UK electric car drivers face paying more to charge at peak times

[WannabeOwner]

The Guardian (yesterday)

UK electric car drivers face paying more to charge at peak times

"Charging an electric car overnight at home will cost around £4 for 100 miles of range, depending on the electricity tariff."

Now do they figure that? The Guardian article is talking about Smart Meters and time-of-use incentives and then use a full day rate for their costed example. £2.60 for my E7 rate,and £1.60 for Tide (as I understand it £0.05p off peak?)

 

[Tevvy]

I’m on TIDE and pay 6p at night but if I charge at 4-8pm I pay 30p!

 

[WannabeOwner]

Thanks. So that would be £2.00 instead of £1.60 then. "Not Three Bad"

"Last week a new law was passed in parliament that will require anyone installing an electric charge point to make it capable of smart charging."

15.2 (a) and (b) presumably:

15 Smart charge points

(1) Regulations may provide that a person must not sell or install a charge point unless it complies with prescribed requirements.
(2) The requirements that may be imposed under subsection (1) include requirements relating to the technical specifications for a charge point, including for example the ability of a charge point—

(a) to receive and process information provided by a prescribed person,
(b) to react to information of a kind mentioned in paragraph (a) (for example, by adjusting the rate of charging or discharging),
(c) to transmit information (including geographical information) to a prescribed person,
(d) to monitor and record energy consumption,
(e) to comply with requirements relating to security,
(f) to achieve energy efficiency, and
(g) to be accessed remotely.​

Sorry, forgot the link:

Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018

 

[tonyj01]

Say I charge at night and add 33kWh, that's about £2.40 on my E7 tarriff, and 33kWh would take me about 100 miles of careful motorway driving.

We all pay differing rates for power so the journalist was not so sloppy.

I suppose someone who has solar panels and a Zappi type charger, charging when sunny, will pay zero for those 33kWh?


Tony

 

[Tevvy]

Hi Tony. That’s right and assuming a petrol price of £1.30/litre which is £5.90/gallon. That’s the equivalent of 245 mpg which isn’t too bad!

For me on TIDE at 6p/KWh that works out at nearly 300 mpg equivalent!

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Thanks. So that would be £2.00 instead of £1.60 then. "Not Three Bad"

"Last week a new law was passed in parliament that will require anyone installing an electric charge point to make it capable of smart charging."

15.2 (a) and (b) presumably:

15 Smart charge points

(1) Regulations may provide that a person must not sell or install a charge point unless it complies with prescribed requirements.
(2) The requirements that may be imposed under subsection (1) include requirements relating to the technical specifications for a charge point, including for example the ability of a charge point—

(a) to receive and process information provided by a prescribed person,
(b) to react to information of a kind mentioned in paragraph (a) (for example, by adjusting the rate of charging or discharging),
(c) to transmit information (including geographical information) to a prescribed person,
(d) to monitor and record energy consumption,
(e) to comply with requirements relating to security,
(f) to achieve energy efficiency, and
(g) to be accessed remotely.​

Sorry, forgot the link:

Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018

Some "mays" in there. Seems like they're trying to future-proof the law, so that they can mandate smart-charging as volume and electricity demand dictates. Rather than requires, it seems more like could require in the future.

 

[Asterix187]

The article should be titled 'Shock as its revealed electricity is more expensive at peak times'.

Its also more expensive to use your washing machine, or boil a kettle....

Crazy scaremongery from the press!

 

[thegruf]

As EV adoption increases, the tax take in fuel in particular will reduce.
We can therefore expect over time not only costs for infrastructure to be an issue, but the government will increasingly need to look for ways to supplement tax revenue too (already at an all time recent high).

All we can hope for is that such charges are applied in a fair and proportionate way
... I'll go whistle then

 

[sidmini]

charges are applied in a fair and proportionate way

hopefully in the long term, pollution related deaths and sickness will reduce due to clea air / EVs and the NHS funding can be used elsewhere

 

[WannabeOwner]

the journalist was not so sloppy.

Must have been my duff maths then, sorry about that. Whatever I did got the same price as the article using my day rate, and cheaper amount using my night rate.

Sadly I can't reproduce that figure now otherwise I could be selling everyone my cheap electricity!

Rather than requires, it seems more like could require in the future.

yes, the only part the government has mandated, as I understand it, is that all car chargers must be capable of being controlled by smart meters.

I'll go whistle then

My guess is that it will be charge-per-mile. If they do that en-bloc (I've read suggested that MOT odometer check will carry a bill for the annual road use) that's nothing like as good as rates for time-of-day ... e.g. encouraging freight to travel off-peak would help traffic flow

 

[WannabeOwner]

the journalist was not so sloppy

OK, now I'm confused.

You calculate the overnight charge as £2.40, on Tide its £2.00 but the article said £4.00, That the bit I reckon was calculated using a Day Rate.

Am I wrong in moaning that the journalist should have used an off Peak rate in their article? This is what they said

"Incentives to use cheaper charging could include energy tariffs that offered cheaper electricity at certain times, such as when solar and wind power are generating larger amounts of power, or when demand is low.

Such an approach requires homes to be fitted with smart meters, which are in 10m households but whose rollout has been slow.

