What are off-peak smart electricity tariffs and how do they work?

What are off-peak smart electricity home tariffs and how do they work?

For current electric car drivers, 80 per cent of their charging happens at work or at home. The main advantage to charging at home is that your home will almost always be the cheapest place to charge.

Numerous electricity providers such as Octopus and Ovo now offer off-peak EV tariffs for overnight charging similar to the old ‘Economy 7’ tariffs of previous years. These can see your electricity tariff dramatically drop overnight, significantly reducing your charging cost.

At present, the standard domestic tariff is 30p per kWh, so a Volkswagen ID5 with a 77kW battery would cost 77 x 30p for a full charge – ie £23.10.

However, if you have one of those off-peak EV tariffs, then the price can be as low as 7.5p/kWh overnight with Octopus Intelligent. At that lower rate, if you did all of your charging at that lower rate over two evenings on that same Volkswagen ID5 from zero to 100 per cent would cost just £5.78 – a huge saving on the standard tariff.