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. This will be applied in the following month.

Example:

If your 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.

You’ll need to download OVO Charge from the App Store or Google Play to manage your charging. If you’ve been using the Charge Anytime app you’ll need to start using OVO Charge instead. Later this year we’ll be removing the Charge Anytime app. If you’re still using the app to charge we’ll let you know when the app will be turned off.

We’ll make sure your EV is being smart charged at the cheapest, greenest times. By putting your EV’s details in the OVO Charge app, we can work out the best time to smart charge, and push a command to your EV or charger, depending on how you’re connected to start charging. You can also check how much money Charge Anytime is saving you, right there in the app.

Use the OVO Charge app 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.

If you’re an existing Charge Anytime app customer you’ll simply need to download OVO Charge, create your new OVO Charge account and log in using your OVO account details so we can link your EV or charger. We’ll do the work in the background to link your existing devices in OVO Charge so you can get charging straight away. You won’t need to do anything in the Charge Anytime app but we recommend deleting the Charge Anytime app once you’re set up on the OVO Charge app. Your previous charging insights for up to 3 months and schedules will also transfer over when you switch to OVO Charge. 

Important: Please ensure you do not delete your Charge Anytime account before logging in to OVO Charge. We’ll need your Charge Anytime account to still be active when you switch so we link your existing charger or EV. 

It’s free to remove Charge Anytime. You can remove it by going to your OVO energy app and clicking ‘Cancel my add-on’ in the ‘Manage add-ons’ section of your OVO energy account. Or via the OVO website if you're using a web browser, visit the ‘Plan’ section of your OVO energy account, and select ‘Cancel add-on’ within the Charge Anytime section. You can also find a link to cancel Charge Anytime in the “Account tab” in OVO Charge on the account information page. Please note that your add-on will be cancelled at midnight the day after cancellation.

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 or Charger app. If you can’t, or if your EV’s app isn’t working, then the OVO Charge 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 two.

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 OVO Charge app won’t work as expected.

The OVO Charge app connects to your EV in exactly the same way as your EV’s app. The only difference is that the OVO Charge 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 OVO Charge 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 OVO Charge 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 OVO Charge “Devices” page and select the “Connect another vehicle” button.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Charge Anytime only supports multiple EVs, not multiple chargers or a combination of EV and charger. Here’s our list of current compatible EVs and chargers.

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. Go to the “Devices” page in the account tab and remove your EV or charger. Then connect your other device 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 OVO Charge 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 its actual usable capacity, you can enter its 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 OVO Charge 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.

The insights and savings may be slightly different in OVO Charge compared to the Charge Anytime app. The Charge Anytime app only uses an estimation of savings whereas OVO Charge takes the data that is used to generate your bill to calculate savings, for example, your live home tariff rate. The OVO Charge insights are accurate and will reflect exactly what you’ll receive in bill credits.

If you’re having a technical issue with adding another EV, or need help connecting your EV, you can email [email protected] or call us on 0330 175 9678. We’re here Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays), 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. 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.

Charge Anytime 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 but you’ll be able to use the public charging section in the OVO Charge app giving you access to public charging at 50,000+ UK public charge points across some of the UK's biggest charging networks – like Osprey, MFG, InstaVolt, TotalEnergies, Allego, FastNed, and Ionity.

If you want to find out more about charging away from home, check out the public charging section of the OVO Charge app.

So you can get the discounted rate, we only let your EV charge during the cheapest and greenest times. This often means that your charging will start sometime after you plug in. 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 OVO Charge 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 571 kWh of smart charging per month ² and will vary slightly depending on home tariff rate and the current Charge Anytime rate.  

For most customers it’s very unlikely you’ll smart charge above this amount of energy per month. 571 kWh is roughly the equivalent of driving 2,284 miles a month.³ 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.

2 Assuming an SVT rate of 24.51p per kWh and a Charge Anytime rate of 7p per kWh the Charge Anytime credit would equate to 17.51p per kWh. A maximum Charge Anytime credit of £100 equates to 571.1 kWh.

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

We’ll aim to apply your Charge Anytime credit to your account in the first week of every month although on some occasions this may be delayed, for example, technical issues delaying crediting. It’ll appear on your monthly OVO energy bill as 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. Any refunds will be applied in line with our refund policy where you can find more information on refund eligibility.

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.