Back in early 2020 when the world was upside down with the Pandemic, we were in a unique situation where there was more energy on the grid than was needed. Due to being on a variable tariff known as ‘Agile’ at the time from Octopus Energy, there were times that energy was negatively priced to encourage people to use it, rather than having to stop wind turbines from producing.
The approximate amount of energy that was negatively priced was around 200kWh, and although not significant, the amount paid to take this energy from the grid was £7.61.
Together with the Octopus Agile Tariff, the Charger Unit used to re-charge my car was supplied from Ohme. The clever guys from Ohme created a device that can be fine-tuned to program not only the time of charge but the cost of charge. At this time, I could set the device to ONLY charge below certain prices and therefore took maximum advantage of the reduced cost of electricity.
These times are definitely gone and I feel unlikely to return for some time (if ever) but here is the article was written in ‘The TImes’ but as it’s behind a paywall, here is the full article:
Owners of electric vehicles are making big savings by using the National Grid’s surplus power after midnight
It cost Gill Nowell £120 to drive 12,000 miles in her Kia e-Niro It cost Gill Nowell £120 to drive 12,000 miles in her Kia e-Niro Instead of paying up to £65 to fill up a petrol car or £13 for an electric refuel at a rapid charging point, he can be back on the road for as little as a few pence. On 17 days in the past 12 months, his supplier has actually paid him to take surplus power, crediting his account with up to 10.3p per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Last year he was in effect paid to drive 800 miles in his electric Volkswagen Golf.
Branton, 47, is among 50,000 electric vehicle owners who have found a way of cutting the cost of a week’s motoring to a handful of change by signing up to Octopus Energy. Rates offered by the electricity and gas supplier make the switch from petrol and diesel cars highly attractive, but risk leaving behind the 30 per cent of the public who must rely on public charge points.
Sales of new diesel and petrol cars will be banned from 2030. The relative costs of motoring will be critical to the speed of the change to electric vehicles. According to official forecasts by the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government, a typical battery-powered vehicle is a third more expensive than its fossil-fuel equivalent today, but price parity should be reached by 2030.
When running costs are taken into account, the crossover should happen in 2025, even allowing for the costs of charging infrastructure and the need to replace exchequer revenue from fuel duty.
Motorists who have to use public charge points can pay almost six times the cost of plugging in at home, largely because of the cost of parking, according to a study by What Car? magazine. It rated BP Pulse’s 7.4kW pay-as-you-go system the cheapest, at 18p per kWh. Other providers offered lower rates but required a subscription fee or one-off payment.
Overnight charging from lampposts tends to be cheaper than using fast chargers or rapid chargers, which are quicker still. An electric car driver can charge up with 200 miles of driving range in 20 minutes for about £13. To go that far in a petrol car would cost £23.25.
Ed Birkett, senior research fellow at Policy Exchange, a right-of-centre think tank, has urged the government to consider introducing a price cap for public charge points, which have received taxpayer funding. “In some areas there is a risk of local monopolies, which could allow chargepoint operators to charge excessively high prices,” he said.
Britain has 35,000 public charge points and Birkett estimates that it will cost £5 billion to £10 billion to extend the network to 400,000 by 2030.
Last year Branton, who lives with his wife, Natasha, in Paignton, Devon, drove 7,000 miles at a cost of £81 in home charging and £29 at public charging stations, averaging a little over 1p per mile. That was a tenth of the cost of driving 12,000 miles in his BMW X3 diesel the previous year. His wife and his business partner were so impressed that they too have bought electric vehicles.
For some motorists, chasing the lowest possible price has become a hobby. Octopus said customers had even offered their driveways to other electric car owners to cash in on half-hour time slots on days of giveaway payments, of which there were 219 last year. On the windy afternoon of May 27, customers were offered 10.27p per kWh.
Gill Nowell, 47, who lives on the Cheshire-Wirral border with her two young children, said that it had cost her only £120 to travel 12,000 miles in her Kia e-Niro in the past two years, saving £1,680 on her previous diesel bill.
“It will pay for a summer holiday this year — and next year — for me and the children,” she said. “I have been known to set my alarm clock so that I get up at two o’clock in the morning to switch my washing machine on, because I will be paid to do my washing.”
Amid concerns that the switch to electric vehicles could place intolerable stress on the National Grid, Octopus said that at present car-owners were helping to smooth out the peaks and troughs in demand. Those on its Agile tariff halve their electricity consumption during peak demand from 4pm to 7pm, but after 12.30am, when the rest of the nation has gone to sleep and the prices are low, they plug in.