EV charging and electricity plans
An EV can add a third or more to a household's electricity use. What time you charge it matters as much as how much you charge, which makes choosing the right plan an EV owner's problem.
Your EV is the biggest appliance you can reschedule
Most home appliances run when they run. An EV does not. You can charge your car any time it is home. On a time-of-use plan, the gap between peak and overnight rates can be dramatic. On a plan with a free midday window, charging while the sun is high can cost nothing at all.
That gives EV households the most to gain from comparing plans on their real usage, and the most to lose from an “average household” estimate.
The plans that suit EV owners
Time-of-use plans charge less overnight, when most home charging happens. Whether that beats your current flat rate depends on the rest of your usage too — here is why.
Free-window plans give away power in a set window of the day, usually midday. If your car sits at home during the window, or you can set a charging schedule, this is the cheapest charging there is. See the current free electricity hours in Victoria.
A controlled-load circuit is a separate circuit, wired for one appliance and priced below the general rate. Retailers traditionally price it for water heating; several Victorian plans also offer it for EV charging. Your charger must be wired to that circuit, so it suits a wallbox rather than a portable charger.
Solar households should also look at the feed-in rate: charging the car from your own panels beats selling the same power for a few cents. Current Victorian feed-in rates.
How much could timing your charging save?
It depends on the plan and how much power your car needs. The wider the gap between a plan’s peak and cheap hours, the more each shifted kilowatt-hour saves. And the more kilometres you drive, the more kWh you may be able to shift into them. Nemity reads your meter data and prices every Victorian electricity plan in the official CDR feed against your actual half-hourly usage. It can also estimate what your bill might look like if you moved some usage — EV charging included — into the cheap or free hours of a plan. You see that estimate before you change a single habit.
You will need your meter data file — here is how to get it (free, about five minutes the first time). Aim for a file that covers a year: Nemity can price each season separately, and the best plan for summer is not always the best for winter.