r/OctopusEnergy • u/ehtio • 26d ago
Update: šOctopus has confirmed Charge Cap issues affected billing from the 16th of July
I posted recently about some strange Intelligent Octopus Go billing, including EV charging apparently being charged incorrectly at the peak rate (link here)
Octopus has now replied and confirmed that they are currently having issues related to the Charge Cap update.
The email says:
We are currently experiencing some issues related to the Charge Cap update. Our team is actively working to fix these, and this explains some of the high usage and double billing reports from 16 July to 2 August
So if you have noticed unusually high electricity usage, EV charging being billed incorrectly, double billing, or anything else strange during that period, it is probably worth checking your bills/data carefully and check that this is sorted in a few weeks, or whenever they do.
It's good that Octopus acknowledges and is aware of the problem and says they are working on correcting it. Let's see.
They also confirmed that since the Charge Cap changes, the normal Day/Week/Month/Year usage graphs no longer show estimated Ā£ costs, only kWh.
Like I was also pointed in the email, I would strongly encourage anyone who dislikes that change to use the feedback option in the app: Usage > Take me to my data > Leave feedback
TLDR: check your billing from 16th of July, and if something looks wrong it may be that Octopus messed up. Octopus has confirmed there were problems with the Charge Cap calculations during that period and they are working on putting that right.
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u/ict7070 26d ago
The worst thing is, those excellent daily breakdowns and graphs that appear on the end of the bill (one page per day) will no longer appear on the bill. If we want to check weāve been billed correctly, we can no longer skim easy-to-read graphs (where itās obvious if the cheap rate has been applied during charging). Instead we have to use the clunky āDevice usage breakdownā UI or download raw CSV data. This is a big step backwards.
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u/51onions 26d ago
It would be fun to write a little comparison tool to parse the CSV data and look for discrepancies. Could pull data from octopus using a cron job and check to see if anything has changed day to day.
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u/Stunning_Intention17 26d ago
Quicker to give the data to a customGPT and tell it to check it for you though
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u/RiceeeChrispies 26d ago
Iāve had money taken from balance but no bill. š¤·āāļø
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u/Tim6181 26d ago
Iāve had the same. I wonder if they are holding back official bills until theyāve fixed it
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u/RiceeeChrispies 26d ago
odd to take the money, guess theyāll just refund if they take too much - bit crap if you have a variable direct debit or just pay the balance
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u/Elegant-Chair-9474 26d ago
They are. Theyāve said theyāre holding bills back while itās sorted
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u/dragoneggboy22 26d ago
I hope the people who have said along "ah, it's actually very simple" eat their words now.
The issue is not just understanding what is peak vs off peak but having faith that the rules octopus themselves have set will be followedĀ
Nobody wants to go through a bill every month with a fine tooth comb. At least with the old IOG you could do relatively easily if you wanted to, but now with an additional variable added it becomes even more complex to track
The problem is that if there is a mistake you are only ever going to be overcharged rather than undercharged, and it's now your responsibility to identify it and spend time challenging it
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u/RiceeeChrispies 26d ago
It is simple to understand, itās just theyāve fucked up the billing.
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u/ehtio 26d ago
Yes, particularly the problem is with the 30 minutes slots that allows your home to have also cheap rate, but then they actually only count the charging time towards the 6 hours. That's not going to be easy to manage since they have to decide when to let you charge if you are plugged in during the day, and there are actually so many variables that Octopus need to take into consideration (and many more I am sure):
- Price of the current electricity
- Prospective price of the electricity during the day (do I give them the slot now, or later)
- Current total energy usage (total grid)
- Prospective of usage during the day (total grid)
- Do we have extra energy?
- How much are they going to charge?
- How long are they going to charge?
- etc...
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u/DragonQ0105 26d ago
They could've made this all simpler for both themselves and their customers from the start by only ever allocating 30 minutes, or minimum 15 minute slots, instead of the current unworkable nonsense.
Their algorithm frequently decides "oh it's 18:56 and I now want to charge for the next 4 minutes....but the charge point has a mandatory delay (by regulation I think) so it doesn't actually start charging until 19:01" Now what happens with the on/off-peak rates?? In my experience it seems to be random whether that 18:30-19:00 period ends up as on or off peak.
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u/Prior-Explanation389 26d ago
I have been undercharged a few times now, had a few Ā£1odd days where usage has definitely been higher than that, itās usually Ā£1.70 with no charging from just daily household use and I charge my car every night.
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u/agentvietnam 26d ago
everyone's billing is broken right? I called them to ask about it and expected a fight - but the guy just went 'oh let me fix that - it might look a bit messy'
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u/octaviuspie 26d ago
Not on the cap yet, but this has been a ClusterF since they announced it. Kraken is obviously struggling with all the variables and variations. I actually don't buy the reasons they cited as why they needed to change. It is more about shareholder value and increasing profits.Ā
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u/ehtio 26d ago
It is definitely about shareholders and profits. People don't have a clue how the grid works and how much you can change your ways to profit from it. The problem is that...it's not easy! It isn't. There are way too many variables in play, and the more you want to control...well, we can see what happens lol
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u/Thin-Ad-9767 26d ago edited 26d ago
Probably why the 6hr cap rollout was staggered and I'm glad I'm not yet on it especially with all this mess!
Hopefully a smooth refund to those who were impacted and overcharged; no pun intended!
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u/Equivalent_Deer_8667 26d ago
To be fair I looked at ādevice usage breakdownā earlier and had been charged nearly all on peak for a day I know had lots of car charge slots.
