Electricians are often seen as experts in the EV field given their proximity to the solutions. Michael Shaughnessy looks at how electricians can offer greater savings to customers.

A lot of the time, electricians are the conduit between consumers and the electricity system and market, passing on valuable information about efficient appliances, renewable energy systems, electricity bills and retail plans.

More and more, electricians will find themselves being asked about EVs and to install EV chargers.  Previous articles in this Driving Change section have talked about determining maximum demand, various residential EV charging solutions and different installation requirements in different jurisdictions.

The installation of an EV charging power outlet or EV charger can be the perfect time to talk about cost-saving strategies, so a consumer can get the full benefit from their EV, without putting extra stress on the grid.

Did you know that a customer merely being able to prove they own an EV, unlocks exclusive electricity retail plans? These EV-only plans feature low-cost rates middle of the day and night with relatively high costs for the late afternoon/evening peak, to discourage charging while other loads such as appliances for cooking the evening meal are unavoidable.

Several retailers are offering special plans for EV owners. It will be a growing list as EV uptake grows and retailers without a plan like this lose market share. Here are the details of a few plans available at the time of writing:

AGL Night Saver EV Energy Plan: An easy-to-follow tariff structure with competitive daytime rates and cheap off-peak rates (~8c/kWh) from midnight to 6am.

Powershop EV plans: Where you have a choice of plans that feature competitive peak time rates with either a nighttime plan with low prices (~10c/kWh) from midnight to 4am or a daytime plan with free energy from midday to 2pm.

Origin EV Power Up: That orchestrates EV charging via a Tesla EVs interface to charge at 8c/kWh.

ENGIE EV Night Saver: Offering 6c/kWh charging between midnight and 6am.

OVO Energy EV plan: This features competitive peak rates, a low nighttime rate of 8c/kWh midnight and 6am and free energy from 11am and 2pm.

Amber: Despite not yet having an EV-specific rate, Amber gets a mention because it exposes consumers to the wholesale price, EV owners can benefit from this for when they choose to charge.

Australians drive on average approximately 40km per day, requiring about 8kWh of energy for a typical EV. For a daytime charge on the above plans, this results in a charge cost of 0c to about $1.60 depending on whether they have solar or not. For a mid-night charge, the cost ranges from 48 to 60c.

Customers can benefit from these plans whether they have Level 1 (~1.8-3kW) or Level 2 chargers (7-22kW) but will be able to benefit more from the free energy of the OVO Energy EV Plan if they have a Level 2 charger.

Tesla EV owners on the Origin plan can use any charger because the Origin App integrates with the vehicle’s application programming interface (API) to determine when to charge. The customer can of course override the app if a charge is needed right away but will pay more than if it was left to its own devices.

For customers who insist on keeping a flat rate tariff and have a Tesla or a compatible EV charger and a compatible solar inverter, ChargeHQ can be a useful app. ChargeHQ monitors excess solar that would otherwise be exported to the grid and diverts it to the EV when plugged in. This ensures the EV is charged at minimum cost, that opportunity cost of the solar feed-in-tariff.

Customers not wishing to engage in fancy chargers and orchestration, can get a lot of the benefits offered by time-of-use (TOU) tariffs through the use of the vehicle’s programmable charging times, in the same manner as setting a preferred radio station.

Once it’s set, the driver just plugs in when they’re at home and forgets about it.  If the vehicle is not that sophisticated, a simple power point timer can do the trick. Reputable brands make analogue, digital and app-controlled timers that won’t break the bank.

How else can your EV customers save?

Accelerating conservatively can help on economy. EVs are fun to drive and the temptation can be to explore the acceleration in different situations. Unfortunately, pushing lots of energy through the motor whilst accelerating hard means it can’t run as efficiently, which equates to more time spent charging.

Drivers should coast as much as they can. Maintaining speed and reducing the amount of accelerating or decelerating the vehicle will help reduce overall energy consumption, just like it does in a fossil fuel vehicle.

Around town, getting off the accelerator in plenty of time for the upcoming turn allows the regenerative braking to reclaim as much energy as possible, instead of washing off speed with brake friction.

Another behaviour that can help drivers save in any vehicle is to stay within the speed limit. Drag is proportional to the square of velocity so the faster you go, the drag force increases non-linearly at highway speeds, costing more energy to push through it. Drag is 44% higher if a driver chooses to do 120km/h as opposed to 100km/h. A clean car will also slightly reduce drag.

There are more gains to be had by having tyre pressure as high as safely possible.

For vehicles with element heating, it can be more efficient to heat the person using heated seats/steering wheels rather than heating the air.  The efficiency gain may not be as clear cut for vehicles that have heat pumps for heating, nevertheless, it’s always advisable to run compressors and fans as little as possible.

If the customer owns a plug-in-hybrid EV (PHEV), encourage them to actually plug it in. To use an example, if a customer can charge their car at 10c/kWh, at a vehicle efficiency of 20kWh/100km it would cost $2 to do 100kms. Whereas a PHEV doing 7L/100km on petrol at $2/L would cost $14 to do 100km (and they have to stop at petrol stations).

Setting up your customer with an EV charging option close to the switchboard will reduce a small amount of consumption. Excess cable increases resistance and leads to voltage drop. Electronics such as the rectifier in the EV will draw more current to compensate.

Believe it or not, there are still publicly accessible free EV chargers. Often found at municipal buildings and sporting grounds, these, usually Level 2 chargers, provide an awesome opportunity to save on travel bills if one has a little time whilst out and about. There’s a filter on the PlugShare App for sniffing out the free deals.

If you’d like to discuss these matters further, learn more at the EVC’s website (evc.org.au) or contact them at office@evc.org.au.