Charge Anytime FAQs

All the electricity you use will initially be charged at your standard home electricity rate. This is the rate that’ll be reflected in your live balance and on your bill. 

At the end of the month, we’ll work out how much energy you've used to smart charge your EV.

We'll use this to calculate how much credit we need to add to your account in the first week of the following month.

Example

The Charge Anytime rate is 7p a kWh. And let's say your standard electricity rate is 26p a kWh.

We’ll credit you 19p for each kWh you’ve used to smart charge your EV. To make your smart charging rate 7p.

This means if you use 100 kWh of energy smart charging your EV, you’ll get £19 in credit back on your bill.

You can override your smart charging schedule by using the Urgent Charge function, to start charging your EV immediately. This is charged at your standard home electricity rate, not 7p per kWh. 

You can find out more about how we calculate your credit in our terms and conditions.

The app makes sure your EV is being smart charged at the cheapest, greenest times. By putting your EV’s details in the app, we can work out the best time to smart charge, and push a command to your EV to start charging.

Use the app to to override your smart charging schedule with the Urgent Charge function if you urgently need to top-up. This will be charged at your standard home electricity rate.

You can also check how much money Charge Anytime is saving you, right there in the app.

Yes, absolutely. Your EV’s app will continue to work as it’s always done. But it’s important to know that the Charge Anytime app will instruct your EV to start and stop charging throughout your smart charging schedule – this is to maximise use of the greenest and cheapest energy on the grid. This means that if you manually set a charging schedule in your EV’s app, it’ll be automatically overridden by the Charge Anytime app.¹

It’s free to remove Charge Anytime. To do this, go to the Charge Anytime app and select the green user icon on your account page.

After you select delete account you’ll be prompted to give feedback. Confirm by selecting delete account again.

We'll calculate your credit up to the date you leave and add it to your account the following month.

If you have any issues, please call us on 0330 175 9678 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, excluding bank holidays).

Please check that you can log in to your EV’s app. If you can’t, or if your EV’s app isn’t working, then the Charge Anytime app won’t work. Common reasons why your EV’s app won’t work include:

• Your EV’s app has a technical issue – this will usually sort itself out in an hour or 2.
• You’ve changed your username and password, so need to log in again. Please check that your EV is able to connect to the internet when plugged in and charging at home. If your EV can’t connect – either via wifi or an onboard cellular connection – then the Charge Anytime app won’t work as expected.

Please check that you can log in to your EV's app. If you’re unable to, or if your EV's app isn’t working, then the Charge Anytime app won’t work. You’ll need to find out why your EV's app isn’t working and fix it. Common reasons include:

• Your EV's app is suffering a technical issue – this will usually sort itself out in an hour or two.
• You have changed your username and password and need to log in again.

Please check that your EV is able to connect to the internet when plugged in and charging at home. If your EV can’t connect – either via wifi or an onboard cellular connection – then the Charge Anytime app won’t work as expected.

The Charge Anytime app connects to your EV in exactly the same way as your EV’s app. The only difference is that the Charge Anytime app will periodically instruct your EV to start or stop charging when plugged in at home – this is to maximise use of the greenest and cheapest energy on the grid.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Charge Anytime app does not interact with any other part of your EV. Charge Anytime can only schedule your EV to start and stop charging when you’re plugged in at home.

Yes, you can add more than one EV to Charge Anytime – the app can control charging for several EVs.

You’ll be able to see the savings for each individual EV in the Savings screen of your Charge Anytime app.

If you’re charging multiple EVs on one charger – please remember to update your ready-by-time and battery capacity on the schedule page for the EV you’re currently smart charging.

To add another EV, go to the Charge Anytime Settings screen and click Add a new electric vehicle at your home location.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Charge Anytime only supports multiple EVs, not multiple chargers or a combination of EV and charger.

If you've linked your charger to Charge Anytime (not your EV), and use it to charge more than one EV, you won't be able to see the savings for each individual EV.

Yes.

If you’re connected via your EV, go to the Settings page in your account and remove your EV. Then connect your charger instead.

If you’re connected via your charger, go to the Settings page in your account to remove your charger. Then connect your EV instead.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Before swapping your connection, make sure the EV or charger you want to swap to is compatible with Charge Anytime.

