Ovo Energy to double cost of home EV charging for some – should you ditch and switch?

Charge Anytime is a free, optional add-on to Ovo's home energy tariffs. It lets you 'smart charge' your EV at home at a heavily discounted price – you set a schedule and then Ovo manages the charging so it happens "when the grid is greenest". To date, it's been one of the cheapest ways to charge your EV, but this is now changing.

And while the new rate is likely to be much cheaper than paying your standard electricity rate for charging, it's much more expensive compared to other types of EV tariffs, where you can pay as little as 6.5p/kWh.

What's happening in a nutshell

Here are the key need-to-knows:

• If you do nothing, you'll default to the new Charge Anytime pay‑as‑you‑go rate of 14p/kWh on Tuesday 4 November. As is the case now, this rate will only apply when you use the Ovo Charge app, and leave your vehicle plugged in so it charges on Ovo's schedule. Outside of this, you'll pay your normal home electricity unit rate.

• New optional monthly Ovo subscription plans will launch on the same day. Instead of pay‑as‑you‑go, you can choose a monthly plan that includes a fixed amount of home smart charging along with some other perks. See below for more on how these subscriptions stack up.

• Charge Anytime remains completely optional. You don't have to sign up to the new monthly subscription plans. You can even opt out of the add-on entirely if you'd like – but then you'd just be paying your (likely much more expensive) standard home electricity rate for all your charging.

• Any early exit fees will be waived if you leave Ovo because of the changes. If you're an existing Charge Anytime user and you're currently on a fixed tariff for your home energy, but now want to switch to a different supplier, Ovo told us it will waive any exit fees.

If you can charge overnight, consider ditching Ovo and switching elsewhere

We'll be frank; comparing EV tariffs is really tricky. How much you pay to charge your EV depends on your personal charging habits and the efficiency of your car, as well as your other home energy use – all of which varies from household to household.

It's even more difficult in this case, because Ovo's EV add-on works differently to most other options on the market, as it offers discounted rates at various times throughout the day.

By contrast, nearly all other energy suppliers' EV tariffs are two-rate plans, where you get much cheaper rates overnight (typically from around midnight to 5am) for all of your electricity use (including charging your EV), but are charged higher rates outside these times.

That said, the price hike on Ovo's Charge Anytime rate to 14p/kWh puts it way above the current cheapest overnight rates for two-rate EV tariffs, which start at 6.5p/kWh. As a result, if you think you can shift your charging times, you can likely save by ditching Ovo and switching to a two-rate EV tariff from another supplier.

See our EV energy tariffs guide for more details of what's available.

Want to stick with Ovo? Its new monthly plans could be worth it for some

Ovo's new monthly subscriptions bundle a range of services, including home charging, public charging and EV charger insurance, into one monthly payment. They're flexible, so you can change between them or switch back to the pay-as-you-go version of Charge Anytime whenever you like.

However, these plans are only worth it if you're sure you can max out all the benefits every month – for example, the monthly home charging allowance doesn't roll over, so if you don't use it all one month, you won't get extra the following month. Here are the key benefits of the plans and our analysis of how much they could be worth:

As the table above shows, it's possible to get good value out of the subscription plans, but given how much they cost (£330 or £450 a year), if you do decide to join, you'll need to be diligent to make sure you're getting your money's worth.