[Julian Thomas]

Thanks everyone for voting on the Paying for Public Charging poll. 95% of us want to be billed for the kWhs that we consume, rather than by time connected.

I'd like to see what people's views are about what price point would be acceptable. We all know that free electricity isn't viable in the long term (unless subsidised by the government, or by a vehicle manufacturer like Tesla).

Whilst we'll all naturally want "the cheapest possible price", I really want to find out what would be the maximum price that you'd be willing to pay, before you started refusing to use charge points / use petrol instead.

So... vote for the tipping point... and comment!

N.B. For comparison: Polar Instant is 52p/kWh for 13Amp and 46p/kWh for 16Amp (excluding the bit about paying by time connected). I've assumed 4 miles per kWh for the price per mile.

 

[Julian Thomas]

Sorry - I couldn't edit the original poll so have created a new one.

 

[tim_battersby]

For me this depends how fast the kWh are delivered. If I'm doing a long trip on motorways, then I need rapids to be available and working. For this rapid charger I'm prepared to pay more for the same amount of electricity than I would for some that's delivered at the same rate that my home charger will deliver. Not much different to paying more for fuel on a motorway, perhaps?

So for rapids I would pay a Max of 20-25p/kWh. Any more than this and it would be cheaper to take my diesel car with me (since my battery hire costs 9.3p/mile too).

For a charger that delivered 7kW I'd not really want to pay much more than I might pay for daytime use at home, say 15p.

 

[Alexander Sims]

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and I fully respect that.
I just wanted to hear people views on what I am pondering though - I notice some people have voted for 10p/kwh as their 'Maximum' that they would spend. If I charge at home then I pay 14p/kwh and that is without the standing charge per day. Now I would guess there are few people out there paying lass than 10p/kwh during the day, so how can we expect to pay less at public charging stations than at home? Public charging does require maintenance of posts, back room staff and other things so unless an energy provider (Ecotricity is the only one at the moment) has their network then the charging network company has to buy the energy in the first place and then incorporate their costs... I would be very surprised if a business can operate at anything other than a huge loss if they were to provide public charging at 10p/kwh
My vote was 35p/kwh as I feel that it the point at which it still works out marginally cheaper to charge up rather than fill up and use the rex on my i3...

 

[Alexander Sims]

For me this depends how fast the kWh are delivered. If I'm doing a long trip on motorways, then I need rapids to be available and working. For this rapid charger I'm prepared to pay more for the same amount of electricity than I would for some that's delivered at the same rate that my home charger will deliver. Not much different to paying more for fuel on a motorway, perhaps?

So for rapids I would pay a Max of 20-25p/kWh. Any more than this and it would be cheaper to take my diesel car with me (since my battery hire costs 9.3p/mile too).

For a charger that delivered 7kW I'd not really want to pay much more than I might pay for daytime use at home, say 15p.

I guess taking into account Zoe battery rental does skew things a bit as it immediately adds a cost per mile aside from energy...
If I was in the same situation I agree that 20-25p/kwh is probably all I would bother paying if I had the 9.3p per mile battery rental alongside that.

 

[Julian Thomas]

@Alexander Sims - my only comment on this (excellent) post by you would be... my British Gas bill says that the cost of the electricity is 4.5p, transmission is 2.4p... so British Gas can get electricity to me for 6.9p. There's then some customer service, billing, maintenance, VAT on top - but 6.9p is apparently the actual cost.

Swings and roundabouts after that - Chargemaster won't have the buying power of British Gas, so won't get such a good deal on the raw fuel. But they'll presumably spend less on billing / customer service / etc...?

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

I voted 40p as that seems most close to current petrol/diesel prices and if I could get to charge at similar prices to that then I would be happy

 

[Julian Thomas]

@Paul_Churchley - that's really interesting!! I'd assumed the higher cost of buying/leasing an EV meant people would always want EV miles to be cheaper than petrol ones

 

[Mark J Constable]

@Paul_Churchley - that's really interesting!! I'd assumed the higher cost of buying/leasing an EV meant people would always want EV miles to be cheaper than petrol ones

The quicker EVs get popular, the less time that state of affairs will last anyway.

