Tariffs and grants / Supplier-specific tariffs / OVO Charge Anytime

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OVO Charge Anytime

Smart-charging add-on for compatible EVs or chargers.

Tariff availability, rates and terms were checked on 22 July 2026. They are a dated snapshot, so confirm the account-specific offer before acting.

OVO Charge Anytime is a smart-charging add-on for EVs, sold to existing OVO Energy customers rather than as a standalone tariff. It sits on top of a home electricity plan, variable or fixed, and discounts the electricity used to charge a compatible EV. Charging is scheduled by Kaluza, OVO’s grid-flexibility platform, which moves each session to the times when the grid is cheapest and carries the highest share of renewable generation.

Unlike a two-rate EV tariff, it has no fixed overnight cheap window; the system charges whenever it judges best before the driver’s deadline. The discount reaches EV charging only, so the rest of the home’s electricity stays on the standard rate.

Pay-as-you-go pricing and the monthly plans

On pay as you go (PAYG), smart charging is billed at an effective 14p/kWh. OVO advertises this as around 4p per mile, using an assumed efficiency of 4 miles per kWh. That rate doubled from 7p/kWh on 4 November 2025.

The four monthly plans replace the per-kWh charge with a flat fee that buys a mileage allowance, counted at the same 4 miles per kWh.

Plan Fee per month Home charging Monthly cap Public voucher per year Extras
Standard £27.50 ~8,400 miles/year 700 miles £120 EV Charger Cover
Premium £37.50 ~12,000 miles/year 1,000 miles £120 EV Charger Cover, battery health test, 15% Kwik Fit discount
Standard Plus £59.50 ~16,000 miles/year 1,400 miles £240 EV Charger Cover, battery health test, Kwik Fit discount
Premium Plus £79.50 ~24,000 miles/year 2,000 miles £240 EV Charger Cover, battery health test, Kwik Fit discount

The monthly allowance does not roll over; it resets on the first of each month. Charging beyond the cap is billed at the standard home rate with no discount. There is no long-term contract, so a customer can switch plan or drop to PAYG month to month.

OVO also offers Power Move Flex for Charge Anytime, which pairs the plan with rewards for shifting electricity use away from specified peak periods. The qualifying periods and rewards can change, so they should be checked in the current offer rather than treated as a permanent tariff feature.

The credit-based billing model

All electricity, EV charging included, is first billed at the standard home rate. OVO calls this the Type-of-Use model. In the first working week of each month, a credit for the previous month’s smart charging is applied to the account balance. The direct debit itself is not adjusted; the credit lands on the balance.

On a monthly plan, the plan fee is taken at the start of the month and the credit for smart-charged miles arrives the following month. A driver on the Premium plan who smart-charges 900 miles in a month uses about 225 kWh. At a 25p/kWh home rate that is billed as £56.25, then returned in full as credit, so the charging itself costs only the £37.50 plan fee.

Because the standard-rate charge lands first and the credit arrives a month later, the account shows full-price charging until the credit posts. Users describe this lag as confusing, particularly in the first month.

On pay as you go, the maximum Charge Anytime credit is £100 per month per account. The amount of smart charging this covers depends on the gap between the normal home rate and 14p/kWh, so it is not a fixed kWh allowance. Smart charging after the credit cap is reached is billed at the normal home rate. The monthly plans use their own home-charging allowances instead.

How smart charging is scheduled

The driver sets a ready-by time in the OVO Charge app, or the Volvo Cars app for Volvo drivers. Kaluza schedules charging to finish by that time, favouring the cheapest, greenest half-hours. The car can be plugged in at any point, and the system decides when charging starts and stops. A single session may pause and resume more than once as prices and grid conditions change.

Plugging in does not start charging straight away. The car waits for its scheduled window, which is why some drivers find the “anytime” name misleading. An Urgent Charge override forces immediate charging, but that electricity is billed at the standard home rate rather than the discounted rate. Smart scheduling needs at least three hours between plugging in and the ready-by time. Once that ready-by time is set the system runs unattended and reliably has the car charged by the deadline, which suits shift workers and drivers on irregular schedules who do not want to manage a fixed overnight window.

Eligibility, compatible cars and chargers

Charge Anytime is open to OVO pay-monthly electricity customers who pay by direct debit. Prepayment customers are not eligible. It works with any compatible OVO tariff, variable or fixed, dual fuel or electricity only. The home needs a smart meter sending half-hourly readings, a stable internet connection and the OVO Charge app.

The discount reaches the car through either a compatible EV or a compatible smart charger. Only one of the two is needed.

