Home-charge tariffs (UK)

[vitesse]

I have a very cheap fixed price deal with the controversial Outfox the Market supplier - just 10.1p/kWh - until August. Their standing charge is £13.99 a month, which is a bit steep, though. No exit fee.

I've done some costing with estimated car charging costs, including 450kWh of annual phantom drain and additional consumption for cold weather consumption, averaging 0.4 kWh per mile over the year (not including phantom drain). Is that a realistic number?

I've got a quote from Octopus Go and there is 4 hours of off-peak charging per day at 5p and the rest of the day it's about 14p. Their standing charge is about £7.50 a month.

I've estimated annual 1000 miles of Supercharging, 7500 miles of off-peak charging at home and 1500 miles of peak rate charging.

So I reckon our total electricity consumption figues mean we'll save about £70 a year with Octopus.

A smart meter is required. However, Octopus are not fitting next-gen smart meters yet. I already have a first-gen smart meter originally installed by First Utility when we were with them, but - surprise - it didn't work as a smart meter when we switched to the Co-op and ditto with Outfox. It's not compatible with Octopus either.

Octopus say they would change our 1st-gen meter for their 1st-gen meter and then when they start shipping 2nd-gen meters they would replace the meter they originally fitted with a new one.

This seems mad to me, but I do like smart meter functionality. Should I go for it?

Are there any other deals I should consider?

 

[theoceanwaves]

Have you done a price comparison using bulb? also you can get £50 off using my referral link Bulb - Get a quote

 

[vitesse]

Unfortunately, Bulb is significantly more expensive (c.£20/month). I like what I hear about them but both my current supplier and, afaik, Octopus are100% renewable and that's the main consideration alongside price.

 

[Oddbin]

The smart meter issues is one you will face no matter who you go for. The second gen ones were supposed to roll out last year and then scrapped in favour of a new second gen (third) that is due to be rolled out. When, no one really knows.

As for prices I believe Octopus are ahead if you stick to the midnight to 4am bracket they have but outside of that Bulb and Ovo appear to be competitive. Sounds like you've done your numbers so though so I would go for it. If you don't already have one see if someone you know has a referral code for octopus, save some money.

 

[Jason71]

Aren't their lots of economy 7 tariffs that have rates of 6-7 pence for 7 hours overnight. Dependant on how many hours of charging you need per day I would have assumed those would be attractive to most EV users?

 

[arg]

Aren't their lots of economy 7 tariffs that have rates of 6-7 pence for 7 hours overnight. Dependant on how many hours of charging you need per day I would have assumed those would be attractive to most EV users?

They invariably come with a higher unit rate for daytime, so it very much depends on your usage. If you are out of the house all day driving your EV a high mileage, then E7 is a clear win; if you work from home and do low mileage, then the added cost of daytime usage might cancel out the saving on overnight charging. If you have solar generation to offset the daytime consumption, that pushes you towards the E7.

 

[Asterix187]

I am with OVO and get 'free' polar plus membership with my EV Everywhere account. The price is 14p all day but unless you are storing electricity from out of hours to use in the day it didn't really work out any cheaper for me on E7 as I don't charge 'that much' from home, really just top up as we have workplace chargers.

 

[vitesse]

My wife's commute is less than 40 miles and during the week there won't be huge number of additional miles 50-60 at most on average. 4 hours off-peak is likely to be more than enough for us. We'll also run the washing machine and dishwasher in the off-peak window as well.

 

[vitesse]

I wondered if OVO did a special tariff for EV owners but I don't see anything with an off-peak incentive. Their free public charging bundle probably won't amount to much for us - including the EV charging they are over £400 more than Octopus a year for us. And we already have a wall box.

 

[cezdoc]

@vitesse I'm also with OutfoxTheMarket & have looked into possibly switching to Octopus as they have some good EV-friendly products (and subsidise a home chargepoint I think?). However for me at least the benefit of off-peak charging appears to be marginal so I've decided to wait until the whole smart meter debacle settles down - in the meantime I don't need to think about shifting usage to off-peak hours although virtually all the home car charging is done overnight. As you say, OFTM is 100% wind for electicity so zero-emission; I'm not on the gas network so dual fuel etc. doesn't come in to the calculation. I do have a continuing sense of unease about whether OFTM will go bust though!

