Electric Vehicle Charging - Economy 7 best deals

jiimbo

Just thought I'd share my experience of the search for the lowest charging costs for my second hand Nissan Leaf.....and how the switch to Economy Seven has changed my energy use habits...may be useful if you're considering this..

Here's the facts...

We're a three/four bed old house with oil central heating, have two kids who are on their computers quite a bit. I work from home (using laptop) and we've electric oven (gas hob) cooking plus an old Rayburn stove which is powered by solid fuel (wood!)

Until recently we were with OVO, spending 25p per day standing charge and around 15 p per kWH for energy used. Daily use was around 8 kWH....now, with a 24 kWh Nissan Leaf, it's gone up to around 20 kWh per day (we do around 30 miles per day so don't need to fully charge).

By setting the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer to come on overnight (between 1am and 8am) and the car's automatic charging timer to do the same, it's been possible to split our energy use....

4 kWh average during the day
16 kWh during the night

Verdict: If you've got timers on your appliances AND and electric car, I think it's well worth switching to Economy Seven.

Tip: Use price comparison sites with caution....do your search first, but do the search AGAIN on the referred company website...you may find that the economy seven prices offered differ.

Tip: Check out the time of day the Economy Seven operates...ours is 1am 8am (does this suit your lifestyle?)

My best deal (I've switched away from OVO sadly, because their customer service is great!) is through Bulb energy....it's 100% renewable (from UK based wind, anaerobic digestion and Welsh hydro power) and they've offered to pay my exit fees from OVO.

More?
I've got some energy use graphs which I can share if you PM me (can't work out how to post images up here???)

I've gt a £50 referral code for Bulb (i.e. you get £50 credit, so do I) if you want it (message me)

jiimbo

Forgot to mention....I bet you've not got an Economy Seven meter....you don't need one if you've got a smart meter!

EachPenny

jiimbo wrote: »

Verdict: If you've got timers on your appliances AND and electric car, I think it's well worth switching to Economy Seven.

But you don't have to have an electric car (or storage heaters) for E7 to potentially work out cheaper.

Every E7 tariff will have a break even percentage of night time consumption at which point it becomes cheaper than that suppliers non-E7 tariff. The figures vary, but between 30% and 40% night is a good rule of thumb.

Depending on lifestyle and the appliances you have, 30% night consumption is relatively easy to reach, even without electric heating or cars. The hard bit is then pushing the percentage up to and over the breakeven point, which some people can't, some people won't, and some people do.

For example, for people with high consumption in the morning (kettles, toasters, coffee machines, electric showers) if you do that before the end of your E7 time it might make the difference between profit and loss. But the BST/GMT issue just adds another variable factor which makes the comparison and finding the best overall tariff even harder.

A couple of things to add to your post:

If possible make sure all phone/iPad/Laptops etc are on charge at night and not during the day. Don't leave them switched on (in the day) if they are not in use. (There is an interesting article around about the inaccuracy of modern meters in recording energy consumption of switching power supplies)

Be cautious about running a tumble dryer overnight on E7 if you are asleep. Tumble dryers are notorious fire starters and the money saving from E7 use is not worth the risk.... however if you are up before the end of E7 hours then there is no problem running the tumble dryer then.

You don't mention your hot water heating. Do you have an immersion heater? If you already have E7 then it is worth looking at the costs of heating water by the immersion vs using the oil boiler, especially in the summer if you turn the central heating off. You might also be able to take into account savings in wear and tear and servicing costs if the oil boiler gets a rest (or reduced workload) from heating water over the summer.

NigeWick

jiimbo wrote: »

Bulb energy....it's 100% renewable (from UK based wind, anaerobic digestion and Welsh hydro power

I've got a 30kWh Leaf and went with Ecotricity because I get 52 free Electric Highway charges running from when I joined in April to April next year. This along with economy 7 plus the fact I've got solar means that Ecotricity works out cheapest for me.