Charging an electric car overnight at home will cost around £4 for 100 miles of range, depending on the electricity tariff."

So right now its half that, and with ToU tariff, which can vary multiple times per day and/or remotely control when a device is charged, it might well be even cheaper - to "dump" surplus electricity.

Also I think most lay-people will read

"A similar distance in a petrol car would cost around £17. However, charging an electric car at public points is more expensive than at home, particularly on rapid chargers."

as being more expensive than petrol. But that may be because I'm be off-on-one ?

 

[Fellsteruk]

This article annoyed me... had a few people shouting across the office, Aey... you have seen this gonna be too expensive to charge that electric car your getting...

Just another attempt to put the downer on EV's I mean the article could have been about anything "Hey it's more expensive to wash ya shitty undies at peak times you know..."

Maybe it's just other people who dont understand or hate EV's are just pi44ing me off...

 

[LoveEV]

I'm sure the others will love topping up their ICE cars for £50-150 a tank and seeing their MPGs in the single figures for the same level of performance.

 

[.jg.]

I guess there will be an increase in 32A Commando sockets installed for use with caravans, welders, etc.

 

[arg]

I guess there will be an increase in 32A Commando sockets installed for use with caravans, welders, etc.

Not really. The headline could alternatively have been written:

UK electric car drivers look forward to paying lower electricity prices at off-peak times.

Your dumb commando socket will bypass the mechanism that ensures you charge on lowest cost electricity (and avoids blowing the fuse at the substation). This is not bad news for home charging.

The bad news it does reinforce is that peak time rapid charging is going to be expensive . This comes as no surprise.

 

[.jg.]

By segregating electric vehicle charging from other electricity use, the government is facilitating a future in which EV charging could be subjected to additional taxation, replacing the lost duty on petrol and diesel.

 

[arg]

By segregating electric vehicle charging from other electricity use, the government is facilitating a future in which EV charging could be subjected to additional taxation, replacing the lost duty on petrol and diesel.

I don't think that it will necessarily separate EV charging from other use. I envisage it being more like the way water metering was introduced: if you wanted to use a hosepipe or other large consumers you had to get a water meter, and could choose to do so if it was beneficial, but ordinary households weren't forced to change. So it could well be that EV drivers are forced to go onto half-hourly metering (for all their usage), and others can if they want to (things like the tide tariff).

The tax point is another issue. Obviously the tax will need to be replaced somehow, but quite likely that will be needed sooner than there is universal adoption of whatever comes out of this consulatation (and abolition of granny leads etc. which can't come until the need for them has been abolished). More sensible in my view would be a transition to a mileage-based tax for all cars (ICE or otherwise). But it's always possible you will turn out to be right..

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Am I wrong in moaning that the journalist should have used an off Peak rate in their article? This is what they said

"Incentives to use cheaper charging could include energy tariffs that offered cheaper electricity at certain times, such as when solar and wind power are generating larger amounts of power, or when demand is low.

Such an approach requires homes to be fitted with smart meters, which are in 10m households but whose rollout has been slow.

Charging an electric car overnight at home will cost around £4 for 100 miles of range, depending on the electricity tariff."

So right now its half that, and with ToU tariff, which can vary multiple times per day and/or remotely control when a device is charged, it might well be even cheaper - to "dump" surplus electricity.

Also I think most lay-people will read

"A similar distance in a petrol car would cost around £17. However, charging an electric car at public points is more expensive than at home, particularly on rapid chargers."

as being more expensive than petrol. But that may be because I'm be off-on-one ?

I think it's just typical of journalism-to-incite where they over-egg the challenges.

"Incentives to use cheaper charging ..."

Err, one of the "incentives to use cheaper charging" would be to make use of the already available TOU tariffs that I'm sure lots of EV owners already use. And _everybody_ in the UK has heard of Economy 7, which means everybody should aware of the idea of TOU.

It's only at _high_ volume of ownership where you _really_ need to get smart, and there are _already_ products for smart charging available.

Frankly, I think the challenges are already being dealt with, pricing will do what's needed and (atypically) accurate articles would reflect the steps with more TOU now and then more smart charging later.

 

[.jg.]

I don't think that it will necessarily separate EV charging from other use.

The text of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 states:

Smart charge points
(1)Regulations may provide that a person must not sell or install a charge point unless it complies with prescribed requirements.
(2)The requirements that may be imposed under subsection (1) include requirements relating to the technical specifications for a charge point, including for example the ability of a charge point—
(a)to receive and process information provided by a prescribed person,
(b)to react to information of a kind mentioned in paragraph (a) (for example, by adjusting the rate of charging or discharging),
(c)to transmit information (including geographical information) to a prescribed person,
(d)to monitor and record energy consumption,
(e)to comply with requirements relating to security,
(f)to achieve energy efficiency, and
(g)to be accessed remotely.​

The act is not talking of electricity use in general - it specifically applies to electric vehicles and Part 2 is about the charging of electric vehicles. Call me cynical but I don't believe a government would go to the trouble of creating legislation to mandate the collection of such data from all electric vehicle charge points solely because they care about pollution and want to gather some interesting statistics.