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EV, solar and battery tariffs compared: how to make your kit pay

Rates checked 15 November 2026 from suppliers' own pages and, for Octopus, its public tariff data. Prices can change, and they vary by region. This is general information for Great Britain, not personal advice, and not a recommendation to switch. Northern Ireland has a different market and is not covered here.

Affiliate disclosure:

If you have an electric car, solar panels or a home battery, a standard variable tariff usually wastes some of what that kit can do. A cheap overnight rate can cut the cost of charging a car. A decent export tariff pays you more for spare solar. A time-of-use deal can let a battery buy cheap power and sell or use it when rates are high. The catch is that these deals do not always stack, and a low night rate is often paired with a high day rate.

This guide sets out the rates we could verify today, which combinations are actually allowed, and short worked examples with the assumptions written out. We do not use affiliate links on energy tariffs. All supplier links below are plain links, except one clearly labelled Octopus Energy referral.

Where we give a pound or pence figure for Octopus, it is for London unless we say otherwise, taken from Octopus's public tariff data on 15 November 2026. Other regions can be quite a bit different, especially on standing charges. Day rates and standing charges for EDF, British Gas, ScottishPower and some E.ON Next tariffs were not published as a single figure on the pages we checked, so we have written “check supplier” rather than guessing.

Why a special tariff is worth a look

From 1 October to 31 December 2026, the Ofgem price cap for a typical dual-fuel household paying by Direct Debit is £1,723 a year. The electricity part of that cap, as a GB average, is 26.32p per kWh and a standing charge of 54.83p per day. Those unit rates only apply if you are on a default or standard variable tariff. They are a useful benchmark, not a personal quote. The cap is due to change on 1 January 2027, and Ofgem has said it will announce the new rates by 25 November 2026. We cover that properly in our energy price cap and fixed deals guide.

An EV tariff can charge the car at 6.5p to 9.5p per kWh instead of 26.32p, but only if you can plug in during the cheap window, and only if the higher day rate does not wipe out the saving on the rest of the house. A solar export tariff can pay anything from 2p to 16p per kWh for spare power, or around 30p for a short evening peak on some battery tariffs, but the better rates usually require you to buy your electricity from the same supplier. That is why the combination matters more than any single headline rate.

EV tariffs we checked today

These are electricity tariffs, or add-ons, designed for charging an electric car at home. The cheap rate usually applies to the whole house during the off-peak window, not just the charger, unless we say it is an add-on for the car only.

Octopus now has three widely available flavours of Intelligent Octopus Go. Max is the variable deal with the 6.5p night rate and a higher day rate. The standard variable version has a 9.9p night rate and a lower day rate. The 12-month fix is 7.9p overnight, with a £50 exit fee. There is also an Octopus EV customers' “EV Saver” fix at 6.9p, which we have not treated as a generally available deal.

Other suppliers, including So Energy, Utility Warehouse and Fuse Energy, also advertise EV tariffs. We did not verify today's unit rates on their own pages, so we have not listed figures for them. If you already buy a bundle of services from one of those firms, get a quote and compare it with the table above, including the day rate and standing charge.

British Gas also offers Charge Power for homes with both an EV charger and a home battery: a 50% discount on the unit rate from 12am to 5am. The resulting pence-per-kWh figure depends on the tariff underneath, so check the quote rather than treating “half price” as a published rate.

Solar export and SEG tariffs

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is the government scheme that pays you for spare renewable electricity you send to the grid. You usually need an MCS or equivalent certificate, proof of grid connection, and a smart meter that records export every half hour. You cannot usually receive SEG and Feed-in Tariff export payments on the same installation. Most of the better rates are only available if the same supplier also sells you your electricity.

The pattern is blunt: if you only export through a supplier that does not sell you electricity, you may be paid 2p to 6p per kWh. If you also buy your electricity from them, 12p or 13p is widely available, and time-of-use export can pay more in the early evening if you have a battery.

Battery-friendly time-of-use tariffs

These tariffs are built so a home battery can charge when power is cheap and discharge, or export, when it is expensive. Octopus Flux is the clearest example, because the import and export rates move together and you have to have both your import and your export on Flux.

Best combo if you have…

This is information, not a personal recommendation. The “best” deal depends on your mileage, how much solar you generate, whether the battery can wait until 4pm to export, and your postcode. The sums below use clearly labelled assumptions and published rates. They are not a quote, and they ignore gas.

