Octopus Power Pack: the UK’s first Vehicle-to-Grid tariff

You’ll need to have:

• A compatible charger: a Wallbox Quasar 1 V2G charger
• A compatible EV car: (check our list of compatible vehicles)
• A smart electricity meter we can connect to
• Permission to export energy to your local distribution network (aka a G99 certificate): contact the DNO (distribution network operator) for your area if you need one.
• A schedule that fits: You'll need to be able to plug in for roughly 12 hours a day every couple of days, and charge less than 333kWh per month (equivalent to 1,084 miles of driving). We're not fussed if you occasionally miss these targets, but if it's a regular occurrence, you'll need to hop off the Power Pack.

Most of our import and export tariffs are compatible with Octopus Power Pack. However, given the behind the scenes complexity, some of our smart tariffs won’t be. If you’re on Agile or Tracker for import, on Agile Outgoing for export, or on any of our Intelligent Octopus tariffs, you’ll need to switch tariffs first before joining Octopus Power Pack.

Your vehicle must be CHAdeMO compatible and capable of discharging.

Power pack is currently compatible with:

Nissan Leaf

Nissan e-NV200

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

And we're working hard on more integrations!

Wallbox Quasar 1 (it's worth noting that the Wallbox Quasar 1 is no longer for sale in the UK, so you'd have to have it already installed).

And we're working hard on more integrations!

Most of our import and export tariffs are compatible with Octopus Power Pack. However, given the behind the scenes complexity, some of our smart tariffs won’t be. If you’re on Agile or Tracker for import, on Agile Outgoing for export, or on any of our Intelligent Octopus tariffs, you’ll need to switch tariffs first before joining Octopus Power Pack.

There’s no standing charge on Octopus Power Pack, as you already pay a standing charge on your standard home import tariff.

You’ll continue to get paid for any kWh you generate with your solar panels or battery and export to the grid at your usual export rate.

Sign up here to join Octopus Power Pack. We’ll then get in touch with you to connect to your V2G charger.

For a customer driving 10,000 miles annually (at an average rate of 0.306 kWh/mile) with typical home energy usage (4100 kWh/year with 13.98% off-peak), the combined cost on Flexible Octopus + Octopus Power Pack would amount to £1360/year. This represents a saving of £876/year compared to a standard variable tariff, or £172/year compared to Intelligent Octopus Go.

You will receive a monthly bill as usual. It’ll include your entire electricity usage (including EV charging) charged at your home unit rate, and we will credit back the amount you paid for your EV charging, so that your EV charging is always free. We’ll calculate this based on the measurements from your EV charger.

If you have solar, we’ll also calculate how much you’ve exported from your solar panels and/or batteries, and credit this as usual, based on your export unit rates.

Once you've signed up, you'll be able to set a minimum state-of-charge so that we’ll never go below this level (soon, you’ll be able to do this directly in our app). This level must be set at less than 30% so that we can still discharge from your vehicle to support the grid when it’s at its dirtiest.

We’re working hard on adding more integrations. Register your interest here.

V2G is still an early stage technology and the vast majority of EVs are not capable of discharging back into your home. Currently, the only EVs which can join this tariff are listed here. If you have an EV which can’t discharge you can still join our Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.

Once you sign up, we'll contact you with a form to update your car charging preferences. Soon, you’ll be able to do this directly in our app.

We're looking to bring in bidirectional charger installations as soon as we can.

From a technical perspective, power flowing out of the car will flow into the home to cover any other home consumption first, then any excess power will go to the grid - in that sense it works like a home battery. From the perspective of the tariff, however, the car charging will be separated from the rest of your home's consumption, and then guaranteed to be free, while you'll continue pay for your home's consumption as normal.

A G99 is an application process for any integrated microgeneration and storage units that are a generation over 16A (3.68kW). It proves that the connection complies with Engineering Recommendation G99, published by the Electricity Networks Association. It can take anywhere from 10 up to 45 working days for an application to be processed and approved. Get in touch with your local distribution network operator (DNO) to apply. If you're having trouble working out who your DNO is, email us at hello@octopus.energy and we can help.

Yes. We can differentiate between the energy exported back to the grid from your V2G charger and from other sources, such as solar panels and batteries. Though any energy exported from your EV will go towards your free miles as part of the Power Pack tariff, if you already export to the grid with solar, or a battery, you’ll get paid for all the power you export at your usual rate.

As you Join Power Pack, let us know what your preferred solar tariff is, and we'll calculate how much you've generated, how much you've earnt according to that export tariff's rate, and we'll add this to your account as credit.