Technonotice

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Location (town/city + country)
Stockton, Warwickshire
Driving
MGS6
I'll start with this - my name is Andrew, and I'm a nerd.

I have done a lot of looking around since deciding to make the switch to an EV and one of those areas I have looked into is the tariff I'm on at home.
At the end of last year I switched electricity supplier to Octopus as they had a better 12M deal than Ovo - who have been slowly annoying me for a few years - and then looked at their EV centric options.
I was very close to clicking the "yes please, I'll go for Octopus Go" button but opened a spreadsheet instead.
Checking back over my usage for the last 12 months and putting in the current (no electrical pun intended) standing charge, on and off peak rates then the proposed ones it turned out that over a year I'd be worse off on the 'lower' rate. Only because this is just for off peak. Now I know that I'll be charging the car overnight, but it doesn't compensate for the higher rates and S/C during the day.
The standing charge is 10% higher and the peak rate is 11% higher. So over the course of a year I would end up paying more due to these than I do now.

For now, I'm sticking with the current tariff until I can see the S/C and Peak rate change to something that makes more sense or I buy another 16 solar panels...and move somewhere sunny...
 
Agreed I fill my 8.4 kWh of batteries at off peak & thus avoid buying peak rate plus I get more export and the arbitrage between cheap rate & export pays well
 
I'll start with this - my name is Andrew, and I'm a nerd.

I have done a lot of looking around since deciding to make the switch to an EV and one of those areas I have looked into is the tariff I'm on at home.
At the end of last year I switched electricity supplier to Octopus as they had a better 12M deal than Ovo - who have been slowly annoying me for a few years - and then looked at their EV centric options.
I was very close to clicking the "yes please, I'll go for Octopus Go" button but opened a spreadsheet instead.
Checking back over my usage for the last 12 months and putting in the current (no electrical pun intended) standing charge, on and off peak rates then the proposed ones it turned out that over a year I'd be worse off on the 'lower' rate. Only because this is just for off peak. Now I know that I'll be charging the car overnight, but it doesn't compensate for the higher rates and S/C during the day.
The standing charge is 10% higher and the peak rate is 11% higher. So over the course of a year I would end up paying more due to these than I do now.

For now, I'm sticking with the current tariff until I can see the S/C and Peak rate change to something that makes more sense or I buy another 16 solar panels...and move somewhere sunny...
Good to do your sums.

I'm a little surprised about this if you've got 16 solar panels, since that should cover a fair amount of your daily use, but perhaps you a) don't drive many miles and b) have high electricity usage in the evening.

It does sound like a battery would suit you well, but installers charge a lot for the labour.
 
It does sound like a battery would suit you well, but installers charge a lot for the labour.
(y)... I'm reading between the lines, but as the OP already has 16 panels, I'm guessing that...

a) they have a relatively high energy usage in peak energy times (likely as has family at home from profile) and
b) don't already have home battery storage

If so, then I'm guessing it is likely they are on the old FIT scheme, so adding a battery to an existing non-hybrid inverter is relatively expensive and could compromise their existing feed-in payments. Otherwise adding a battery would surely be a no-brainer, cost-wise, assuming they not planning on moving anytime soon :unsure:

Where the OP said...
For now, I'm sticking with the current tariff until I can see the S/C and Peak rate change to something that makes more sense
.. I trust they have seen the new 'low' rate of around 5p/kWh that OE's Go tariff is likely to be from April?
 
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