Best Electricity Plan for new EV Owners

Just reading this. Does anyone have any issues with loads on the 4 hours. Charging car, charging 10kw batteries heating water and running dishwasher and washing machine.

You simply won't do all things at once. You have to do your maths and make compromises. Too many people seem to think they can squash everything into a 4 hour window and win.

Do your sums, the only person that can tell you the load you use will be you by noting it down from your meter/s

I assume the charger would probably throttle back the car charging. Which might be an issue, if you've a tight window and need to fill the car.

Re limited Smart Night window, Its all dependant on individual needs.

How often you have to charge the car, and if it is feasible, to do this across 2 or maybe 3 nights, will be fine for most people, but not for some.

Battery size could be a biggie, i’m still looking at either a 10 or 15kWh PV battery, but for most of the year, that won’t need to be charged each day, from say 15% to 100 %.

The newer washing machines and dryers are more efficient and draw less of a load.

Even in the event of high draw, many car chargers, will automatically balance the load and reduce the car charging draw, as appropriate.

This won’t be a problem, for most people, it clearly won’t work for someone who needs their large EV battery charged from empty to full, every single night, or like showering at 4am, but thats a minority of people

I have night rate on 9hr window with 63A main fuse, car charging, battery charging, washing machine and dishwasher coming on a staggered times. I'm only waiting for the young fella to come in from the pub some night and put the kettle & toaster on just as element in the dishwasher or washing machine is on as well.

You're making the energy suppliers sound very altruistic indeed.

The providers have realised there is a huge opportunity to cash in on the advent and rise of the EV home charging solution. A bit like insurance companies - if they all do the same thing, with minimal differentiation - then the industry as a whole benefits from the captive market.

Far more to be made on hooking in a customer on a small low-tariff window and the maximising wallet share via expensive other-hour tariffs.

The take-up of the low cost 9-hour overnight charging windows in 2022 and early 2023 showed the providers exactly how much opportunity existed in the market to develop and grab.

There is not a single one of them thinking of the "grid" or the "people".

[Quote=1874]I'd have thought that is a benefit to the Electricity producers & distributers to have more people utilise the whole low usage period over the whole night?[/Quote]

More people than ever are utilising the low usage period over the whole night, we're just paying high tariff prices for it!!

Yuno Energy Fixed Rates:

24 hour Urban rate is now down to 26.13 inc vat. standing charge(urban) is 264.73 inc vat

D/n Urban rate is :

Day 26.41 inc vat, Night 17.07 inc vat, standing charge 326.24 inc vat

Microgeneration rate, is one of the lowest, just 15.89 inc vat. (14 cent ex vat)

Big bugbear for me, I tried to switch to there day / night rate but because I have a regular activated smart meter not possible, It seems extraordinary that a smart meter can not be calibrated to read day night .Also finding it impossible to get a day night smart meter.

Why though?

Yes,I'm aware of that my gripe is why can they not do it.They are meant to be SMART meters.

I think the meters are plenty smart.

They can do 21/3 windows, free weekends etc.

Seems odd they don't want to do 15/9 windows.

I'm on a smart D/N with a 9 hour night rate. When I renew I will be able to go onto another one.

The answer is daylight savings, D/N meters don't obey daylight savings, smart meters do

The smart meter won't allow you to record to two registers at once, so a new config (RM108) was created to replace the D/N meters

As a general rule, the CRU doesn't allow switching from a smart meter plan with meter type MCC12 or MCC16 to the older meter plans (MCC1 for 24 hour and MCC2 for D/N)

Previously people could switch from a smart plan to D/N because there were no smart meters that supported those plans. Since the RM108 meters started rolling out it seems that option has gone

Of course they can.

Question still unanswered - just like why are standing charges higher for "discounted" plans - is why would there be resistance/barriers to moving to smart/non-smart tariffs as it suited customers. There clearly is, so nobody's disputing the fact you can't, we'd just like to know why.

The why might be a strategy to move the population wholescale to less flexible smart technology that give the network operator better control of its energy distribution.

But treating the population like mushrooms and having call centre agents repeat the mantra that "it's not allowed" is a bit insulting.

All true, but for the vast majority on d/n currently. who do have adequate reception, its fairly clear d/n tarriffs are on the way out, as smart meters have been, and will continue to be, aggressively rolled out.

Its probably not a big deal, for most of those with PV and batteries, but will be for many others.

Smart urban meter standing charges, have been reducing, and are typically €100 a year less than the average d/n meter, and then there is the wide ranging export rate, and peoples individual needs.

It has gotten a bit more complicated to distinguish the best tariffs for individual circumstances, but generally, if you have a smart meter with PV & batteries, smart tariffs are generally the way to go, but a caveat, that there are always some user specific need requirements. exceptions of course