 

[Mark J Constable]

@Alexander Sims - my only comment on this (excellent) post by you would be... my British Gas bill says that the cost of the electricity is 4.5p, transmission is 2.4p... so British Gas can get electricity to me for 6.9p. There's then some customer service, billing, maintenance, VAT on top - but 6.9p is apparently the actual cost.

Swings and roundabouts after that - Chargemaster won't have the buying power of British Gas, so won't get such a good deal on the raw fuel. But they'll presumably spend less on billing / customer service / etc...?

Chargemaster's Customer Service costs will be far higher per customer than a large energy supplier, and they won't be able to supply electricity direct as they can only be a reseller. The rate at which they can buy will perhaps be lower than domestic prices if they can secure a Business contract priced against significant volume, but VAT at 20% is higher than that the 5% charged on Domestic Energy.

But the energy company's customer service costs will be included too - Public charging networks can't replace any of the functions that make up cost from meter and going upstream - they can only add to them.

For clarity, the recent Ofgem ruling on per-kWh billing solely refers to an organisation (such as CM) reselling electricity already "supplied" using the mandated logical and physical architecture by a Licenced Supplier (us etc.). It does not provide any kind of relaxation of market entry rules for any organisation wishing to supply electricity.

 

[flipper]

Chargemaster's Customer Service costs will be far higher per customer than a large energy supplier, and they won't be able to supply electricity direct as they can only be a reseller. The rate at which they can buy will perhaps be lower than domestic prices if they can secure a Business contract priced against significant volume, but VAT at 20% is higher than that the 5% charged on Domestic Energy.

But the energy company's customer service costs will be included too - Public charging networks can't replace any of the functions that make up cost from meter and going upstream - they can only add to them.

For clarity, the recent Ofgem ruling on per-kWh billing solely refers to reselling electricity already "supplied" using the mandated logical and physical architecture by a Licenced Supplier. It does not provide any kind of relaxation of market entry rules for any organisation wishing to supply electricity.

Sorry, it's late on a Saturday night... Are you saying that ChargeMaster *can't* charge per kWh?

 

[Mark J Constable]

Sorry, it's late on a Saturday night... Are you saying that ChargeMaster *can't* charge per kWh?

How on earth did you get that?

One more time - they *can*, but only as a *reseller* of Electricity already *Supplied*, by a *Supplier*.

Chargemaster don't wish to be a supplier, at least that's what David Martell told me the last time I spoke to him on the matter

Entry processes to become a Supplier are massive. When I was with Seeboard it took 500 people two years to convert systems and processes to 1998 non-franchised spec. Starting from scratch is easier, but I still suspect Dale Vince had to find several million quid before signing up customer 1.

 

[flipper]

How on earth did you get that?

One more time - they *can*, but only as a *reseller* of Electricity already *Supplied*, by a *Supplier*.

Chargemaster don't wish to be a supplier, at least that's what David Martell told me the last time I spoke to him on the matter

Entry processes to become a Supplier are massive. When I was with Seeboard it took 500 people two years to convert systems and processes to 1998 non-franchised spec. Starting from scratch is easier, but I still suspect Dale Vince had to find several million quid before signing up customer 1.

How did I get that? Wine. Hence my apology.

So, they can but they choose not to?

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

The way I understand it is that *anyone* can now sell electricity by the kWh for profit providing it is for the purpose of charging a plug-in car. You no longer need to become a supplier... if that not right?

@Paul_Churchley - that's really interesting!! I'd assumed the higher cost of buying/leasing an EV meant people would always want EV miles to be cheaper than petrol ones

Only some EVs are more expensive. Take the Leaf... it is about the same as a comparable Focus or not much more.

As for public charging being cheaper? No. I am not looking for public charging to be cheaper. If I want a public charging network and want it to be reliable, then I would expect to have to pay a higher price than at home but in my opinion it cannot be more than the equivalent price of petrol or else there is little reason to take the EV instead of the ICE. The lower cost of charging at home/work, which is where most charging will be done, will overall make EV ownership cheaper.