When connecting to Charge Anytime via your charger, your charger doesn’t know the battery capacity of your EV. The Charge Anytime app needs to know the battery capacity, so it can work out your smart charging schedule.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If possible, we need to know the usable battery capacity. This is the amount of energy your battery can actually use now, taking into consideration safety measures and any degradation. You should be able to find this in your EV's app, or in-car display or touchscreen. If you can’t find it’s actual usable capacity, you can enter it’s original battery capacity from the manufacturer.

When connecting to Charge Anytime via your charger, your charger doesn’t talk directly with your EV. This means your charger doesn’t know how much battery power your EV has, or how full it is. The Charge Anytime app estimates your charge and charges your EV to full.

If you want to limit the maximum charge of your EV, we recommend setting this in your EV’s app. The charger can’t override any maximum charge you set. Once your EV stops accepting charge, the app assumes the battery is full and stops charging.

You can add more than one EV to Charge Anytime, and the app can control charging for multiple EVs at once.

Charge Anytime only supports multiple EVs, not multiple chargers or a combination of EV and charger.

If you’re having a technical issue with adding another EV, get in touch with us at [email protected], or call us on 0330 303 5059 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).

If your plans change and you need your EV to start charging as soon as you plug it in, you can use the Urgent Charge function. This lets you temporarily override your smart charging schedule and fully charge your EV as quickly as possible.

You can Urgent Charge by pressing the button in the app, or by using your EV’s app or touch screen display. This will override the current smart schedule and force the EV to start charging immediately. Just remember, you won’t receive the discounted Charge Anytime rate when using the Urgent Charge function. You'll pay your standard home electricity unit rate.

Using the Urgent Charge function to override the smart charging schedule is charged at your standard home electricity rate.

The Charge Anytime app only works when you’re plugged in and smart charging at home. When you’re away from home, you won't be able to get the cheaper rate. 

If you want to find out more about charging away from home, check out our Charge Anywhere app.

So you can get the 7p a kWh rate, the Charge Anytime app only lets your EV charge during the cheapest and greenest times. This often means that your charging will start sometime after you plug in. You’ll always get a notification letting you know the scheduled start time. If your plans change, and you need your EV to start charging immediately, you can press the Urgent Charge button in the app – you'll be charged your standard home electricity rate for this function.

Yes. It’s essential that you remove any previously programmed schedules from your wall charger as these will interfere with the Charge Anytime app.

We’ve introduced a fair usage policy meaning the maximum Charge Anytime credit you can receive on your bill is £100 per month. This works out as about 499 kWh of smart charging per month¹ and will vary slightly depending on home tariff rate and the current Charge Anytime rate.  

It’s very unlikely you’ll smart charge above this amount of energy per month. 499 kWh is roughly the equivalent of driving 1,996 miles a month.² There are no restrictions on the total charging consumption however if you exceed the maximum Charge Anytime Credit of £100 any consumption above the cap will be billed at your home tariff rate.

¹ Assuming an SVT rate of 27.03p per kWh and a Charge Anytime rate of 7p per kWh the Charge Anytime credit would equate to 20.03p per kWh. A maximum Charge Anytime credit of £100 equates to 499.25 kWh.

² This is based on an EV customer driving at an average of 4 miles per kWh.

We apply Charge Anytime credit to your account in the first week of every month. It’ll also appear on your monthly OVO energy bill under the heading Charge Anytime Credit. The credit shown on your bill will be for the electricity you used for smart charging the previous month. So in the first week of September, you’ll see your credit for August.

Your Charge Anytime Credit won’t affect your Direct Debit. In fact, you can even ask for these credits to be refunded to you once you’ve got enough of them.

Please email your query and the screenshots of your charging history to [email protected], or call us on 0330 175 9678. Lines are open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, excluding bank holidays.

OVO can’t take responsibility for the quality of the data supplied by your home EV charging setup. Any inaccuracies will need to be taken up with your manufacturer.

Being a pay monthly customer means we can automatically add Charge Anytime credit to your account in the first week of each month. This avoids any delays or the need for any manual adjustments to your credit amount.

Your smart meter also lets us track your energy usage in real-time to charge your EV. This ensures that you're always charging at the cheapest and greenest times.