Smart charging is a way to manage your electric vehicle (EV) charging automatically to ensure it's done at the greenest [1] and cheapest times of the day. With EV Optimise, ScottishPower manages your EV charging at your home location. This page provides useful information on what to expect when smart charging your EV with EV Optimise.
You will be prompted to set your smart charging preferences when you sign up to EV Optimise. You will be required to set how much you need your car charged (your charge target) and when you need your car to be ready (ready-by time).
Once confirmed, we will treat these as your default preferences and create an optimised charging session for your car whenever you plug in at home. You can change your preferences at any time through our app to match your needs. Please note you cannot update your preferences when a smart charging session is in progress. If you want to change your preferences whilst your EV is charging, you will need to unplug the charger from your car and wait around 15 minutes until the session has ended.
You can also monitor the status of your charge in the EV Optimise dashboard. If you have notifications enabled for the ScottishPower App, you will get a notification when your session starts and when it finishes, and you will be alerted if anything goes wrong during your charging session. You will also see a detailed breakdown of all your smart charging sessions under ‘Charging history’.
Once you set your charging preferences and we detect your car is plugged in at home, we will calculate an optimised charging session according to your preferences and when electricity is cheapest and greenest [1]. This can take up to 20 mins from plugging your car in at home* and you may see the EV Optimise dashboard reflect this as "Initialising". You will not receive EV Optimise smart charging credit during the 'initialising’ period.
Once we start your smart charging session, we will send you a notification. You can monitor your charging in the EV Optimise dashboard of the ScottishPower App. Please note that your car may start and stop charging multiple times within a session. This is normal as we're making sure your car is charging when the electricity grid is least in demand. When the session finishes, we will send you a notification and you will be able to see a detailed breakdown of your session and savings in the ScottishPower App.
We will aim to smart charge your car to the charge target you have set in the EV Optimise dashboard. However, if you have set a charging limit in your car, we can only charge your vehicle up to that amount.
If this isn’t quite how your session went, check out our troubleshooting FAQs here.
*If you normally have to unlock your EV charger before a charging session, you will need to do the same for EV Optimise to work. Or you can deactivate this setting on your charger (plug and charge mode).
Our intelligent algorithm will ensure that your vehicle is charged in line with your ready-by time and target charge preferences, provided there is sufficient time from when you plug your car in and the ready-by time. If we can’t meet your charge target by your ready-by time, we will send you a notification and you will see a message on the EV Optimise dashboard.
If your car is sitting idle at home, we recommend that you leave your vehicle plugged in. This is to ensure we have sufficient time to deliver your charge within the cheapest and greenest times available.
EV Optimise is a product for home charging. If you charge away from your home location, you won’t receive EV Optimise smart charging credits and the charging will not appear on your EV Optimise dashboard.
Please also note, you won’t be able to see a breakdown of your charging sessions away from home in the ScottishPower App.
This is the charging limit set within your car or car app. EV Optimise cannot exceed your charging limit when smart charging your vehicle and we do not allow you to set a charge target that exceeds this limit.
If you need your car charged above this level, please first update the maximum charge limit in your car or car app.
Please note that often car manufacturers recommend setting a limit of 80% to extend your car battery life. However, this is not a universal rule.
1
The greenest times of day will be when the carbon intensity of the electricity required to charge your EV is at its lowest. This will vary each day depending on a number of factors, including weather conditions, renewable energy generation and demand on the grid.
Last updated: 17 October 2024