How home charging and an EV energy plan makes driving cheap
After you have taken delivery of your new electric car, one thing you should be looking to change as a matter of priority is your electricity tariff. Choosing the best tariff could slash your charging bills by hundreds of pounds a year. Now the energy market is settling down, it is time to shift to a tariff that will also reduce your normal electricity bill too.
Octopus Intelligent
This tariff by Octopus Energy is arguably the best tariff out there for EV owners. With off peak rates of 7.5p per kWh it means that you can drive for as little as 2p per mile and even the peak rate of 30p per kWh isn’t too difficult to swallow. You also get at least 6 hours of off-peak time which means you should be able to add about 150 miles of charge every night. During the off-peak time, all your household usage is billed at the cheap rate. Meaning that if you shift a lot of your big electrical usage to the cheaper hours you can reduce your electricity bills whilst now owning an EV. Earlier, I said that you would get at least 6 hours of cheaper rate electricity, this is because when you plug your car in Octopus workout when the cheapest time to charge is. This is based off the gird energy price but you are always guaranteed the hours from 23:30 – 5:30. This could mean that your car might start charging during the middle of the day, or at any other time based of the schedule that gets created when you plug in. Just like before, your whole house gets billed at the cheaper rate during the time your car is charging. Meaning that, with a bit of planning and timing, you can be running the washing machine in the middle of the day on the cheaper rate, therefore massively reducing the costs.
These additional slots are created when you plug in the car, so learning the best times to get cheap day time electricity can be important if you want to maximise the reduction in costs. Over the past 18 months I have found that when the weather is windy or sunny, often extra slots are created when I plug in. I have also found that weekends also seem to be a good time to plug in as grid demand is lower meaning that extra slots are created. The major issue with this tariff at the moment is that you need to have a compatible charger or car so that it can communicate with Octopus Energy’s systems. If you don’t have a compatible charger or car then Octopus offer the Go tariff which offers similar savings but not any extra slots.
If you are interested in joining Octopus Energy then please follow my referral code where we both get £50 credit. https://share.octopus.energy/pink-hill-488
