With view to possibly going EV some time down the line, I have been monitoring my overnight elec usage from my smart meter. Taking measurements when I go to bed and then when I get up again so there is prob a variance of an hour each side of that for time differentials.
However sometimes my usage can be as low as 1.1kwh and then other times, like last night, it has worked out at 2.4kwh.
There was no dishwasher or washing machine on, so just a standard overnight which would have consisted of fridge freezer running, 2 phones charging and various items on standby.
Anyone else monitor theirs or could throw in to the equation what else I might have that is using the electricity that I havent thought of?
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On my 1st reading I thought that's a fairly chunky increase, nothing like an immersion heater or towel rail (unlikely) kicking in, or a power shower or kettle?
An old fridge freezer* or freezer can gobble it too, compared to a modern one, they go on and off so you maybe happened to have more on cycles than off in some nights... though again the total would not be enough to account for it.
OTOH If you're saying 1.1 is the lowest and 2.4 the highest maybe 2.4 isn't so wild.
Just out of interest I looked at mine. I'm not at home at the moment and it's a fairly consistent 2.1 kWh from midnight to 07:30 - but there is a plethora of devices running 24h - routers, switches, TV recording devices, lights autoswitching, (yesterday I automated shutting down the NAS overnight which will save about 0.25kWh a day - every little helps LOL).
* I was running a medium size 1986 chest freezer till 2022 and that took over 3 times as much power as its replacement - .09kWh per hour, so an 8 hour night would be 0.75kWh.
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Yeah fridge freezer is just a couple of years old. No immersers, etc. The readings are literally from going to bed until getting up so no human involvement with anything.
And there are no bedtime activities that increase electricity use :)
Unless the dog is making himself a cuppa and grabbing the remote control during the night :)
I am monitoring to see IF I do get EV then whether its beneficial to switch to an EV tariff and my current calculations are that they are not (I WFH so daytime rates (including gas - why? ) increase accordingly. But could mean I could just granny charge all day long at my normal rate of 21.7p and not incur the cost of an EV charger.
Downside is I cant be one of these folk who say "I charge overnight for 5p a kwh or whatever" (they never seem to mention how much dearer their daytime household bills are).
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I charge whenever my rate is lowest. My annual overall rate is around 16p. Agile tariff, incredibly expensive at time, negative at others. Lately there has been much more expensive than cheap though but the rather sophisticated comparator tools still tell me its cheapest for my usage.
How much you charge the car will obv have an effect on your overall cost but say you use a tankful (60kWh) a week I'd hazard a guess that that would be getting on for half your weekly usage and would outweigh your ordinary household usage by enough to make a cheap overnight tariff worth looking at.
Granny charging is fine except when you have two days running of long journeys. I treated the cost of the charger as part of the initial set up.
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I do about 7500 miles a year. Probably around 1000 of that would be on longer journeys like visiting brother down south or touring holidays. So about 6500 miles worth of charging at the house.
Averages about 125 miles a week, at 3miles per kwh, thats 40 kw. (But my car has done 20 miles this full week)
My daytime usage averages 6 kw (just now, will be more in winter I guess)
Either way, gonna be cheaper than my diesel which is currently 21p a mile!
Last edited by: Bobby on Fri 9 Oct 26 at 09:57
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So factor in the saving over diesel to assist with deciding on a charger. As CGN says, it's worth if just for the convenience.
If you choose not to put one in initially, I expect you probably would sooner or later anyway.
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re chargers are there not some issues I see online with certain power companies only recognising certain chargers?
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Not aware of that though not saying there isn't.
I occasionally see some config issues on the Octopus forum, which mainly seem to be on certain tariffs (e.g. Intelligent Octopus) which have to allow Octopus to control charging, where the user has also (or instead) set up charging control on the car software - causing sessions to not work.
My recollection of that tariff btw is that you get 6 hours each day free, it the discretion of Octopus, but when that timing is active your whole house elec is at that rate. They also give additional slots but often at short notice. I guess you somehow get notified on session start/finishes. It's wrinkles like that which make comparison more difficult, and of course there is always the possibility that the tariff rules change.
Last edited by: smokie on Fri 9 Oct 26 at 10:22
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But anytime I look at Octopus you can only join on a normal tariff and then once you are there you can then switch to one of these other tariffs?
On a general note with the whole EV overnight charging, house batteries becoming more popular as well as world politics, I wonder how long before power companies reduce these tariffs with regards to number of hours at cheap rate or maybe even total volume of energy.
I do tend to overthink things.......
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No I think you're right, the idea of cheap rates is to shift energy to when the grid is less congested and clearly with the shift towards EVs, batteries and shape-shifting tariffs it might go quite some way to evening out the tariffs.
You can't easily get away from the industrial power requirements which tend towards daytime but once a few AI data centres come on line the use of everyone else will pale into insignificance.
Medium term the future for fossil fuel prices ain't great either though.
You could be right about having to join then switch but in my experience switching is dead easy and very quick. I'll check later just about to go out for the day.
Remember to ask me for my referral code if you do switch, we both get £50 :-)
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I would recommend an EV charger for convenience alone regardless of the savings you may make.
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Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't an EV charger just let you charge a bit quicker. It could still be run off a standard tariff?
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Yes you are correct. Beside being quicker and easier to plug in it will charge your car around twice as fast.
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Typical home charger will be 32A or ~7kW (most EVs will max at 6.6-7.2kW via single phase AC)
Granny charger runs around 10A or 2.3kW (which is a fairly strong constant draw for XX hours) so roughly 3 times as fast using a bespoke charger.
Nothing inherently wrong with only using a granny charger, but you should make sure the supply and connections are good from the fusebox to the socket the granny is plugged into.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Fri 9 Oct 26 at 13:24
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>>Nothing inherently wrong with only using a granny charger, but you should make sure the supply and connections are good from the fusebox to the socket the granny is plugged into.
Yeah my sparky mate did this for my daughter - feed straight from the fusebox to an outside socket. Even better the actual trip switch has the timer built in for her overnight tariff so she just leaves the car plugged in and the juice only flows during those times. Had looked at a "smart" adaptor but didn't fancy the current running through that (and it would stop the cover on the outside socket from closing).
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Folk obsess over the rate per kwh to the exclusion of all else when thinking about going EV.
Various overnight deals + occassional public charging may give a weighted average cost of ~15p khw - about 4p per mile. Petrol at 45mpg and ~180p litre is 18p per mile.
Over 10,000 miles the saving would be £1400 pa - not trivial but alone not a good reason to change a car. A new £30k on a medium size, mid range motor will lose £4-5000 in depreciation each year. Equals a lease cost of £350-400 per month.
As more folk buy EVs and install batteries overnight demand will increase and cheaper rates likely eroded. If the UK gets to 100% green, the difference between day/night usage may be accomodated by solar which only works during the day. Increased taxes on EV to replace the loss of fuel duties are likely.
I am not suggesting EV is wrong - it is the future, provides a different driving experience, and long term should need less maintenance.
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As smokie said, Octopus Agile is your friend. But you have to check it every day. And if you're WFH, bung washing in and charge the car etc when low daytime rates hit. Recently it's been cheaper around early afternoon than overnight.
Last month I averaged 17p per kwh, and I have 2 EVs to charge. No solar, no battery. Way better than the price cap, or any specialist EV tariff could deliver.
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Overnight elec usage - smokie