Assumptions used in the examples (we will call this our worked-example house):

• Benchmark import rates: Ofgem's GB average cap electricity rates for 1 October to 31 December 2026, 26.32p per kWh and 54.83p per day, for a Direct Debit customer. Your region will differ.
• Home electricity: 2,500 kWh a year, which is Ofgem's typical household figure.
• EV charging: 1,950 kWh a year. That is the figure EDF uses in its official GoElectric example, not a measurement of your car. It is roughly 6,400 miles at 3.3 miles per kWh, or about 8,000 miles if the car is closer to 4.1 miles per kWh.
• How much of the house we shift overnight: 15% of home use, 375 kWh, unless we say otherwise. The other 2,125 kWh stays on the day rate. This is our assumption, not a typical-use statistic.
• Octopus examples: London Direct Debit rates from Octopus's public tariff data on 15 November 2026. VAT on domestic electricity is currently 0%.
• Solar examples: 3,400 kWh generated in a year. That is a mid-range assumption for a 4kW system, not a forecast for your roof. Yield varies a lot with location, shade and direction.

EV only

If the car can use a compatible smart tariff, Intelligent Octopus Go Max or E.ON Next Drive Smart currently have the lowest verified off-peak rate, at 6.5p. If you need a deal that works with any car and charger, EDF GoElectric at 6.66p for seven hours is the strongest official headline rate we saw, followed by E.ON Next Drive and ScottishPower EV Saver at 8.5p, and Octopus Go at 9.4p.

The day rate decides whether that night rate is a bargain. Here is the London maths for Intelligent Octopus Go Max, using the assumptions above.

If you cannot shift any home use, and all 2,500 kWh of household demand sits on the 38.27p day rate, the same tariff still comes out at £1,238.91, which is £132.46 cheaper than the cap on this usage. The saving is smaller because you are paying 11.95p extra on every daytime kilowatt-hour.

The reverse is also true. If the car only uses, say, 500 kWh a year and the house stays on that 38.27p day rate, the same London Max tariff would cost £1,144.66, against a cap bill of £989.73 on 3,000 kWh. That would be about £155 more, not a saving. A cheap night rate is not automatically cheaper overall.

EDF's own published comparison makes the same point without us inventing a day rate. For GoElectric 12-month v3, EDF quotes £1,229 a year for 4,450 kWh (2,500 kWh at peak rates and 1,950 kWh off-peak at 6.66p), against £1,293 on its standard variable tariff at October 2026 cap rates. That is a £64 saving on EDF's assumptions. The overnight rate is doing a lot of work, and the higher day rate and standing charge eat most of it. Always look at both rates, and at the standing charge, on a quote for your postcode.

Solar only

Without a battery, the two things that matter are how much of your solar you use in the house, and what you are paid for the rest. Using 40% in the house and exporting 60% is our assumption, not a promise: 1,360 kWh used, 2,040 kWh exported, from 3,400 kWh generated.

• The 1,360 kWh you use yourself avoids buying that power at the cap rate: 1,360 × 26.32p = £357.95.
• The 2,040 kWh exported is worth £244.80 at Octopus Outgoing's 12p rate, or £265.20 at EDF or E.ON Next's 13p customer rates, but only £122.40 at the 6p open rates from E.ON Next or ScottishPower, £83.64 at Octopus's 4.1p export-only SEG, and £40.80 at EDF's 2p open SEG.

On these numbers, being a supply customer on a 12p or 13p export tariff is worth about £160 to £224 a year more than the weakest open SEG rate, before you even count whether the import tariff itself is any good. If you already have panels and still export through a 2p or 3p deal, that is usually the first thing to change. For a simple solar-only setup, a standard or modest import tariff plus 12p or 13p export with the same supplier is the straightforward combination. Leave Prime Outgoing, Flux and Agile for when you can actually move export into the evening.

Solar plus battery, no EV

Octopus Flux is the tariff built for this. You charge the battery in the 2am–5am cheap window, run the house from solar and the battery during the day, and discharge or export between 4pm and 7pm, when Flux pays a much higher export rate and charges a high import rate. In London today that peak export is 30.31p, against 12p on flat Outgoing.

Keep the same 3,400 kWh generation, and now assume the battery lifts self-use to 75%. That is our assumption: 2,550 kWh used in the house, 850 kWh exported.

