Best EV Tariff 2026: Solar and Battery Homes in Scotland

If you charge an electric car at home and have solar panels and a battery, or plan to add them, the best EV tariff is the one whose cheap overnight hours fill both the car and the battery without punishing what you still buy by day. On 6 October 2026, EDF's GoElectric had the lowest overnight rate of the open-to-all EV tariffs we checked, 6.66p/kWh from 11pm to 6am. Intelligent Octopus Go charged 7.6p/kWh from 11:30pm to 5:30am but adds smart-charging slots, a battery add-on and Octopus's export tariffs. E.ON Next Drive Smart had the lowest published day rate in Scotland, with no exit fee.

Rates come from each supplier's own tariff data on 6 October 2026. None include VAT: the government has zero-rated domestic electricity in Great Britain from 1 October 2026 until 31 March 2027.

What a solar and battery home needs from an EV tariff

Four things separate a good EV tariff for a battery home from a good EV tariff in general:

• The cheap rate must apply to the whole home, not just the car, or your battery cannot use it. Intelligent Octopus Go, Octopus Go, EDF GoElectric, E.ON Next Drive, British Gas EV Power and ScottishPower EV Saver all price your whole supply by time of day. OVO Charge Anytime, ScottishPower EV Optimise and British Gas Hive Power+ only discount the car's charging.
• The window has to be long enough for car and battery together. Octopus's own modelling assumes a 28kWh top-up takes four hours on a standard 7kW home charger, which leaves little room in a five-hour window for a battery too.
• The day rate matters in a Scottish winter, when panels cover little and the battery runs out before evening.
• The tariff must pair with an export tariff you are happy with, because the panels will still produce surplus from spring to autumn.

Intelligent Octopus Go in 2026: how the cheap hours work

Intelligent Octopus Go gives your whole home 7.6p/kWh every night from 11:30pm to 5:30am. Separately, your car gets up to six hours of smart charging a day at the same rate, counted from midday to midday, which Octopus schedules for the cheapest and greenest times. Those car slots can fall outside the overnight window, and when they do, your whole home gets the 7.6p rate for that half hour as well.

In May 2026 Octopus announced a four-rate structure that separates the car from the home, and its current Intelligent Octopus Go tariffs are published that way. Car charging beyond six hours, or any "bump" charge you trigger yourself, is billed at the day rate even at 2am, and, where it is available on your account, a Charge Cap setting in the Octopus app stops charging before that happens. Octopus bills on what your smart meter imports, so if solar or the battery is covering the car, you pay only for the shortfall.

Octopus is only offering fixed rates on Intelligent Octopus Go while wholesale prices are volatile, with a £50 exit fee if you leave early. Drivers who get their car through Octopus Electric Vehicles can get an exclusive 6.6p version. Eligibility depends on your car or charger connecting to Octopus. On 6 October 2026 its supported car makes included Audi, BMW, CUPRA, Ford, Mini, Nissan, Polestar, Porsche, Renault, SEAT, Skoda, Tesla and Volkswagen, and supported charger brands included Andersen, Hypervolt, Indra, myenergi, Ohme and Wallbox among 14. Octopus checks your exact model at sign-up.

Charging a home battery on Intelligent Octopus Go: the current rules

Few of the comparison guides we reviewed cover this, so here is what Octopus itself says, as of 6 October 2026:

• Your home battery can fill during the 11:30pm to 5:30am window at 7.6p. Octopus's own tariff guide recommends exactly that for homes with an EV, solar and a battery, then using or selling the stored energy.
• The six-hour cap applies only to the car. Octopus confirms its Charge Cap counts energy used by the EV, not energy used to charge a home battery.
• Keep the battery from emptying itself into the car. Octopus advises setting the battery so it is "blinded" to the car charger.
• On Intelligent Octopus Go, Octopus advises against solar-divert settings for the car and suggests exporting surplus solar instead. The maths below shows why.
• You cannot run a third-party battery-optimisation service on top. Octopus's own add-on, Charge Pack, is allowed: paired with Outgoing Octopus, it takes over a supported battery for roughly two grid events a week and pays a guaranteed minimum of £12 a month.

