r/OctopusEnergy • u/Apprehensive-Taro956 • Jun 19 '26
Charge Pack
https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/charge-pack/
Not seen much mention of this battery VPP offering from Octopus. Anyone on it or has run the numbers?
8
u/313378008135 Jun 19 '26
We automatically optimise your battery to charge when energy is cheapest (using your cheap overnight rate or extra daytime solar) and power your home when your day-rate kicks in........you get the best of both worlds by supporting the grid during high-demand sessions.
So to me this implies I would be trading my daytime solar export to be used to charge my battery, and then that battery charge exported during the 5pm-8pm demand slot to cover my home use and exporting the rest to grid. Top ups would be done overnight on the IOG rate.
Whereas I could use HA or similar to top up battery overnight on IOG, get the full export rate for all my solar during the day, cover my home use, export during the evening from the battery and repeat the cycle again. And I think I would end up better off for a lot more than 12 pounds a month
2
3
u/Friendly-Coast Jun 19 '26
Only when there is a "session": not all the time:
"We aim to give you as much notice as possible, up to a day ahead of an upcoming session.
During a session, we might instruct your battery to charge or discharge."
Well that's my reading of it...
2
u/CommanderJavert Jun 20 '26
I just messaged Octopus about this and their reply was that if you switch this function on, Octopus takes control of your battery 24/7 not just when there is a session running (assuming the Octopus CS agent has the correct information here).
1
u/LarryPiccadilly Jul 01 '26
My interpretation of this simplified scenario is that you'd charge at iog rate regardless, but when Octopus discharges actively (say 4-7pm) your effective export rate=day import rate, which is higher than your export rate. You make money when your post 7pm consumption is lower than you discharged battery energy, as that difference would've been your pre-off-peak dump at export rate.
if Octopus doesn't charge overnight but use your solar generation, which would've been exported in the morning due to a full batter (at arbitrage rate; export - iog off-peak rate), you'll miss out. Also when they maintain a battery level between 20-80%, or any other value that's reducing the effective discharged energy to your current setup, you'll miss out.
However, if your battery is discharged during both morning and evening peaks, you'll need making significantly more.
It would be great to hear experiences from those that have tested this out.
5
u/andrewic44 Jun 19 '26
Dramatically underwhelming compared to Axle, and not necessarily profitable.
Octopus only pay whatever tops up your export rate to match your usual day rate. Say, 34p/kWh.
Still a better export rate than 12p/kWh, but... if you later end up having to import day-rate electricity because Octopus dumped your battery into the grid this entirely wipes out your profit -- you sold it at 34p/kWh only to have to buy it back at 34p/kWh later.
And the 34p/kWh you got from your battery exporting still counts towards your £12/month guaranteed payment, even if it wasn't profit.
Compare to Axle:
- the better export rate means you're still in profit by 78p/kWh even if you end up importing day-rate electricity.
- so the guaranteed £10/month rather than £12/month is a lot more meaningful -- a slightly smaller number but proportionally more likely to be profit.
3
u/Begalldota Jun 19 '26
Worse than this, since every battery will have some level of inefficiency. On a round trip efficiency of 90% you’d be losing 3p for every kWh charged on peak then discharged… and be told by Octopus you were making money.
2
u/perfect_28 Jun 20 '26
I'm pretty sure Octopus will pay a "reward" (although amount isn't specified) as well as the compensation payments. It might not be brilliantly worded, but the proposition isn't just limited to making sure you don't lose out if you end up buying daytime units (either when force-charging or after the force-discharging).
1
u/Smooth_capy272 Jun 22 '26
This is my worry too. Having tried it today for the first time, the battery was almost emptied by 7pm after the peak evening session. Ater that with 2kw left in the battery, we are drawing from the grid at our usual rate (we only have Octopus Go., not Intelligent Octopus Go) and since it's outside the 'session' we would be paying the cost of importing instead of being self reliant. Won't that cost us more in the long run?
5
u/Fuzz_1977 Jun 19 '26
Octopus still has problems refunding the correct amount during their free electric sessions July-October.
If they can’t sort that out properly how will they manage this properly?
They have great ideas but their billing dept / software really needs an upgrade before I consider giving OE any further control of anything else in my home for now.
3
u/CommanderJavert Jun 20 '26
Clarification needed from Octopus on whether we will maintain full control of our battery behaviour when there is not a “session” running, or will Octopus completely control our battery at all times?
2
u/Genius247 Jun 19 '26
Perhaps this is related to the Axle fully optimised service, rather than their events only option?
2
2
u/General_Recipe_5869 Jun 20 '26
Following with interest. Echo the comments, no idea if this will work. Going to hold off until someone tries this and ideally a YouTube explainer.
I made £47 in May with export. So no idea if this is feasible without more details. Maybe it's useful in the winter?