Next year things may change when I get a Zappi EV charger, a bit more solar and a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery. I'll have to pay 19p per kWh at Electric Highway chargers but not the £3 connection fee if I stay with Ecotricity. I'll just have to do my sums when I get the new equipment installed.

Andy_WSM

I'm currently with Utilita, but am about to switch to Green Energy UK for their TIDE tariff. I also have a Nissan Leaf and by doing my laundry / dishwasher at night I am using about 80% night 20% day at the moment.

The day (11.9p / kWh) & Night (4.99p / kWh) rates are very reasonable for my postcode - but with a penalty in that rates are vastly increased between 4pm & 7pm (46p ish /kWh). Standing charge is 25p per day.

I have this covered though as I've just finished building a battery system which will take the bulk of the load in the house for those 3 hours automatically and provide the added bonus of blackout protection for several hours for TV, Lights, Boiler and IT systems.

Batteries should last a couple of years and can be replaced for about £200, so I do need to factor in £100 a year for batteries to avoid the peak penalty hours.

I also have Solar PV, so use little daytime energy for 9 months of the year.

Worth a shot to see how time shifting is possible as it seems to be the way we are headed with Smart meters anyway.

jiimbo

Yep... working from home, all the i-gadgets are charged up overnight and give back their power during the day as I work. Hot water heating is a good point...the difficulty I have is that it's almost impossible to work out how much oil U use to heat a tank of water, yet have a timed immersion which COULD be used overnight to do the same job...probably cheaper!

On the tumble drier...yes, I'd echo the safety concerns around running overnight...we time to finish just before 8am, so we're probably awake by the time drying starts. In any case, working smoke and CO alarms are a must if you decide to go E7, I'd say.

PS - Absolutely loving the Leaf. Don't know why more people aren't driving these around. A bargain used!

PPS - Not looked at the export side of Ecotricity, but thought it was a tad expensive for me based on use ONLY. OVO have also just introduced an electricity package aimed at EV users, called EV Everywhere...again, not the cheapest product around for E7, but it does give you membership of the Polar charging network. Depends where you live in relation to the Polar charging network I suppose!

jiimbo

Andy_WSM... sorry I missed that throwaway linemmm.. you’ve just “built yourself a battery system” ??? :T:T You’re gonna have to tell us more... there’s perhaps going to be a shed or two load of ex-ev batteries around pretty soon with all the old hybrid bus stuff and larger capacity commercial batteries... really interested. How does your system work??????

Raxiel

jiimbo wrote: »

Tip: Check out the time of day the Economy Seven operates...ours is 1am 8am (does this suit your lifestyle?)

Bear in mind, no E7 (that I'm aware of) changes for DST, so your 1-8 will almost certainly be changing to 12-7 in about two weeks when the clocks go back. Make sure you adjust your timers accordingly.

Interesting post though, thanks.

Bark01

Most suppliers have tailored electric vehicle tariffs that won't be available on comparison sites as they use non standard meters.

For instance EDF offers Economy 20:20 to electric vehicle customers. The off peak rate is given 9pm to 7am on weekdays and then all weekend (9pm Friday until 7am Monday). The off peak rate is 20% less than the day rate.

bluearsefly67

Hello
Currently with OVO and do not have an Economy 7 meter - is it possible to switch to an economy 7 meter without having to get a smart meter (that currently doesn't work because of lack of mobile signal at our address). We have had a Zoe since January and have a charge point.

Quite happy to change supplier if the economy 7 / smart meter problem can be solved.

Any thoughts?

Jasperrooboy

I've recently bought an electric car and am also due to change to a new energy deal.
Can anyone recommend any of the new EV deals that are currently on the market?
there doesn't seem to be much info about these deals as you seem to have to switch to that energy provider first before you can get the EV deal - eg British gas, Scottish power, octopus etc?
I have solar panels but no battery storage, so charging my ev car overnight would be cheaper with a cheaper overnight tariff?
any advice is welcome or any info from people who have switched to these deals?
thanks