Electric Money Saving Idea?

troffasky

Cardew said:

Why do you single out 'fuel'(i.e. electricity or petrol/diesel) costs as the sole factor in car running costs

Did he? Pretty sure he's made reference to paying £0 for servicing in 3y, and the depreciation.

gzoom

Back on topic, we have actually had our home battery installed for 11 months now. Looking at the figures its pretty impressive to see with just 14kWh usable we were able to grid shift 93% of electricity usage to off peak - so about 4000kWh worth.

Also interesting to see our relative small 4KW solar PV panels which isn't ideal S facing covered 43% of our electricity usage which includes charging an EV.

Interms of pure money-saving from shift to cheaper electricity tariff, if you assume 6p per kWh saving and 6100kWh grid usage, thats £366/year saving.

Financially it may not make 100% sense, but still cool to see how all this tech can shift your grid electricity demands. Am certainly going to add another 4KW of solar PV to the house soon, not sure yet if I'll add more battery storage.

gzoom

Gerry1 said:The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  

Why so you keep on saying 'apparent' its not apparent, its real. I recon I will have done 100k+ of cheap EV miles before some people even think about EVs seriously. If you are serious about money-saving, your mad not to look at EVs.

If you like fast cars like me but still want to save money EVs are amazing. If I hadn't bought my EV I would have got a XJR Supersport or a BMW M5, so instead of sub 5p per mile running costs it would have been sub 20mpg!!! - that's just fuel, servicing/road tax all would be massively more expensive. The purchase costs of M5 would actually have been the same as my EV but deprecation much higher, so I've 'saved' money on that front too. For me EVs allowed me to reduce running costs, and still have access to a car with reasonable performance (sub 5 seconds 0-60 times) - win, win .

But you don't to spend ££££ on a new EV,  used ones are fantastic value, £10k will see you into a Leaf. Add in next to nothing running costs and than near zero depreciation (used Leaf prices are actually appreciating), motoring really doesn't get cheaper!!

Gerry1

gzoom said:

Gerry1 said: The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  

Why so you keep on saying 'apparent' its not apparent, its real.

I'm quite happy to believe you.  I said 'apparent' because I'm not an EV owner, so it's a claim that I can't validate with facts from personal experience, hence the qualification.

BTW, I don't 'keep on' saying 'apparent', I've only said it once.

Cardew

troffasky said:

Cardew said:

Why do you single out 'fuel'(i.e. electricity or petrol/diesel) costs as the sole factor in car running costs

Did he? Pretty sure he's made reference to paying £0 for servicing in 3y, and the depreciation.

Correct, on his own car!

I was commenting on his later posts that referred to Nissan Leafs and EVs in general where he stated 'I've made it totally clear that EVs are cheap to run'.

gzoom

I've just realised I haven't reset the longterm trip meter on the car for about 12 months (8th of September 2019 to be exact).
The car is reporting I did just under 9000 miles and 3400kWh used since. Assuming 8p per kWh E7 rate and 100% charging on E7 (so ignore any solar charging), thats £273 electricity to cover 8700 miles, or 3.1p per mile in fuel costs.

It also show if I didn't own an EV, than our electricity usage would have been about 3,300kWh for home use, and our solar PV panels would have covered nearly 85% of that electricity. Give we all know how little sun we get in the, that shows just how much impact on gird electricity demand solar + local battery storage can have in a very positive way even here in the UK.  

Grumpy_chap

The energy costs of EV are clearly an advantage over ICE vehicles. 
The range of EV is now sufficient that there are suitable options.
How does insurance cost compare?
Maintenance for EV "should" be cheaper than ICE, but I wonder whether the EV manufacturers price the servicing to 'market expectation'?
Sadly, for me, the capital cost makes EV ownership prohibitive.

Coming a bit more back on topic, the OP states they have about 20kWh/day electricity use (not including the EV they are going to get).  Before looking at how the electricity consumption can be met efficiently and cost-effectively using batteries and other such enhancements, can the OP explain why the electricity consumption is so high?  Do they have an all-electric house, so no gas and electric heating?

rjmachin

Water and heating is gas.
We are a high consumption household, as my parents live with me.  My father is retired so is at home all day, every day.
We have multiple TV's, laptops etc, plus a dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, fridge freezer, chest freezer, cooker, hobs etc all electric.

Gerry1

Any hidden electric heating, such as instantaneous electric showers, towel rails, underfloor in bathrooms?  Otherwise it's probably just a case of checking comparison sites and specialist EV tariffs.  Don't forget that it's often cheaper to have separate suppliers, maybe even a second electricity supplier just for the EV if you can find a stupidly low tariff for a few hours in the night.