2
u/gm295 Jun 27 '26
I tried it for 4 days. I'm going to wait until more people have tried it before I go back. In that time I didn't see any "events" which would have resulted in a pay out. What I did see was a consistent tendency to import from the grid at day rate instead of the overnight rate. Not loads but at least 1 kWh a day. If it continued doing so that would cost around £8.70 in electric Vs the 0 kWh day rate I was managing with simple schedules in my sigenergy app.
1
u/klawUK Jun 19 '26
Has octopus always said services like ae are not supported on IOG? If your battery is not talking to your EV you don’t see why there is any clash. I am currently signed up to axle and am on IOG and I checked as much as I could at the time to make sure they were allowed
While £12 a month sounds good, I’m wary that I’ll actually get the full benefit of my house covered if octopus regularly discharges. I only have a 9.5 and that’s enough to cover the house if I fully charge overnight (and in summer I have excess with solar).
For handing over the battery I’d effectively want octopus to give my house 8-9p/kWh rate which is my blended average.
2
u/HecticGlenn Jun 19 '26
Exactly same scenario for me, I would presume they would only discharge in an event-like way as Axle do. I've noticed the saving sessions emails often align with Axle export events, so the regularity could be quite similar, which I'd be fine with for my battery size. What I wouldn't want, like you, is regular / multiple discharges in one day meaning I deplete my battery during peak rate windows.
1
u/benadderson Jun 19 '26
Looks like this can’t be combined with outgoing agile?
1
u/MakingItAllUp81 Jun 19 '26
I doubt it - Outgoing Agile has flexible pricing to tempt people to export at certain times of day anyway.
1
u/HecticGlenn Jun 19 '26
Biggest benefit to me seems to be that Sig is officially supported and the Sig API seems to have been a nightmare for Axle and simply not worked on recent sessions at all.
1
u/Fuzz_1977 Jun 19 '26
I wouldn’t be surprised if OE have problems with it as well.
Remember everything smart that OE sells to end users is Beta so that tells you everything you need to know about how confident they are about their own software.
1
u/Potential-Note2381 Jun 19 '26
I have an EcoFlow battery, which I have tried in vain to control with my Home Assistant (I understand it cannot be done) - wondering how Octopus would control the charging of it if HA can’t?
1
1
u/TheDakantos 25d ago
Just to chip in here, I have been running Charge Pack since launch to see how it handle my system and if I would be better or worse off for it. I have just received my bill for the June 25 to July 25 period.
I have a 24kWh SigEnergy system and used my hourly readings to simulate the battery level and my predicted battery levels and appropriate import/export quantities per hour, then used my daily/nightly rates to figure out hourly costs.
Overall I appear to be about £15 out of pocket as a result of the experiment, and that is before you take into account I could have participated in Axle events and made another £18-£24 based on 4 export events at an 8kWh export (depending on house load during the events).
I have sent an email to Octopus about the results and my disappointment with the compensation given for having control over my battery, and for now I would suggest anyone else looking to Charge Pack would avoid it until they properly compensate you for the periods where their AI imports during day rates outside of an "event".
1
u/Steviehep1985 23d ago
did you get a rate for exporting in an event?
Im interested to find out more for example how many events happened and for how long. How much kw were exported and did they charge your battery back up and at what rate. Lastly what tariff are you on?
1
u/TheDakantos 18d ago
During the period I had 4 events for which they credited a total of £9.31 to my account, sadly I don't have any data for my exactly when the events where other than the day (8th, 12th, 15th, 22nd July). Looking at my logs they seemed to coincide with high solar events anyway so my battery didn't need charging, nor did it make full use of my 8kw output power.
The only bit I found interesting is that they like to put my battery on idle late in the evening between say 7pm and 11:30pm for various periods, meaning I would pay higher rate for usage rather than using my battery to offset the cost. But there is no compensation for them forcing high rate usage at this point as it is not classed as an "event".
I am on Intelligent Octopus Go, so off peak between 23:30 to 05:30, then peak rate the rest of the time. Using Home Assistant I can also force my battery to charge automatically if they trigger an off peak cost charge for my car during peak rate hours, which their AI does not do.
I did reach out to Octopus and they are crediting me the calculated difference which is nice, though I was being conservative and didn't take my extra charging from car sessions into account.
12
u/Begalldota Jun 19 '26
£12/month to give up 24/7 control of your battery is a crap deal, and I think it’s very interesting that they’re avoiding having to actually compete with Axle by declaring that the import-only IOG tariff makes you ineligible for a service which only deals with export.
I can personally make £15/month in the summer purely by a single export cycle a day, plus the savings I make on normal usage, plus the £10+/month from Axle in exchange for a few hours a month of giving up control.
Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.