Octopus Energy EV Charger Installation Review – I make no secret of the fact that I rather like the upfront cost presentation of Octopus’ offerings and had been very happy with their previous heat pump installation. So naturally, we looked at them for a car charger for our shiny new (new-to-us!) Hyundai Ioniq 2021.
Below I discuss the process of applying for and having the Octopus EV Charger installed, and then later a bit about its use with screenshots from the app. Feel free to scroll straight to them if you are not interested in the installation process.
**If you are a new customer to Octopus you can sign up using our link and we both get £50!**
As we like their forward thinking nature, we decided on their own brand charger, the Octopus Charge – tethered version (5m charging cable pre-attached). Our car itself is amazing, we have been very happy with it. It had been merrily charging at 2.2kW through a normal outdoor socket since we bought it, which took around 20 hours from empty to full (0% – 100%). We are currently on a tariff (Octopus Cosy) that gives us three cheap rate windows, one that is really expensive and the rest about average. Naturally, we of course want to only charge during the cheap windows! This wasn’t always achievable, but if we plugged in at 10pm and turned off at 7am, we got a good proportion of cheap charge and the car ends up being charged around 50%.
The downside to this is that the car and/or its supplied plug in a three pin charger isn’t smart enough to schedule very well at all, and is slow. So, we decided to take the plunge and order a proper 7.2kw home charger, which will save me running out in my pants in the snow, pressing the on button at 10pm! Quicker charging, as cheap as possible, and no running round in my pants (unless I choose to for fun!).
Once our charger had been ordered, we then received a further email from a friendly sounding “tech specialist”. The email invited us to complete a pre-installation survey. I liked the process so far, we, as the customer, are being trusted to sensibly answer pertinent questions. Saving Octopus time/money on surveying things I can easily answer – and saving me having to wait in for someone to come here.
The survey included questions about my house type, age, type of meter (if I knew), where the meter is situated, whether the charging point would be attached to the house, detached from the house, etc. I was also requested to send a couple of photos, of my parking space and of the electric meter area.
I also liked the opportunity to add comments about whether there were any specific considerations I had such as if our property was a listed building (it isn’t). If I agreed to split the installation between two days it could potentially be scheduled to be done sooner. I agreed as I don’t mind and am notoriously impatient.
We heard back from our contact, Halle, the next day. They were a bit puzzled about my photo of my parking spot and how it was going to work with my new charger! Ok, it was a rubbish photo as it was freezing out there. So, I took a better one, (though it wasn’t a lot better), it showed our car, drive and house. This made Halle happy and they then submitted a permission request to Northern Powergrid on our behalf. All energy companies have to do this, so you don’t blow up your main power supply. It’s safe to say we are counted as very high usage.
We subsequently got a courtesy email from Halle, just checking how it had gone with Northern Powergrid.
It would be rather unfair to clutter up this charger review with the shambolic efforts of Northern Powergrid. Safe to say, it took a ridiculous amount of time, over nine months and counting. So, if you want a charger installed, do plan ahead for this possible craziness. Our circumstances were a little unusual as the power to next door’s house is looped with ours – but that does not account for their sheer incompetence.
Once the works were scheduled to complete, we booked Octopus for the following week to get our shiny car charger installed! Now, Northern Powergrid let us down and didn’t actually complete on time. But fortunately, Octopus very kindly agreed to install our charger on schedule, and temporarily limit its charging speed until they had approval.
Installation and use of the Octopus Charge EV charger – Review
So, back to the point of the review. The installation and use of the Octopus Charge EV charger.
Our engineer turned up right on schedule and started off by having a look around where we wanted it installing, at our consumer unit area, and how he would run cables to it.
We had previously had an Octopus heat pump installed (you can read all about this here) and requested the cables run pretty much the same path as this, to keep it reasonably tidy.
The only minor niggle I would have, is that they woudn’t install it into our existing consumer unit. This resulted in an extra consumer unit and junction boxes. I’d prefer not to have it this way, but then I guess I would pay more to have it different, so, choices, choices 🙂
With the plan sorted, he got cracked on. From time to time popping up with questions but mainly just getting on with it. The installation took a whole day.
Towards the end of the day I joined him outside, armed with my WiFi password and Octopus app, which is how you control the charger. This is an Octopus design and branded charger so is fully integrated with their app. The charger then spent a while rebooting and downloading updates. We reached the end of his working day and it was still updating, so at this point he departed and left me to investigate. This took a further two hours of waiting for it to finish the update and communicate with the app, so finally I could play with my new toys!
We opted for the tethered version, which comes with a 5m cable, more than ample for our purposes. It coils up on a holder and the plug rests in the adjoining ‘socket’ ready for use.
Once plugged in to our car, you can setup your charging preferences. As I mentioned, we are on an Octopus Cosy tariff, which gives us three fixed cheap periods over the day/night. I set these on the app so it’ll ONLY use these to charge. Then, whenever your car is plugged in, it will automatically charge at the allotted times, and so far, it always has!
A screenshot to demonstrate this:
Boost Charge
There is also a Boost Charge option, which you can manually start whenever you wish, for as long as you wish. So, if you are desperate to pop to the shops, tell it to charge for half an hour immediately, which it duly will.
Our charger is still limited to approximately 50% capacity while we wait for Northern Powergrid, but a call to Octopus will resolve that when Northern Powergrid finally finish the works. I’m looking forward to that, it’s great as it is, but will be even better when it’s not limited.
Overall, I’ve been really impressed with the charger’s features and installation process and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. It looks great and allows us to charge quickly and at the cheapest rates possible.
Octopus App
I’ve taken some screenshots of the Octopus app so you can get a feel of how easy it is to use. The Octopus Charge is the EV charger and the Daikin is our heat pump.
Once the car is plugged in, you will see that the Octopus Charge status changes to ‘Charging’ once it is during it’s scheduled charging slots.
The app is really useful. You can see your history of when you charged and how long you charged for.
**If you are a new customer to Octopus you can sign up using our link and we both get £50!**
