Gas v Electricity costs, Octopus moved from Shell

SoylentGreen

Hi,

I've recently been ported over to Octopus from Shell and am currently on their "flexible octopus" tariff.
The rates charges are:
               Unit Rate - Electricity 25.29 kWh, Gas 5.97kWh.
   Standing Charge - Electricity 54.83p/day, Gas 28.88p/day.

I have a non-condensing boiler, so say 75% efficient, which pushes up actual gas cost to around 8p per kWh for water heating purposes, still way cheaper than electricity.  We have a large hot water tank.

I have just had smart meters fitted as I want to take advantage of cheap rate electricity at night to charge an electric car, probably once per week.  I don't have visibility of Octopus off-peak options, the car simply plugs into 13A socket as we have no dedicated charging outlet.  It looks like it would be 9p per kWh using their Octopus Go option, but can't see if there is a standing charge difference.

My questions:
- it looks like no advantage in using "off-peak" electricity for water heating unless I can get a tariff less than ~8p/kWh?
- is the standing charge for electricity higher for a split tariff?

To compare, typical electricity usage is £2.20 per day (May 2024) and when charging the car this costs and additional ~£10 for a full charge on current tariff.

Many thanks.

Netexporter

I'm on Agile Octopus and charge my car with a granny charger. I filled the car up last Saturday at about 4p/kWh (so less than a penny per mile) and quite often get paid to fill the car up, when the price goes negative.

Go and Intelligent Go are a good idea if you have a long commute, so need a fullish car every morning, but if you needs are more discretionary then picking the cheap spots on Agile makes for very cheap motoring. You also save a lot on your general usage, especially if you can largely avoid the evening peak (16:00 to 19:00). I paid an average of just over 9p/kWh for my last billing period.

wrf12345

If I had an electric car I would be tempted to charge it cheaply on Agile and then use an inverter and a separate circuit in the house (DIY will cost almost nothing or even just an extension lead) to run things when the rates are high...