I would expect/hope that public charging might be 25-30p but I would pay up to 40p/kWh

 

[Mark J Constable]

How did I get that? Wine. Hence my apology.

So, they can but they choose not to?

Wine. I'm just jealous - I've given up the sauce for a bit.

On another thread I posted a long ramble about the legislation only being half the story.

I'll try (and most likely fail) to keep this short!

In order to retail electricity on a per kWh basis, one needs an instrument that complies with, and is certified against, the Measuring Instruments Directive. All electricity meters in the EU are so certified, tested before, during and after use, and then removed after a set lifetime in the field. They can then be re-certified and re-used as a type, if it's economic to do so.

In order to facilitate per kWh billing, there has to be a MID-compliant device, capable of registering a per-transaction meter advance. Not a meter on the circuit, because only one party is paying that bill, and not even simply a meter in the Chargepoint...

One needs architecture that can be polled and an advance registered for every billed transaction undertaken by the Chargepoint. An accurately measured kWh reading has to be stored against a user ID in a secure and incorruptible fashion. Such architecture is in use in 1MW CoP3 (post 1990) and 100kW CoP5 (post 1994) metering, but advances are logged against a timestamp (every 30 mins) rather than an external trigger like a sale. Referred to as Half-Hourly metering. But in this case the matching of a meter advance to a customer account takes place offline in suppliers back office billing systems. There is no user data stored in the meter in these examples.

So for Chargepoints to bill per kWh, somebody needs to have had the foresight to fit them with the required gubbins to match a user ID from a Smartcard to a MID compliant meter advance, store it, and then make it available for download (either batch or realtime).

I know York now have kWh billing. Their network is also recent. I have no knowledge but am willing to bet the difference between operators who can and operators who can't is tied up with who has the tech installed and who doesn't.

And consider that to introduce kWh billing, the *whole* network needs to be so enabled. That's easier for a council than a national provider.

 

[Julian Thomas]

I feel like I'm missing something... Polar Instant records your time, and your kWh, against your profile on the website when you use RFID/app?

 

[Alexander Sims]

I feel like I'm missing something... Polar Instant records your time, and your kWh, against your profile on the website when you use RFID/app?

But is is horrendously inaccurate sometimes so perhaps this is just a prediction using the power rating of the socket vs time it is live rather than an accurately measured kWh reading...? Just a suggestion.
Then when there is a communication error it skews the information somehow

 

[Mark J Constable]

But is is horrendously inaccurate sometimes so perhaps this is just a prediction using the power rating of the socket vs time it is live rather than an accurately measured kWh reading...? Just a suggestion.
Then when there is a communication error it skews the information somehow

Bang on - unless the architecture is MID certified, you can't use it for kWh billing. Plenty of devices available to measure kWh, from clip on devices, to 13A socket passthroughs and what have you - none of these would be accurate enough. All it would take would be a few reported instances of inaccuracy and the certification would be pulled and then it's major cost and ache. I know of two instances in my career where there has been a national recall of a certified meter model. It's a sobering thing to get a letter telling you to go do tens of thousands of site visits and be quick about it...

 

[Mark J Constable]

The way I understand it is that *anyone* can now sell electricity by the kWh for profit providing it is for the purpose of charging a plug-in car. You no longer need to become a supplier... if that not right?

No, that's right. I think the confusion is caused by the definition of the word "supplier" as opposed to the word "Supplier". Bear with me.

Only an entity with a Supply Licence can Supply electricity I.e. Get it to a mandated metering point. The change was to allow Resellers (who take over after the metering point) to provide electricity on a per kWh basis. But to someone not chained to a desk in an energy company for 20 years, I do get that in terms of a reseller, providing electricity sounds like the same thing as Supplying it.

 

[Jason Wallace]

I still suspect Dale Vince had to find several million quid before signing up customer 1.

Radio 4 The Bottom Line had a piece with the folks who set OVO up. I'm sure that they downplayed things a bit but the gave the impression that it's not tough or expensive to do