Having been a loyal customer of Ecotricity for nearly two decades, we recently switched to Octopus. I felt bad about it as Ecotricity have done so much to develop the UK's renewable energy sector (plus much more). After much indecision, the recent purchase of our Skoda Enyaq 100% EV meant we needed to swap over to a supplier that could offer us an off-peak tariff for charging the car overnight. 

The Skoda is a 60kW vehicle, meaning that if we charged from flat to 100% it would use 60kW of electricity. However, EV car owners will know that you mustn't let them drop below, ideally, 20% charge, and if you want to prolong the life of the batteries it is best to charge to 80% rather than full whenever you can. Therefore, going from 20% to 80% would be 36kW.

Our previous daytime rate was approximately 30p / kW meaning a 36kW charge would cost us £10.80. The electric vehicle database gives the Skoda 283 Wh/miles, suggesting that it will do 127 miles for £10, thats about 8p per mile.

BUT - if you convert to Octopus Go, and use their overnight off-peak rate, this drops to 2p per mile!!! Compare that to petrol & deisel, especially as it pushed past £1.90 per litre, then the savings are astonishing.

Clearly, we are very lucky to have been able to pay out for a brand new EV, plus a home charger that has the capability of linking with our supplier's second generation smart meter (we have a Zappi). 

We also have 4kW of solar on our roof, so by setting our Zappi on Eco+ mode, it will top up the car for free using whatever surplus energy the panels are producing, reducing our overnight usage even further.

It is a huge shame that this sort of system is only available to those that can afford it. If government had pursued a different approach, many more people would have solar on their roofs, millions more kW/hours would be coming from large scale renewables, and fluctuations in wind, sun and waves would seem like small-fry compared to fluctuations in the international gas price.

Anyway - we are delighted with our Octopus GO account, and are happy to recommend it, especially to anyone that has an EV. 

And as a little bonus, anyone clicking the link and signing up will get £50 credit, and we will get the same, which we will then donate it to the Love The Future Community Interest Company.

Thanks.