A battery filled at 7.6p and exported on Outgoing Octopus at 12p clears 4.4p/kWh before losses, or 8.4p/kWh if it goes out between 4pm and 7pm on Prime Outgoing at 16p. The bigger prize is using that stored power to avoid the 36.37p day rate, worth 28.8p/kWh in South Scotland.

Octopus Go: the fixed window that works with any EV

Octopus Go is the simpler, older tariff: 9.5p/kWh for the whole home every night from 12:30am to 5:30am, with no smart scheduling. It works with any EV and any charger, and you do not need a dedicated charger at all, which makes it the fallback if Octopus cannot connect to your car. You need a smart meter Octopus can read, and Octopus says connecting to it generally takes about 14 days.

Like Intelligent Octopus Go, it is fixed-only for now with a £50 exit fee. Its five-hour window is the main limit for a battery home: a car top-up and a 10kWh battery both want the same hours.

Other EV tariffs: EDF, E.ON Next, British Gas, ScottishPower and OVO

Three details matter here. EDF also sells a charger-and-tariff bundle at 6.18p, and British Gas takes 25% off car charging through its Hive Power+ add-on if your charger is compatible. ScottishPower's windows follow GMT, so on most of its meters the cheap hours run from 1am to 6am while clocks are on summer time. And British Gas says a home with both an EV and a battery qualifies for Charge Power, its battery tariff.

South and North Scotland day rates side by side

Where suppliers publish regional prices, the overnight rate is the same in both Scottish regions. The day rate is where North Scotland pays more, and it is the number that bites in winter. Only those suppliers are shown.

Livingston, Edinburgh, Glasgow, central Stirling and Falkirk sit in South Scotland; Dundee, Perth, Dunblane, Kinross, Aberdeen and Inverness sit in North Scotland, according to Octopus's postcode lookup, because the regions follow the electricity network areas. Some postcodes around Stirling fall on the North Scotland side, so check your own. Against Intelligent Octopus Go, E.ON Next Drive Smart's day rate is 5.8p lower in South Scotland and 6.8p lower in North Scotland, and EDF's 18-month GoElectric is 5.6p and 5.4p lower. Intelligent Octopus Go claws some of that back when the car's smart slots land in daytime and give the house the 7.6p rate.

Pairing your EV tariff with an export tariff

Octopus's import tariffs, including both Go tariffs, pair with Outgoing Octopus at a flat 12p/kWh, Prime Outgoing at 16p from 4pm to 7pm and 9p at other times, or Agile Outgoing. The one combination to rule out is Octopus Flux, which is a combined import and export tariff with its own export side; our Octopus Flux guide weighs Flux against Intelligent Octopus Go for a battery home. Other suppliers pay their own export rates, sometimes more if they also supply your import, and our guide to export rates in Scotland compares them. For the wider picture, our comparison of best tariffs for solar and battery homes sets these EV tariffs against Flux, Agile and the rest.

Solar-matched charging: when a solar-diverting charger pays

A solar-diverting charger sends surplus solar into the car instead of the grid. Each kilowatt-hour it diverts is worth what that charge would otherwise have cost, minus the export payment you give up.

So on a cheap EV tariff, the sums favour exporting your solar and charging the car overnight, which fits Octopus's advice for Intelligent Octopus Go. A solar-diverting charger earns its keep on a single-rate or Flux-style tariff, or if the car is usually away overnight and at home by day. In Scotland the surplus to divert is mostly a spring and summer story.

Which EV tariff should you pick?

Choosing the tariff is half the job; the charger and battery have to be set up to follow it. Our home EV charger installation page covers smart chargers, installation and network notification, and our guide to EV charger installation in Scotland covers the wider options. If you are adding panels and storage at the same time, see solar panels with battery storage. Our in-house team and vetted MCS-certified trade partners can model these tariffs against your own usage. Get your free quote.