Electric car

[woozzle]

Have you switched to a low cost night tariff for charging

Yes. We've switched over to a intelligent octopus. We get a guaranteed 6 hours at cheap rate at night(7.5p per Kw). You also get some other cheap rate hours on an evening when the grid has spare energy to dish out during quiet spells.

Yep switched over yesterday - just siting newt the charger installer and all good to go - will be running all the appliances (washing Machine / dryer / dishwasher at night as well)

Can someone explain why it costs approximately 15p per kwh to charge a night storage heater to heat in a home but only 7.5p per kwh for a EV.. Is it super special magical electric from the fairies

[Ole gits rule]

Yes. We've switched over to a intelligent octopus. We get a guaranteed 6 hours at cheap rate at night(7.5p per Kw). You also get some other cheap rate hours on an evening when the grid has spare energy to dish out during quiet spells.

Yep switched over yesterday - just siting newt the charger installer and all good to go - will be running all the appliances (washing Machine / dryer / dishwasher at night as well)

Can someone explain why it costs approximately 15p per kwh to charge a night storage heater to heat in a home but only 7.5p per kwh for a EV.. Is it super special magical electric from the fairies

No its the pixies

You can switch to Octopus but you need to check their tariffs - I had to buy an electric car charger to go onto intelligent Octopus and I get the reduced rate for 6 hours per night.

Therefore my electric on Weds was 21kW of which 14 were at the nighttime rate so a total cost of £3.67 including the rip off daily charge - thats include putting 14kW into the car.

Check Octopus they have other deals available - I can give you a code that will give you £50 credit and they are pretty easy to deal with, gave me a £30 rebate as they did not start the reduced rate for 3 days after the charger was installed.

[woozzle]

But who is subsidising the lower amount that is charged to a customer with an electric car.? What I'm trying to say is why should someone with an EV get cheaper energy.

[axelleveau]

But who is subsidising the lower amount that is charged to a customer with an electric car.? What I'm trying to say is why should someone with an EV get cheaper energy.

My guess is no one is as the cheap tarrifs only applies during specific time at night when electricity prices are low, sometimes even nearing 0 or negative.

[Dave1971]

But who is subsidising the lower amount that is charged to a customer with an electric car.? What I'm trying to say is why should someone with an EV get cheaper energy.

My guess is no one is as the cheap tarrifs only applies during specific time at night when electricity prices are low, sometimes even nearing 0 or negative.

Exactly right. Nobody is subsidising anyone else. Cheap rate electricity during the night has been around for as long as I can remember and I'm 52 years old!

[ronk]

Exactly right. Nobody is subsidising anyone else. Cheap rate electricity during the night has been around for as long as I can remember and I'm 52 years old!

The White Meter !

[Colin_E]

No need for an EV or solar or batteries or whatever to get some of these rates BUT there's a risk that you may pay more than average at peak times. We have Octopus Agile where rates change every 30 minutes, can fluctuate a lot and occasionally actually go negative - today we had a few hours where we were paid a few pence per kWh for what we used!.

During the peak useage period - usually 4pm to 7pm rates can sometimes exceed the typical flat rate. In the last month, one day actually peaked at 44p / kWh briefly - the highest I've seen. Octopus Tracker doesn't fluctuate so much within the day but still varies from day to day.
Note that you need a smart meter for this stuff but that applies to the EV & Feed-In tariffs too.

Why is it potentially cheaper? Because the supplier passes all of the risk of a volatile market over to the customer.
From the supply side it isn't so easy to turn up or down the production of electricity so when it's scarce it gets expensive & correspondingly cheap when theres a glut. At periods when demand is forecast to be low, some power stations close down for a while if they can't get a viable price for production.

To offer a fixed rate Energy Suppliers like Octopus have to buy forward contracts which cost them a premium. Works much like currency trading.