Direct vehicle connection covers cars from BMW, Cupra, Mini, Porsche, Renault, SEAT, Skoda, Tesla, Volkswagen and Volvo, with the specific eligible models varying within each brand; OVO recommends checking a given model in the app. Drivers of any Volkswagen Group brand can connect through Kaluza. Some cars are excluded: the Polestar 2 is not compatible, and the Volvo EX30 and EX90 have been reported as unsupported through the Volvo Cars app route.

On the charger side, the compatible list includes the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro, the Indra Smart PRO, the Indra Smart LUX, the Andersen A2 and the Andersen A3. A charger that is not on the list can still work where the car itself is compatible. OVO maintains the authoritative list on its compatibility page, last updated April 2026, so older third-party listings can be out of date.

Ohme chargers, the Home Pro and ePod, stopped connecting directly to Charge Anytime on 15 July 2025. OVO estimated that about 75% of affected customers could move to a vehicle-based connection. Drivers whose cars are not directly compatible, including many Polestar and MG owners, lost access to the discounted rate.

Solar homes

A home with solar panels needs a charger flagged as solar-compatible on OVO’s list. Fitting one may require a CT clamp (current transformer clamp) so the charger can measure solar generation. Electricity the car draws from local solar is left out of the credit calculation, and OVO only applies Charge Anytime credit where a solar-compatible charger is used.

The Volvo 7p rate

Volvo drivers can reach a 7p/kWh PAYG rate that other customers no longer get, managed through the Volvo Cars app instead of the OVO Charge app. New Charge Anytime customers with an eligible Volvo also receive £50 of credit, which OVO frames as roughly 2,700 miles. Eligible models are the fully electric XC40 Recharge, C40 Recharge, EX40 and EC40. The list also covers plug-in hybrids: the XC60, S90 and V90 from 2022 and the XC90, S60 and V60 from 2023.

Public charging vouchers

Monthly plans include a public-charging voucher: £120 a year on Standard and Premium, £240 a year on Standard Plus and Premium Plus. It can be spent at more than 400,000 charge points across Europe, including Osprey, MFG, InstaVolt, TotalEnergies, Allego, Fastned and Ionity. Public charging is redeemed through the OVO Charge app. PAYG users get no public-charging credit.

How the rate compares with other EV tariffs

The effective 14p/kWh PAYG rate is the highest among the major EV smart tariffs. One 2026 review put the rival off-peak rates at 8p/kWh for Intelligent Octopus Go, 6.99p/kWh for EDF GoElectric Overnight, 8p/kWh for E.ON Next Drive Smart and 9p/kWh for British Gas Electric Driver. On a 60kWh battery, the gap between 14p and 8p works out at £3.60 a full charge; a driver charging 200 times a year would pay around £720 more.

The counterweight is that Charge Anytime does not require moving the whole home onto a new tariff, which can suit a customer who already has a competitive OVO home rate and does not want to switch supplier. The discount stays confined to EV charging, whereas a two-rate tariff’s cheap window also covers other overnight use.

The same review scored Charge Anytime 3.5 out of 5, rating its smart features and green credentials highly and its value for money lower. MoneySavingExpert’s assessment was that most drivers who can charge overnight would pay less on a two-rate tariff, and that the monthly plans only make sense for someone who uses close to the full mileage allowance each month.

Price history and the November 2025 changes

Charge Anytime launched in March 2023 at 10p/kWh and dropped to 7p/kWh that November, when OVO called it the cheapest home EV charging plan in the UK. In September 2025 OVO announced the current structure: the PAYG rate doubling to 14p/kWh and the four monthly plans. The changes took effect on 4 November 2025. Exit fees were waived for existing fixed-tariff customers who wanted to leave over the change. The change was unpopular with EV drivers, some of whom reported moving to Octopus Intelligent Go.

Households with more than one EV

A plan covers an OVO account rather than a single car, so a household with more than one EV shares one mileage allowance. The Standard Plus and Premium Plus plans, at 16,000 and 24,000 miles a year, are aimed at multi-car households. The OVO Charge app can manage several compatible vehicles. A car that is not compatible charges at the standard home rate with no credit.

Adding and cancelling

Existing OVO customers add Charge Anytime through the OVO app or website, then set it up in the OVO Charge app. New customers switch their energy supply to OVO first, which OVO says usually takes four to six weeks, then add it from the Offers section. Signing up mid-month gives a pro-rated first fee while the full mileage allowance still applies. Plans can be switched monthly or dropped for PAYG, and cancellation takes effect at the end of the following month.

Applies to

EV charging

Last reviewed

22 Jul 2026