Turn on, plug in and find out: ESB studies how and when we charge our electric cars

What would it take for you to change your energy use habits? The head honchos at ESB Networks have teamed up with Cork-based electric vehicle charging company Ohme as part of a programme to find an answer to that question.

The new domestic energy flexibility study, called EV Flex, is specifically looking at electric car charging, offering an incentive to take part. The request is a simple one: that participants plug in their electric vehicles when they are parked at home, even if they have no plans to charge them.

The carrot, in this instance, is the prospect of earning rewards. No one will be quitting their day job on the proceeds of this new trial, though – participants can expect to earn up to €78 over the six months it runs. It is a small trial too, capped at 2,000 people.

The plan may have had some people scratching their heads. Doesn’t it make sense that people would plug their cars in regularly to keep them charged?

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The key thing here is that they don’t have to actively charge the car, just develop the habit of plugging in whenever they are home. In the future, this could allow electricity companies to push power to customers when the rates drop due to over-supply on the grid.

What does ESB Networks get out of it? Data.

The information it gathers from the trial could inform how it develops its services in the future, particularly when it comes to how to encourage people to manage energy consumption.

It is all part of the organisation’s moves to manage the network more efficiently, bringing in smart meters and encouraging people to shift electricity usage where possible to offpeak times.

ESB already runs the Is This a Good Time programme that rewards users for participating in what it describes as “flex events”, changing their electricity usage habits in response to supply on the grid.

This new study could help to inform the adoption of dynamic tariffs for customers in the months and years ahead. They will need all the help they can muster to sell this idea to householders.

Smart meters were initially a hard sell to consumers. Dynamic tariffs, where there is less certainty, will probably be an even harder one for risk-averse consumers who are seeking financial certainty in an increasingly expensive economy.