Best domestic energy supplier for UK EV charging

[aaroncroydon]

Evening all... I live in London, UK and took delivery of an i3 REX 7 weeks ago. My current energy deal is due to expire in April 2017 (currently with First Utility, no issues with them). My question to all UK based i3 drivers: what recommendation can you make regarding the best energy tariff. I'm getting smart meters installed in March 2017 and I want to capitalise on cheap tariffs. I'm also interested in hearing from anyone with knowledge of EV specific tariffs, as my internet searching has proved elusive

 

[busaman]

i dont know of any EV specific tarifs i just use npower i managed to get them down to arround 10p/kwh 24/7 which to me is a great deal my electric bill has gone marginally up but i have no petrol to pay for..

 

[Buzby]

Anyone that charges you less than 6p per kWh on an off-peak tariff - at the end of the day, they don't care what you use to consume it.

 

[TheMewster]

I've got an i3 coming in four weeks (not that I'm counting...) and I'm planning on switching to Ecotricity.

Mostly it's because I wanted to make sure it's entirely green electricity (gas is only 5% green at the moment, but growing), but they do a £40 per year discount if you have an EV and you get 52 free charges per-year at their public chargers. Not significantly more expensive than my current dirty Npower tariff.

Nice side benefit is having a response to those who seem to delight in saying 'yes, but the electricity to charge your car comes from coal so it's not actually that green...'

Watched Robert's interview with the guy who started Ecotricity on Fully Charged (see YouTube) and that sealed the deal as he seems like a decent guy with the right motives.

 

[ecoangel]

No such thing as 100% green energy in the UK. End of Dec 2016, most of Jan 2017 we had very little wind due to atmospheric high pressure and temperature inversions across europe. All the smog horror stories appeared in the press. Oslo even tried to ban ICE cars for a week. But power generation, home heating and industry are main polluters and all that gets thrown up into the atmosphere comes back down in those circumstances where normally UK exports it with the prevailing SW winds.

Scotland slightly better with hydro. But wind was around 2% until very recently with weather change this week.

UK imports it's CNG from Qatar and Coal from S America. So best not to believe all those electrons are truly green.

I recommend Solar PV if you have a roof but again in UK don't expect to charge your car! 14 PV panels (3.91PVa) made me just 149 kWh since October 2016. Summer is much better of course. Better still fit Solar Thermal into a thermal store - saved us 66% in gas bills!

If you want an ethical supplier then try EBICO.

 

[janner]

You can use this website to guide you on the amount of renewables from U.K. Suppliers; there are quite a few at 100%

http://electricityinfo.org/uk-domestic-electricity-suppliers/

The UK has about 25% renewables. Main thing is to avoid those companies with coal in their generation mix.

 

[TheMewster]

No such thing as 100% green energy in the UK.

Just wondered what the basis is for this? Ecotricity and Good Energy both state that their electricity is 100% from renewables, bearing in mind that electricity is fungible...

I was consuming around 4000 kWh per year from NPower (86% coal and gas), so that's around 3,440 kWh of demand from the coal/gas supply system as a whole, which has now moved to the wind/solar supply system as I've switched to Ecotricity (marginally more expensive, but worth it for the sake of the environment, as well as dealing with the anti-EV 'well you know it all comes from coal' comments...).

As more people do that, demand for coal and gas will reduce, and wind and solar will increase, with more wind and solar farms being built (which are also becoming more efficient as the market grows).

 

[PhilH]

The "it's all from coal anyway" argument is certainly not true in the UK. The image below shows the percentage of UK electricity that's generated by coal:

 

[ecoangel]

We get worst pollution in winter (dec16/jan17) when there's an atmostpheric high above UK and european mainland. Least amount of wind, temperature inversion creates a blanket that traps ALL pollution beneath it. This creates real porblems nationwide and even internationally with lowest AQ recorded in 2014 for UK right across the regions not simply at street level. This is also the same time as maximum space heating demand (combi boilers etc) and least amount of wind and solar electricity. So more energy from fossil fuels. UK has some of the dirtiest coal fired stations that don't meet EU regs but its cheaper to burn and pay fines than to shut them down. Gas is taking over but most of that is now imported from Qatar as CNG. Expect fracking to take over some NG demand in the future.

Yes there's been an improvement in recent years (especially on a windy summers day) but overall the eco generation game is sadly more a marketing slogan than a big reality.

I am all for renewables and sustainable use of energy. By far the best set up I've invested in is solar thermal into thermal store that actually reduces gas boiler useage in winter and means we use 66% less gas per year for water heating and pre heating for space warmth.

The 3.91PV array has lowered household electricity costs by around 1/3 but is still less efficient if comparing imersion heater to solar thermal.

Live view here: https://www.vbus.net/scheme/a5598a47d4ea91688cf544d59128e8f8

 

[ecoangel]

DEFRA 2014 :

https://goo.gl/photos/AFHjUriWZ5dR7dxv7