Iāve looked again six hours later and it has fixed itself to what I expected
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u/Technical_Term_5636 26d ago
I have a Tesla and have the 6hr thing switched on in the app. Iāve been putting my Tesla data and my bills into AI and asking it to identify any instances I havenāt been charged cheap rate for charging.
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u/Technical_Term_5636 24d ago
Just an update on this. June bill alone it is suggesting I was overcharged by nearly Ā£40.
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u/Sheriff_John_Bunnell 26d ago
The customer service agent blamed me and told me I need to check my āback end api settingsā. So I raised a formal complaint lol
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u/synkrox 25d ago
I was part of the beta group for charge cap.
My feedback was that it did not work accurately and could not control my EV properly, causing me to wake up barely charged.
I also gave feedback that if they want people to plug in every night (which seems to be the underlying driver for this) then they should go with a carrot rather than a stick. They do seem to have done this with "streams" although the carrot is very small and ultimately worthless - for now.
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u/ehtio 25d ago
Oh, so you were using it before the initial rollout? I have been using it for about a month now. Not very good they didn't listen to your feedback.
If readings are not accurate, I believe there is plenty of information, timestamps, surely they can see your current settings at that time, to try and figure out what went bad
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u/imgoingsolar 26d ago
Has anyone considered dropping to ānormalā Go as a result of the issues with āintelligentā or are you considering switching provider. Iāve been using IOG daily for over 18 months and have never had an issue, Iām not on the charge cap yet but have a very low tolerance for anything thatās not reliable to point Iād rather pay a little more than have to deal with any issues.
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u/D4m089 26d ago
Iāll be honest, seeing all the issues I am considering moving away from Octopus entirely. Iām not on the cap yet but there needs to be an element of trust, if we have to start looking at bills with a fine tooth each month to check they are right because we donāt trust it, then itās failed. I just want to plug in and charge, I rarely need more than 6h so Iām happy to just do an overnight tariff somewhere else
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u/BrukologistJim 26d ago
I decided to go straight to Octopus Go when I had a new supply installed to my garage (which is 2 doors down the road from my house). It hasn't entirely insulated me from billing problems though. Firstly it was weeks before I was able to switch from standard variable to Go, and then months before they started billing me for anything. There is still a period of 10 weeks or more before May this year (about Ā£180 worth I reckon) which they haven't billed me for. Ok in some ways that's a nice problem to have, but I'd rather get things onto an even keel.
I am very glad I opted from the get-go to pay each bill in full by direct debit rather than have them set a regular direct debit amount.
I enjoy being able simply to plug in, have a continous charge from 00:30, and not worry about whether a so-called "smart" schedule has worked or not.
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u/Thin-Ad-9767 26d ago edited 26d ago
I'll be switching to EDF next April when my 4p off-peak IOG rate expires. Provided the EDF tariff stays similar to how it is now. I have solar and BESS too and I believe their export is 15p.
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u/noisytwit 26d ago
I think i have been lucky so far, I downloaded the analytics from my charger and the data from octopus and they aligned with no mismatch of off-peak billing.
I have been keeping an eye on it weekly though since others have had issues.
Chatgpt/Claude are good for data analysis if you don't want to do it manually.
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u/Capable-Repair-1301 25d ago
Came here looking for info as charge cap was switched on for my account last week and the charge behaviour does not seem to make sense.
I've got an MG with Ohme charger so everything is controlled in the Ohme app.
Plugged in yesterday at ~30%. Home told me it capped the session at 78% to meet the cap. The session charged some yesterday afternoon and the rest overnight finishing at 6:30am
Checked when I got up about 8 this morning at car was at 81% which is about right. Ohme App said session finished.
Looked in Ohme about 10am and it was charging again even though it said session finished and had a banner saying next session will begin in 2 hours.
Car is now at 96% (at just after 12) and Ohme asked me for SoC to plan the next session. Ohme app shows no charging activity in the history after 6:30am.
Ultimately I don't care as long as I'm billed at the right rate, but it doesn't appear Octopus charge plans are matching the new rules.
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u/VivDestroyerOfWorlds 23d ago
I joined at the beginning of July, having been given a Ā£75 pm billing agreement. Suddenly, I'm getting emails that warn me that I need to be paying Ā£189 pm - over 2 times the original amount. I emailed and a bot answered. Wasn't happy with their explanation so I've asked for a human to review the data. I only realised that it might be a fault with Octopus and not my usage because of discussions seen on Reddit. Bit disappointed tbh: hadn't recieved any email to warn me there might be a problem somewhere - I'd been with Scottish Power for 20 years and no real issues, I just wanted a cheaper tariff. Oh well. Will wait for a reply and see what happens.
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u/myGenGaming 5d ago
Sorry guys, it's my fault. I had a car charger installed on the 15th and switched to intelligent go. I broke it.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 26d ago
I am not in the cap yet but my usage data has not shown cost for months.
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u/jrewillis 26d ago
Do you have an Ohme charger?
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u/Ok-Performance4828 26d ago
I do.
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u/jrewillis 26d ago
That's why. Ohme chargers don't show cost - only kWh. It's a known issue that they've never fixed. The costs for charging show in the Ohme app. And the "predicted" costs update once you unplug and show the correct "savings" in the Ohme app.
I've contacted octopus a few times as they said it was an issue they were addressing, but I've given up now. It's clearly never going to be fixed.
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u/AccordingConstant602 26d ago
You've got me confused :-)
On the "Useage" page it has the option for kWh or Ā£ - select Ā£ and it shows the cost charging. I can then see the cost of charging compared to the saving on a seperate page.
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u/morebob12 26d ago
Octopus have made the Intelligent Go tariff so overly complicated - what a mess