Best OVO Energy tariff / plan for charging my electric vehicle (EV)?

I’m considering moving to OVO as recommended for people with electric cars, When I did the general quote it says £72pm if have a smart meter on the Better Smart Plan. Interestingly £70pm fixed for two years without a smart meter. No idea why.

I then hit the refine quote and gave added details and the same plan was now quoting over £100pm. Why?

I think you want to compare the actual tariff, in p/kWh and standing charge, rather than projected costs. You have no idea what kind of assumptions go into the projected cost. 

But my guess is that Better Smart is cheaper than the standard variable tariff. A fixed tariff is different, and can be more expensive or cheaper depending on market expectations. Keep in mind that variable tariffs are likely to go up in autumn. 

When comparing, think about how often you’ll need to charge your car. If you only need to charge for less than 4 hours each night you should look at tariffs that offer cheap electricity overnight. If you won’t be charging overnight there will be less of a benefit from smart meter tariffs and a low overall rate may be more beneficial for you.

The way wholesale prices are going at the moment I’d avoid variable tariffs as these are likely to go up rather than down in the near future. Lock in a fixed tariff for now, and then if prices do start to come down again look to switch to a better fixed or variable tariff.

@nealmurphy and @MrPuds have both given great advice so far. There’s not really much more I can add to be honest! I actually would like to see them get a rank up out of this, since they’ve got a better answer than I can give this time.

However, I will say that you can have a Smart Meter with OVO regardless of the tariff you pick and OVO will happily install one for you if you don’t yet have any. The only tariff which enforces an upgrade is the Better Smart Energy tariff which requires you to not currently have a Smart Meter and be happy to upgrade to one within three months. Other than that, all the tariffs on offer are available both with and without a Smart Meter (Better Energy is identical to Better Smart Energy but without the upgrade requirement).

You may want to check OVO Drive as well. It doesn’t show up on the regular Quote & Switch tool, but you can get to it via https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/ev-tariff .

Hi @Sillup and welcome to the OVO online community.

A great question to ask if you’re thinking of switching to OVO with an EV and you’ve asked it in the best place as we’ve got some EV members ( @MrPuds , @nealmurphy ) on hand who’ve already given some great advice on the advantages of a fixed plan. 

In answer to this one, when checking the direct debit suggestion on each plan on our Quote and Switch page, we’ll base the calculation on average usage patterns initially. By entering your usage figures by clicking ‘Refine your quote’ you’ll see a more accurate suggestion, which may differ from the original monthly amount depending on how your usage figures compare to the national average.

Our community volunteer @Blastoise186 has made a good shout-out to our latest EV tariff offering, OVO Drive. There’s a great discussion and some FAQs on this plan answered here -

Had a chance to compare the options? We’d love to hear what you think! 

• Jess_OVO are you seriously suggesting that the monthly DD would rise from £72pm to £1224pm? I got the latter figure wrong in my original post as clearly thought it wasn't possible but I have checked and it did go to £1224pm. I’ve never paid more than £100pm for dual fuel!

• Also, I put in actual usage figures in both of your options.

That does sound strange, @Sillup. It’s worth double checking the usage figures you’ve entered in that case.

Our ‘Refine your quote’ page gives you the option to toggle between monthly or yearly usage as well, so make sure this is properly selected for the usage figures you’re entering.  

Let us know if this helped get a bit more of a realistic quote! 

thanks I’ll do that.

Jess

That made quite a difference. Silly me!

It’s a reasonable quote but I’d have to pay £60 early exit costs so maybe I’ll come back to you once I get to the 49 days prior to end when they can't charge me.

Thanks for your help. The OVO Drive seems a good tariff.

Kind regards

Sue

Welcome @Warrenm . It’s good to meet you. :)

SSE sold their retail division SSE Energy Services to OVO back in 2020 and all SSE customers are slowly being migrated to OVO. That’s probably why you were redirected.

OVO Drive sounds like it might be the best option, especially when combined with the OVO Drive Anytime add-on to get the cheap anytime charging rates. But even without that add-on, I think you can still get reasonably cheap charging regardless. To get the Drive Anytime add-on, you would need to have the Kaluza Smart Pro EV Charger as it’s currently the only one that unlocks the 5p/kWh EV Charging rate though. If you don’t yet have any charger at home, it’s definitely one to consider because the special rate applies at all hours, rather than just overnight.

Alternatively, you could consider one of the regular tariffs with Economy 7 attached, but that might or might not be appropriate depending on circumstances. If you can primarily charge the car up during the seven cheap hours overnight, it could work in your favour.

I hope this helps you out. But please feel free to ask if you need any more help.