Your Green Guide to Eco-Friendly EV Charging at Home and Work

Sustainable EV Charging at Home

If you have a charger installed at your home, you’re off to the perfect start. While you can still own and drive an electric car without having access to a dedicated home charger – there are thousands and thousands of public charging stations in the UK and the infrastructure is expanding rapidly – having a charger at home puts you in complete control of when you choose to charge up your EV.

Sustainable EV charging at home is simple to achieve, with options including the use of renewable energy sources, smart charging and scheduling, as well as access to low or green energy tariffs. Use all three to really maximise your eco-friendly electric vehicle charging potential!

Let’s learn more about these green EV charging practices.

Use Renewable Energy Sources

Does your home have solar panels? If so, you can use them to generate renewable energy for EVs. Instead of using electricity from the national grid, use the electricity that your solar panels have converted from sunlight. This is a genuinely renewable source of energy and an excellent way of delivering sustainable EV charging at home.

Not only will you avoid adding any extra potential strain to the grid – there can be huge demand on it during certain times of the day – by using solar panels you’ll typically benefit from lower electricity bills too, as it’s your energy.

Make sure you choose a home charger that can integrate with solar EV charging systems; not all home chargers are compatible, but when it comes to the type of solar-compatible EV charger you need, don’t worry. There’s plenty of choice, with brands such as Zappi, Hypervolt, Ohme and Indra – among others – offering solar-compatible chargers.

If you don’t already have solar panels installed but are committed to driving an electric car for the foreseeable future, it might well be worth making the investment.

An alternative to generating your own power is switching to a green energy tariff – this matches some or all energy units you buy with renewable energy. Ask your energy supplier whether it has a green energy tariff you can switch to; you can read more about EV energy tariffs here.

Some energy suppliers may offer special low tariffs for customers who have an EV and a home charger, as an incentive for charging at certain times. 

Install a Smart Charger

One of the best energy-efficient EV charging tips is to use a smart charger to benefit from cheap off-peak tariff rates. Many home chargers have smart charging capability, which can be controlled via an app.

For example, with Ohme – a popular home charger brand – you can connect to your electricity tariff and schedule charging sessions during off-peak hours. This typically enables you to charge your EV when demand on the national grid is at its very lowest, which means tariff rates are usually at their lowest too – so you pay less.

Octopus Energy offers Intelligent Octopus Go, which is a tariff that has low rates of 7p/kWh between the hours of 11.30pm and 5.30am. So, you can set your Ohme charging app to connect to this low tariff and schedule your EV to charge overnight. You’ll wake up the next morning, ready to go, and your electric car will be charged up and ready to go, too!

Pre-Condition Your EV

Were you aware that you can pre-condition your EV before a journey? It’s a neat feature that can get the temperature of the car just right – whether that’s heating it up on a winter’s day (and clearing a frosty windscreen, too) or cooling it down in hotter weather. Imagine a chilly morning, with the heated seats – if your EV has them – nice and toasty when you enter the vehicle and sit down. Lovely!

A pre-conditioning option is usually available in your charging app – look for ‘cabin preconditioning’ or a similar command. You can switch this on or off, depending on your preferences, and it works during a charging schedule.

As well as providing driver comfort, pre-conditioning an EV does provide advantages. Because it’s used while an electric car is plugged into mains power and charging, pre-conditioning won’t take any power from the battery. This is often a better option than charging the battery to 100%, unplugging, and then heating or cooling the car, which will use battery power.

It’s a good way of optimising the range of your electric car and also protecting the battery, as the battery is also pre-conditioned to be at its optimum operating temperature.

Encourage Workplace Charging Policies

For businesses looking to install a series of EV chargepoints, there’s a lot to think about; not least when it comes to employee usage once the chargers have been fitted. It’s highly recommended that, before a business even begins the process of installation, there is consultation on creating a workplace charging policy.

What should this include? The key to any workplace EV charging guide in the UK is how employees pay to charge their EVs and the logistics of access to those chargers. If a business is going to absorb the costs of charging, making chargepoints free to use for employees will be considered an excellent employee benefit. 

It’s a big perk for employees with EVs and potentially a powerful incentive for staff who drive cars with an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to switch to an all-electric model at some point in the future. If the chargepoints are free, though, bear in mind that the demand to use them will be high, so the policy needs to include rules on how long each employee can use them, and how often. 

There’s likely to be a temptation for some employees to charge their EV all through the working day, regardless of battery range – clearly, that’s not sustainable if there are many employees with electric cars. There may be a charging rota, or a system where each employee has two time slots per week, for example. Perhaps vehicle sharing by employees can be encouraged, too.

Alternatively, businesses can impose a small fee for usage. Even just a few pounds per charging session can cover the energy costs the business will incur but still represent great value for employees who may otherwise be completely reliant on more expensive public charging.

There’s also the option of having designated charging points for employees and for visitors. Businesses can charge higher rates for visitors to use, especially if these charge points are made available to the public. Perhaps the workplace is part of a larger shared business park, with multiple other businesses close by that don’t have charge points installed. This way, there’s an opportunity for the business to not only cover costs but also bring in revenue.

Install Renewable Energy Systems

Just as homeowners can use renewable energy systems – typically solar EV charging systems – to help deliver renewable energy for EVs, so too can businesses. 

Two of the best options for businesses planning to switch to more sustainable energy sources are commercial solar panels and wind turbines. Commercial solar panels can contribute to generating the energy needed to deliver green EV charging practices, but more than that, they can help to provide heat and light for workplaces - so the benefits extend further than charging electric vehicles without using the national grid.

Wind turbines harness wind power to generate a source of renewable electricity which, again, can be used to charge EVs and provide energy for a workplace. 

Both these types of renewable energy systems can help a business reduce energy costs every year, though installation requires investment. It’s important for a business to consider its workplace before making a decision. If a business owns its own premises or is on a long term lease, it can eventually recoup the cost. Businesses with a shorter term lease, or with less certain plans about staying at its current location for more than a few years, may not consider the investment worthwhile – especially when thinking about the cost of installing wind turbines.

Opt for Energy-Efficient Chargers

With a wide range of EV chargers now available, there’s a huge amount of choice for anyone looking to install a chargepoint either at a workplace or at home. It’s important to select one that works best for you and your driving lifestyle.

Chargers are classed as being either compatible with Type 1 or Type 2 connectors. Type 2 is generally now standard with EVs sold in the UK. It’s the newer type but also more energy-efficient than Type 1. Chargers come with different levels of power output too, with 3kW the lowest. That’s really only the equivalent of a standard home plug and will charge an EV slowly – it could take 12-18 hours to charge a battery from empty to full, so it’s not an efficient choice.

Opt for a charger with at least 7kW capacity, which is suitable for a home chargepoint. More powerful than that is 22kW, which is typical for a fast public charger. Rapid and ultra rapid chargers are 50kW and 350kW. These will charge rapidly (and ultra rapidly!) but are far faster and less energy efficient than homes or businesses need.

To get the most energy-efficient charger you can, pick one with WiFi and 4G/5G connectivity, enabling you to schedule smart charging throughout off-peak power periods (overnight, usually). You may also wish to choose an EV charger that’s compatible with solar panels. Whether your home or business already has solar panels fitted, or installing them in the future is a possibility, this gives you the option of maximising eco-friendly electric vehicle charging.