What energy tariff should I be considering for a Phev?

armith

Here's what I have. I'm a PHEV owner, with no solar panels, no home battery and a three year old combi gas boiler:

Intelligent Octopus Go works with my (what I think is) granny charger. It's an oval box with a three pin plug that I plug into the three pin socket I had installed. The electrician tutted at the socket I had been using (through the window) and installed some "enhanced" type socket outside and put it on its own dedicated circuit in my consumer unit.

Anyway, my PHEV (4 year old Audi A3, 10KWh useable battery) has a 30-in-the-winter and 40-in-the-summer mpg range, which just about gets me to work and back for around 70p, instead of the £5 or so I was paying a day in petrol. I've compared my Octopus electricity bills right now with those from before I bought the PHEV and there's virtually no difference per month (MVDD). I've shifted my clothes and dish washes to overnight but nothing else in the house has changed. For a 3 bed 1970s house it's a consistent £50 - £60 a month, other electric companies may be cheaper - but the savings would be pretty minimal I think. I am on a fixed rate for gas with Octopus until May. Gas and Electric are billed on the same bill.

I quite like the Intelligent tariff because it's easy to understand. There are only 2 different rates to think about: expensive and cheap, the extra cost of the expensive bit is offset by the fact that everything (eg the fridge) is running on cheap for a quarter of the day. And every now and again I'll get home from work at 6pm, plug the car in expecting it to charge overnight, and find that Octopus decides that 6:30 to 8pm is a good time for them to charge - giving a bonus saving on cooking!

The only thing I don't like about my set-up is that the display thing (IHD?) that is linked to the smart meter doesn't work very well with the switch between expensive and cheap. I'll go weeks on end saying the rate is 7p an hour 24 hours a day, then weeks when it shows 26p an hour - even during the night. But when I get the (40 page!) monthly bill it shows everything has been charged(!) correctly.

WIAWSNB

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81873340#Comment_81873340

Fab - thanks for this. Really useful stuff.

Very close situation to me, so that is very promising.

Thanks!

(Just asked Octo for a Smart meter, the first step, but there's no slots at the moment...)

vic_sf49

Yes, it was Feb V1 with Octopus, now replaced with the marginally slightly better rates of Feb V2 (East Midlands area).

I'll let you check your region.

Edited because of tech gremlins.