Your assumptions regarding projected usage look okay. For reference, I estimate I've averaged 450 Wh/mi over 24000 miles in terms of electricity supplied to the car. This rolls charging inefficiency (about 85% for 32A/7kW home charging) and vampire drain into one figure over 3 summers and 3 winters.

One small benefit of a flat rate is that you can set the car to charge so that it finishes at/just before you leave if you're doing a regular commute - this puts a bit of heat into the battery and so reduces losses from the car running the battery heater, particularly in winter. But in terms of overall cost I'd imagine it's pretty small/negligable.

 

[Asterix187]

OVO also do E7.

 

[vitesse]

OVO also do E7.

It took ages to find a mention on their website but their info implies you need to already have an E7 meter. Also they aren't 100% renewable by default.

 

[vitesse]

@cezdoc Thanks for that - I have adjusted my spreadsheet to mimic your long term consumption. It's upped the price slightly and widened the gap in favour of Octopus so I will probably switch. I personally have nothing to lose but I won't hesitate to move from Octopus if they don't remain competitive. By then - you never know - the smart meter hiatus might just be sorted. I'm told there is a plan to OTA firmware upgrade earlier models where possible.

 

[4EVar]

They invariably come with a higher unit rate for daytime, so it very much depends on your usage. If you are out of the house all day driving your EV a high mileage, then E7 is a clear win; if you work from home and do low mileage, then the added cost of daytime usage might cancel out the saving on overnight charging. If you have solar generation to offset the daytime consumption, that pushes you towards the E7.

E7 renewable with solar all the way! Best of both worlds.

 

[vitesse]

E7 renewable with solar all the way! Best of both worlds.

That would be great but our roof probably needs re-tiling (been saying this for years!) So not really practical at the moment. The whole solar panel thing has been very confusing when we've looked at it on and off over the years

With the generous feed-in tariffs gone have we missed the boat?

 

[4EVar]

That would be great but our roof probably needs re-tiling (been saying this for years!) So not really practical at the moment. The whole solar panel thing has been very confusing when we've looked at it on and off over the years

With the generous feed-in tariffs gone have we missed the boat?

I got it with the less generous feed-in tariff and now the tariff is zero. However, you still benefit from free electricity from a fairly reasonable outlay so....

 

[MarkJ]

Hi
Another vote for Octopus Go. Their 5p for 4 hours is great with a very reasonable 14p peak rate too.
If you don't already have a referral code please consider using mine and we split £100:
deleted, no referral codes allowed - mod
Mark

 

[WannabeOwner]

our roof probably needs re-tiling

Instead of retiling put the PV panels "in roof" perhaps? If you are having to retile anyway, and IF that is an option, then best-of-both-world potentially

have we missed the boat?

VAT going up in the Autumn, so IF that happens you ought to plan to do it before then ...

 

[Rob R]

Hi
Another vote for Octopus Go. Their 5p for 4 hours is great with a very reasonable 14p peak rate too.
If you don't already have a referral code please consider using mine and we split £100:
deleted
Mark

No good if you don't have a smart meter (working), which I don't, but very much a consideration when my current supplier installs a SMETS 2 meter (but when will that be). You can switch to Octopus regular tariff without a smart meter, but Octopus is more expensive than my present green supplier on that.

 

[vitesse]

No good if you don't have a smart meter (working), which I don't, but very much a consideration when my current supplier installs a SMETS 2 meter (but when will that be). You can switch to Octopus regular tariff without a smart meter, but Octopus is more expensive than my present green supplier on that.

Octopus told me that they will replace my smart meter with theirs for their Go tariff though it's likely to be a SMETS1 type. However, all SMETS1 meters will become interoperable - apparently as early as by the end of the year.