This year’s spring bank holiday weekend – a national public holiday in the United Kingdom that took place from Saturday, May 23 to Monday, May 25 – came with a surprise gift to electric car owners. All Octopus energy customers using ‘Agile’ green tariff and the Ohme cable were paid to charge! Yes, PAID.
How can that be? There were fantastic weather conditions that increased energy production (also no heating necessary) coinciding with the pandemic lockdown situation which caused a slump in demand. The combination resulted in negative wholesale electricity prices on May 23 for over 12 hours, with drivers getting paid up to 11p per kWh.
For example, one EV owner was able to charge his Jaguar I-Pace with 82 kWh of electricity and was paid £1.43. The equivalent in gas would have been a refueling costing £34.
The Bath motorist said:
Unfortunately, I did not have enough empty space in the car battery to take full advantage of electricity prices dropping. So, I invited my father, who drives a Tesla and lives around the corner, to plug into my home charger and enjoy free electricity and earn me some money. Because the charger and cables are outside, there was no need for us to go within two meters of each other, so we could still social distance and get paid for charging.
Some customers earned as much as £5 charging their car during the weekend’s negative price period.
The Ohme cable is a smart system that takes into account how much battery capacity the user wants to have the next day and then chooses the best time to charge the vehicle according to when the prices are lowest. It predicts surplus energy levels and can calculate 24 hours ahead of time when prices will be at rock bottom.
Octopus Electric Vehicles CEO, Fiona Howarth, said:
Electric cars can save drivers up to 90% fuel saving normally, but this weekend we even saw drivers getting paid to fill up as Octopus Energy’s Agile tariff prices dropped below zero for a few hours – saving some drivers up to £85.
Even better, drivers with smart tech like the Ohme cable were able to seamlessly take advantage of the negative prices without having to think about when to start and stop their charging – it just happened automatically – a great snapshot of a smart, green future.
David Watson, CEO and founder of Ohme added:
Smart charging is obviously great news for EV drivers, reducing the total cost of owning an EV significantly by passing on energy cost savings.
As well as being a more efficient cleaner mode of transport, EVs will have a profound positive impact on the grid, unlocking value by cheaply shifting demand to times where there is an excess of renewable energy on the system.
And this isn’t the only good news UK EV owners received this month! The Government unveiled its plans to install at least six ultra-rapid charge points at every motorway service station. The move is one of many measures to come thanks to a £1.7bn boost to transform the UK’s roads.
