current state of the car's charge is, so you need to tell it how much charge to add (i.e. the difference between the current state of charge and the desired), so it knows how long it needs to charge for.
You also need to tell your energy supplier when you need the car charged by, so that the charging will start early enough to give you the desired state of charge by that time.
Once set up, you simply decide how much charge you need by when, plug in your car and it will automatically be scheduled, in a single or multiple sessions according to your energy provider's decisions.
Intelligent Tariffs allow your energy supplier to decide when your EV charges at times that are convenient to them while maintaining your low off-peak tariff. So your car might charge between 9-11pm and 2-3am but you still pay your cheap rate.
In return for letting your energy supplier decide when your car charges, you gain additional cheap rate hours and lower rates for all your other appliances: for example, Intelligent Octopus offers 6 hours of cheap rate at 7.5p/kWh as opposed to Octopus Go offering 4 hours at 9.5p/kWh.
However, in order to use an intelligent tariff, your energy supplier needs to be able to remotely control when your car charges. There are two ways this can be done:
1. Via your car: if your car is supported, the energy supplier can set a schedule directly on the car (your EVSE is set to dumb mode).
2. Via your EVSE: if yours is supported, the energy supplier can set a schedule on the EVSE to charge your car at the right times (your car has no schedule set).
Intelligent tariffs support a select groups of cars or EVSEs. You need EITHER a supported car OR a supported EVSE. Having both is no advantage. You cannot use an intelligent tariff without support of one kind or other: there is no way for your energy supplier to control the schedule of the charging session.
With a supported car, the car can tell the energy supplier how much charge needs to be added according to the car's current state of charge and the currently set charge level (e.g. 80%).
With a supported EVSE, it cannot know what the current state of the car's charge is, so you need to tell it how much charge to add (i.e. the difference between the current state of charge and the desired), so it knows how long it needs to charge for.
You also need to tell your energy supplier when you need the car charged by, so that the charging will start early enough to give you the desired state of charge by that time.
Once set up, you simply decide how much charge you need by when, plug in your car and it will automatically be scheduled, in a single or multiple sessions according to your energy provider's decisions.
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