Hypervolt has said it is working with OVO and Kaluza on launching a beta for the OVO Charge Anytime tariff, with fresh news on next steps expected within the coming weeks. The charger maker set out the position in a blog post dated 11 March 2024, in which it also described a new cloud feature for its third generation chargers.
The tariff work sits alongside a feature Hypervolt calls the Adaptive Telemetry Replay Engine. According to the company, chargers that come back online after a period offline will stream back missing data, so energy not sent to its cloud while a charger was disconnected appears in analytics soon after reconnection. Its UltraGrid Cloud technology is described as repopulating chunks of missing timeline from devices that went offline. Hypervolt said customers will not need to do anything to benefit, because its AutoBot engine performs firmware and cloud upgrades automatically.
The feature is limited by charger generation. Hypervolt said it is "for now available only for our 3rd generation product, the Home 3.0 and the Home 3 Pro, with a view to bring this to Home 2 devices at a later point in time". It added that the feature will be available only to third generation customers, as the company is focused on supporting advanced tariffs such as OVO Charge Anytime and Octopus Intelligent. Rollout began quietly in the days before the post, with general availability expected over the following weeks.
On the tariff itself, Hypervolt said:
"We have been working hard on launching a beta for OVO ChargeAnytime, and together with the OVO and Kaluza teams we are hoping to follow up with fresh news on next steps within the coming weeks"
The post also said Hypervolt has been working in the background on compatibility with other popular tariffs, with more news promised at a later stage. No launch date, pricing, eligibility rules or list of supported charger models for the OVO Charge Anytime beta has been reported. OVO and Kaluza have not been reported as making separate statements.
Why it matters for households
Smart tariffs such as OVO Charge Anytime and Octopus Intelligent rely on a charger or car reporting energy use accurately, because the supplier prices consumption on that data. If a charger loses its internet connection, the risk is that consumption is not recorded, or is recorded against the wrong time window, which can affect what a household is billed and what it can see in an app. A replay feature that fills in missing periods after reconnection addresses that gap directly, and Hypervolt states that it lets energy retail partners price consumption correctly even when chargers go offline.
For a household, the practical effect is that the reliability of the connection between charger, cloud and supplier matters as much as the hardware itself. Homes with weak Wi-Fi, older routers or thick walls are the ones most likely to see gaps. The generation limit also matters: owners of the Home 3.0 and Home 3 Pro are in scope now, while Home 2 owners have been told only that support may come later. Households on other EV charging tariffs have been told to expect further news, but nothing has been confirmed.
What happens next
Hypervolt said it expects the telemetry feature to reach general availability over the next few weeks, and that news on next steps for the OVO Charge Anytime beta is expected within the coming weeks. Further announcements on other tariff compatibility are expected at a later stage, which has not been dated.
Sources1 cited
- Hypervolt - The adaptive replay engine | Hypervolt, blog.hypervolt.co.uk