• Self-use at the cap rate: 2,550 × 26.32p = £671.16 avoided.
• If that 850 kWh is exported in the Flux London peak at 30.3116p, it is worth £257.65.
• The same 850 kWh at Outgoing's flat 12p is worth £102.00, and at Prime Outgoing's 16p peak it is worth £136.00.

Flux's extra export income, on this assumption, is £155.65 a year against flat Outgoing, or £121.65 against Prime, before you count any overnight top-ups or the fact that Flux's daytime import rate is close to the cap while its evening import rate is much higher. You must not be importing between 4pm and 7pm on Flux if you can avoid it.

If you bought the solar and battery from Octopus, Intelligent Flux can schedule this for you. Otherwise you set the battery schedule yourself. Cosy Octopus is worth a look only if you also have a heat pump or electric heating, because its cheap windows are aimed at that, and its evening peak import in London is over 50p on the 12-month fix. We compare Cosy with EDF, British Gas and E.ON Next in our heat pump tariffs guide.

EV, solar and battery together

This is where comparison sites often stop at a single table, and where the combination rule matters. You cannot put the car on Intelligent Octopus Go and the battery on Flux at the same time, because Flux is a combined import and export tariff. You have to pick a lane:

• Lane A: Intelligent Octopus Go (Max, the 7.9p fix, or the 9.9p variable) for import, plus Prime Outgoing or Agile Outgoing for export. Octopus's smart-tariff terms, updated 11 November 2026, say these export tariffs are compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go.
• Lane B: Octopus Flux for both import and export, and charge the car in the 2am–5am window at the Flux off-peak rate.

Flux pays more for evening export. Go Max is much cheaper for charging the car. Using our 1,950 kWh EV figure and London rates:

• Car on Go Max at 6.5p: 1,950 × 6.5p = £126.75.
• Same car on Flux overnight at 16.1662p: 1,950 × 16.1662p = £315.24.
• Flux therefore costs £188.49 more to charge the car.
• On the export side, Flux's London peak is 14.3116p better than Prime's 16p. To make back that £188.49 you would need £188.49 ÷ 14.3116p, which is about 1,317 kWh of export timed to the 4pm–7pm peak.
• If the battery only sends out 850 kWh at the peak, Flux's extra export income is 850 × 14.3116p = £121.65, which is still £66.84 short of the extra EV charging cost. If it sends out 1,020 kWh (30% of our 3,400 kWh generation assumption), the extra export income is £145.98, still £42.51 short.

On these London figures, and with this much EV charging, Intelligent Octopus Go Max plus Prime Outgoing comes out ahead of Flux unless you can export a lot more than about 1,300 kWh a year in the evening peak. If you drive fewer miles, or you can regularly fill that peak export window, Flux can overtake it. Agile Outgoing can beat Prime on some days, but we have not put a single yearly figure on it because the rate is different every half hour.

Two other combination traps are easy to miss:

• E.ON Next Drive or Drive Smart will generally block you from E.ON Next's 13p Export Exclusive tariff, because that export deal excludes time-of-use import tariffs. You would fall back to Next Flex Export at 6p, unless you qualify for a higher installer-only rate.
• OVO Charge Anytime and ScottishPower EV Optimise only discount the car, so they can sit on top of a normal import tariff and a 12p customer export rate. That can be the cleaner option if you want to keep a simple household rate and still get paid properly for solar.

