Despite the rising energy crisis cost, Ofgem confirmed that bills would rise once more from April 1. This is because the confirmed price cap change didn’t fall below the energy price guarantee. Furthermore, the winter energy rebate provided by the government will end in April. This allowed homeowners to receive monthly instalments of £66.
Despite the fact that there is a projected price hike increase in electric costs, there is significant data to show that electric vehicle owners can make savings today by charging their vehicles at home.
Research has found those people who are charging electric vehicles at home could switch to a more economical tariff and save nearly £600 a year. The current theory is that charging during off-peak periods, for example, at night, could successfully save around £20 per vehicle charge and help to save more than £600 a year in total.
On average, somebody doing this would save £50 a month charging the vehicle. This is in addition to the other savings offered by electric vehicles, like not needing to compete with other drivers and fight the rising fuel costs, which have been steadily increasing for the last few years.
The current best tariff for electric car users, according to the research, is the Intelligent Octopus tariff offered by Octopus Energy.
The example given was using the tariff to charge the Kia e-Niro, which will only cost £6.40. This is in comparison to the current price for electricity in the UK - some 34/kWh - which would cost £21.76 for a change. Assuming an average travel time of 200 miles each week, this would save the average person nearly £50 each month and £600 each year.
Danny Morgan is the Editor and Marketing manager at Smart Home Change, the company that undertook the research. He had the following to say:
“The rising price of energy means the cost of running an EV is not as cheap as it was 18 months ago. However, electric car drivers can still make huge savings on home car charging by switching to an EV-friendly electricity tariff.
EV-friendly tariffs offer a much cheaper electricity price, typically overnight, helping reduce the cost of a single charge, but our previous research has found as many as 50 per cent of EV owners were not taking advantage of these cheaper rates. Although we could see prices rise on all tariffs, including EV-friendly ones, the off-peak price is always likely to be much more favourable than a typical standard tariff, so it’s a simple way to reduce the cost of charging an EV immediately.
Plus, you can even reduce the cost of using your washing machine or dishwasher by setting a delay, so they operate when the off-peak price kicks in."
Perhaps savings like these are a good way of incentivising the use of electric cars, especially as people search for increasingly innovative ways to combat the rising fuel costs that we face as a society.