- The UK’s Automobile Association (The AA) published its monthly EV Recharge report, this week, giving an overview of the changes seen across the country’s public charging infrastructure, through the month of September.
- It reveals a notable trend amongst rapid charge point operators, with a notable rise of CPOs pivoting to offer cheaper charging rates at times when electricity itself is cheaper – in a move likely to drive demand through their charging sites at all hours.
- The changes will be welcome news for EV drivers looking for a public charging bargain, or for those regularly driving long distance through the small hours of the night.
CPOs beginning to adopt off-peak pricing
The AA’s monthly report takes into account price per kWh figures at public chargers across the UK, averaging these figures out across all charge point types – from the slowest destination chargers, up to ultra-rapid chargers. The report shows that specifically for rapid public chargers, those with a speed between 50 and 149kW, off-peak pricing dropped from an average of 75p per kWh in August, to 65p per kWh in September – a significant 13% drop.
This reduction can be attributed to a certain pool of CPOs who recently announced the addition of an off-peak pricing strategy. At the end of the summer, major CPO InstaVolt announced that its charging prices between 10pm and 6am would drop to 54p per kWh, compared to its standard 85p per kWh pricing at other hours. Be.EV are another operator to introduce similar, with a 5p off-peak reduction on its chargers between the hours of 9pm and 7am.
This report was revealed just ahead of the Labour government’s autumn budget, which as we reported, covered a number of EV-related areas from purchase incentives to industry investment. Ahead of that budget, the AA did specifically call for the VAT rate on public charging, which is currently set at 20%, to be set at the same level of VAT seen on domestic electricity – 5%. However, such cuts did not materialise out of the budget.
Jack Cousens, Head of Policy at The AA, commented on the report:
“In an interesting move, more operators at the fastest speeds are moving away from flat rates and switching to variable tariffs. While each company differs when off-peak rates come into play, it seems fairly uniform that unsocial hours trigger the best value for charging at high speeds. If drivers are willing to watch the 10 o’clock news in their car, then rapid charging can be as cheap as chips.”
