OT: Energy Supplier, EV and Solar

Mar 12, 2026 Last reply: 4 months ago 4 Replies

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RJH 4 months ago

Trying to figure out the best supplier, tariff - and supply.

I've just (ahem, it's buried in the app) twigged that off peak electricity (c.8p/unit) can be used to top up my 5kWh battery overnight. OK. I can also easily rejig things like car charging (30kWh/week, the EV's new to me), dishwasher and washing machine (7kWh/week) to the cheap rate. And the charged battery will pretty much cover my current non-car usage, even if there's no solar.

But - the Eon 'Drive' tariffs make the decision to swap complicated. Higher standing charges (electricity 60p/day vs 45p/day), and 'peak' electricity

30p/unit vs 25p. Gas is about the same.

I could be a fair bit better off with the Drive tariff, especially after petrol's taken into account. But I don't want to be thinking about this all of the time, and the energy market's all over the place. Eon seem to be trotting out new tariffs almost weekly. War. Price caps. And I reckon it's only a matter of time before they start to charge higher rates for off peak - it's gone up 1p/unit in the past week.

Anybody in a similar situation worked their way through this?!

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Andy Burns 4 months ago

It seems that the comparison sites are weak on EV tariffs, I moved to So Energy, 5 hours daily starting midnight at 6.5p/kWh, referral link if anyone cares to use it <https://so.energy/r/SJIHNLKJH>

My washer/dryer doesn't have a delay timer, but I've rigged-up a smart plug, so I put a load in, start the machine then power off the smart plug, with a scheduled event to turn it back on at midnight, the machine continues the programme. It's not ideal, it uses about 1.5kW for water heating during the first hour, then uses virtually nothing just swishing the drum around for 2 hours, and the drying cycle kicks is, but hasn't finished before the 5 hours are up ... it would probably work out better to start it at 11pm, pay full whack for the water heating but catch all the drying time at cheap rate.

"So" after the April 1st price drop will be gas 4.87p/kWh, 34.5p/day standing charge elec 6.5p off peak, peak 27p/kWh, 50p/day standing charge

I think that for a change I moved onto a 1 year fixed tariff at just the right time :-)

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Nick Finnigan 4 months ago

Next Drive Fixed seems to have no exit fees, so grab it while you can.

(Asuming you do not have exit fees on your current plan. I don't have an electric car, but recently moved to an Octopus Fixed with no exit fees, and they had 7 versions of that in February).

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Andy Burns 4 months ago

Unsurprisingly "So EV tariff is temporarily unavailable".

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alan_m 4 months ago

Not a good time to make a long term decisions. Some tariffs have already been closed in the past week as options for existing or new customers.

I'm currently on a tracker tariff which is based on wholesale prices.

For gas in the past 6 months:

5 months the price has been 20% below the Ofgem capped price 2 weeks the price has been approx equal to the Ofgem capped price In the past week the price has bee approx 20% higher than the Ofgem capped price

For electricity roughly the same but with the percentage saving of around 10% vs Ofgem capped prices. The past week shows much higher prices of 10% above the Ofgem cap.

I have the option to quit this tariff without penalties but with fewer alternative "cheaper" deals to move to I'll wait it out until the market stabilises a bit more.

I don't have an EV or home batteries to charge so some of the off peak deals are of no use to me.

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