Practical tips before you switch

1. Check that the import and export deals can be held together with the same supplier. The E.ON Next and Octopus Flux examples above are the ones we could verify. If a web page is vague, ask the supplier in writing before you leave a tariff that already works.
2. Schedule the battery to the cheap and expensive windows, or use a tariff that does it for you. On Flux, that means charging between 2am and 5am and discharging or exporting between 4pm and 7pm, all year, on UK local time. On Intelligent Flux or E.ON Next's managed battery tariffs, the app should do this, but only if the battery is compatible and you have given permission. If you are on Intelligent Octopus Go, the extra smart-charge slots are for the car, not a typical home battery. The battery needs its own 11:30pm to 5:30am schedule, or it can drain into the car. See our Intelligent Octopus Go and home battery guide.
3. Look at the standing charge, not just the unit rate. On Octopus Go and Intelligent Octopus Go, the London standing charge today is 42.56p a day, but it is 67.01p a day in Merseyside and North Wales. Over a year that is a difference of about £89, before you use a single unit.
4. Remember the January price cap. The current cap is £1,723 for a typical dual-fuel household. The January 2027 figure is due by 25 November 2026. A fixed EV tariff will not automatically follow that cap. A variable one might later be revised. Compare any quote with the current cap, and with the new cap once it is published. Our price cap guide will be updated after the announcement.
5. Get a quote for your postcode and your usage, including a realistic split between night and day. If you work from home, or you cannot charge overnight, a cheap EV tariff can cost more than the cap. ScottishPower itself says EV Saver may not suit you if less than 35% of your use is off-peak. EDF says you should be using at least 6% off-peak, and that its EV customers average 43%.
6. Keep the paperwork handy for export: MCS or Flexi-Orb certificate, grid connection letter, and half-hourly export readings. A new export MPAN can take several weeks.
7. This is information only, not advice. Prices can change, eligibility can change, and a tariff that looks excellent in London can look ordinary once the standing charge and day rate for your region are applied.

FAQ

Can I have an EV tariff and a solar export tariff with the same supplier?

Sometimes, but not always. Octopus says Intelligent Octopus Go can be paired with Outgoing Octopus, Prime Outgoing, Agile Outgoing and Outgoing SEG. Octopus Flux is a combined import and export tariff, so you cannot use Flux export with a different Octopus import tariff. E.ON Next's 13p Export Exclusive tariff is not available if you are on a time-of-use import tariff such as Next Drive. Always check that the two deals can be held together before you switch.

What is the cheapest EV off-peak rate you found today?

6.5p per kWh, on Intelligent Octopus Go Max and on E.ON Next Drive Smart. Both need compatible kit. EDF GoElectric is 6.66p and works with any EV and charger. The cheapest rate is not always the cheapest bill, because of day rates and standing charges.

Does the January energy price cap affect these tariffs?

The cap only limits default and standard variable tariffs. Many of the deals above are fixed, or are special time-of-use products outside the cap, so 1 January may not change those unit rates. Variable deals can still be revised by the supplier. The January 2027 cap is due to be announced by 25 November 2026. See our price cap guide.

Do I need a smart meter?

Yes, in practice. The EV and export tariffs we checked need a smart meter the supplier can read, often with half-hourly data. SEG payments also need export recorded every 30 minutes. Suppliers will usually try to fit a meter if you do not have one, but they cannot always connect to every meter.

Is this a recommendation to switch?

No. This is general information for Great Britain, not personal advice and not a recommendation to switch. The worked figures use labelled assumptions and published rates for a stated region. Your usage, roof, battery, car, charger and postcode will change the result. Get a quote for your address and read the tariff terms before you decide.

Sources

1. Ofgem: energy price cap unit rates and standing charges
2. Octopus Energy: Intelligent Octopus Go and how Intelligent Octopus Go works
3. Octopus Energy: Octopus Go
4. Octopus Energy: smart tariffs terms, last updated 11 November 2026 (compatibility of Intelligent Octopus Go with Outgoing, Prime Outgoing, Agile Outgoing and Outgoing SEG)
5. Octopus Energy: public tariff API, checked 15 November 2026, for regional unit rates and standing charges
6. EDF: GoElectric
7. E.ON Next: Next Drive and Next Drive Smart
8. British Gas: EV tariffs
9. ScottishPower: EV Saver and EV Optimise
10. OVO: Charge Anytime
11. Octopus Energy: Outgoing, Prime Outgoing and Agile Outgoing
12. Octopus Energy: Flux and Intelligent Flux FAQs
13. Octopus Energy: Cosy Octopus
14. Octopus Energy: Agile Octopus
15. British Gas: Smart Export Guarantee
16. EDF: Smart Export Guarantee tariffs
17. E.ON Next: Smart Export Guarantee
18. OVO: Smart Export Guarantee
19. ScottishPower: SmartGen SEG
20. British Gas: home battery tariffs, including Charge Power
21. Deal Whizz UK: energy price cap January 2027 and today's fixed deals

Prices and eligibility change often. Figures in this guide were checked on 15 November 2026 and may already be out of date when you read them. Get a quote for your postcode and read the tariff information label before you switch. This is not financial advice, and it is not a recommendation of any supplier or tariff.

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