Charlie Cook, CEO and founder of Rightcharge, gives his top tips to EV drivers on choosing the best energy tariff and home charge point for their personal needs.

Charlie Cook, Rightcharge CEO and founder

For electric fleet drivers with access to off street parking, this question is an important one. Fleet drivers can travel as much as five times as far as the average driver and so by getting it right they can make substantial savings, both financially and sustainably. Here’s my top tips:

Read up on smart charging

There are primarily two types of chargers – dumb and smart. The difference is that smart chargers let you automatically schedule your charge during off peak hours (typically between midnight and 7am), which also happens to nicely coincide with when the UK’s electricity generation mix is cleanest (more wind and nuclear and less gas).

Smart charging can reduce your energy bill by as much as £4,000 per year. Additionally, using electricity overnight results in 25% less C02 going into the atmosphere than during the evening.

If you’re looking to buy an EV charger soon, then it’s worth investing in a smart one to access the cost and carbon benefits. From June onwards UK regulations will mean that all new home EV chargers will need to have smart charging functionality.

Know how to compare energy tariffs

Get to grips with using a comparison system that can tell you the most effective energy tariff for you based on your own home electricity use and charging habits. By visiting the Rightcharge website and answering a few preliminary questions, you can get a bespoke recommendation on the best EV tariff (and smart charger combination) for your individual circumstances.

Once energy prices increase in the UK on 1 April the potential savings will be even more relevant for those that know how to effectively compare energy tariffs. From this date, if you’re a fleet driver doing 35,000 miles a year, you could save nearly £4,000 a year and reduce your carbon usage by about 25% by choosing an EV-tariff over a standard tariff.

Know what you’re signing up for

When we choose a mobile phone contract, most of us go for the one that best suits our individual needs. If we use our mobile mostly for browsing or social media, then we prioritise data over calls. If we’re travelling abroad a lot, we go for a tariff that includes free international calls.

It’s much the same when it comes to knowing the details of the energy tariff you are on. The length of the off-peak charging time as well as the costs during that time are the key points to pay attention to.

As someone who clocks up a lot of miles your EV will need longer charge times, so you want to ensure that you don’t overspill too often into peak charge times. For example, it may be cheaper to go for a tariff that has a slightly more expensive off-peak cost but a much longer off-peak charging window because you can access the cheaper energy for longer.

Consider your home set-up, now and in the future

With all of us responsible for changing our energy usage to help the UK become more sustainable it’s also worth thinking ahead as your circumstances are quite likely to change in the coming years as more incentives come into play to encourage EV driving.

If you’re planning on getting solar panels (or already have them, kudos to you!), then you’ll want to make the most of that clean power. Some smart chargers can be set to only charge when you’re generating excess energy from your solar panels and they’ll make sure you don’t pull any excess energy from the grid, if that’s the setting you choose.

If you’re planning on having more than one EV (and so more than one charger) then you’ll need both chargers to have fuse protection included (known as load balancing in industry terms). Chargers are so powerful that two running in parallel will blow the main fuse in most homes. Fuse protection means the chargers will drop power temporarily to the car they see that your home’s total power demand is getting close to the fuse limit.

Let other drivers know

Word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of marketing. Fleet managers especially have a role in communicating the benefits of having the right home EV charging set up because it will save their drivers (and their business) money and make it more sustainable.

By spreading the word, you could also help your fellow EV drivers make money in future.

It won’t be long until electric car chargers will also be able to discharge drivers’ cars, so they can support renewables and be paid for sending electricity back to the grid at peak times, and then charge back up with cheaper, cleaner electricity in the night (this is known as ‘vehicle-to-grid’, or ‘V2G’).