Automated Tesla charging at home for 8c per kWh via Origin Energy
Published on 16th November 2024 by Simon Fearby
Automated Tesla charging at home for 8c per kWh via Origin Energy
This post is for Australian's with a Tesla.
We charge our car every night with Origin Energy to regain the energy lost the day before (usually 8 or 9kW a day). Read here whil we top up every day.
On Average, this would cost us $1.53 a day (rounded up to $2 in the Tesla UI) or $45 monthly. Petrol would have cost us $250 monthly for the same kilometres travelled.
We used to use the Tesla scheduled charging feature to have the power come in at night when we sleep and charge with off peak power.
Every day, the car is ready with our desired charge limit, air-conditioner on and battery pre-conditioned.
Origin EV Power Up
Origin Energy recently launched Origin EV Power Up power plan for Tesla Car’s that promises to drop our overnight power rate per kW from 17c per kW to 8c per kW.
View Origins Video on this scheme here.
I learned how to set up Origin EV Popwer Up here.
I connected our car to the Origin Web App.
Ignore any errors while data loads.
A summary of the Beta User Interface.
I could see that Origin have now connected to our car and have suggested the best charging time (mostly during off-peak times or when the grid has surplus power during the day from Solar). Origin now know when the car was charging and wlll drop the price (credit our account) to 8c per kW.
If Origin want to instruct our car to charge during the day (at 8c per kW) to have our Tesla absorb surplus grid power that is OK. Of course I need to be plugged in.
Conclusion (after 36 Hours)
Stats are now appearing in the Origin Web App
After 2 days our car charged with 17.47 kW, we were charged $1.4. That is $0.08013c per kW.
Summary
- 1kW will get us about 6.738km
- 14.47kW will get us 117+ kilometers
- This is about or 1.1c per km at 8c per kW.
| Per Day | Per Month | |
| Charging costs before in off peak at 17c kW | $1.50 | $45.75c |
| Charging costs with Origin EV Power at 8c kW | $0.70c | $21.35c |
I will see what that balances out to over a month.
Most importantly, the car has chareged up 2x to my desired level while I sleep. The Car pre heated on cold mornings just fine.
We are almost 1 month in an everything is working great.
We are averaging from 60c to 90c per night to top up
Plugging in during the day to get surplus renewable energy
I checked the live PowerGrid Status and could see that renewables were flooding the grid with power.
I checked my previous nights charges KW usage (from the previous nights charge from a long trip). We had used 26.35 kWh at a cost of $2.11 (approx 200km range).
I plugged in the charger to the car in the middle of the day. We would never do this to a point peak power charges.
We had a blue light indicating the car was waiting for Off Peak power
I noticed in the origin app that it could see that Off Peak Scheduled charging was active in the car.
The car started to charge
Origin determined that now (lunch time) was a good time to charge the car while cheap renewables were powering the majority of the grid.
Origin informed our car to start charging.
The only down side is we had to wait 24 hours for the Origin app to show the data for the day time charge and the 8c per kWh cost.
I could see that an extra 1.4kw was used to charge the car at a cost of 12c.
Awesome, We can now trust Origin to deliver off -weak or peak power at the best time at 8c per kWh.
Conclusion (after our first bill)
We used to use the Tesla scheduled charging feature to have the power come in at night when we sleep and charge with off peak power.
We have recharged our Tesla on Origin EV Power Up for over a month (Off Peak and Peak at 8c per kWh). Here are the raw stats.
We recharged with 290KW of power at home at a cost of $22.63.
We travelled over 1,400km (daily driving on Sport mode and 2 long trips out of town for $22.
If you are looking at purchasing a Tesla and you found this post helpful, please consider using my referral link to buy a Tesla https://ts.la/simon10059
Other Posts
Recent Tesla Blog Posts
- Electric Car Research (Australia, Tesla Model Y
- Electric Car Adventures – Our journey on a long road trip
Live Australia Grid Supply and Demand Chart
View the live Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) live Electricity Price per MW here: https://aemo.com.au/
Referral Links
If you found this post helpful and are considering purchasing a Tesla or charger, please consider using these discount links below.
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