British Gas EV Power Review 2026: 9p/kWh Off-Peak

A British Gas EV Power review in 2026 lands somewhere awkward: this is a competent whole-home off-peak tariff from the UK's largest energy retailer, but it sits behind every direct competitor on raw off-peak price. At 9p/kWh between 00:00–05:00, EV Power is materially more expensive than Intelligent Octopus Go's 5.49p (from 1 April 2026), OVO Charge Anytime's 7p and E.ON Next Drive Smart's 8p — all of which we cover elsewhere on this site.

What it has, the others do not: distribution scale. British Gas serves around 7 million customers — roughly twice the next-largest big-six retailer — which makes EV Power the path-of-least-resistance EV tariff for any homeowner who already pays British Gas for gas. Add the EV Power+ upgrade tier (which requires a Hive EV Charger) and the off-peak rate drops to 7.9p alongside a 25% home-energy saving, which closes most of the gap on price.

Below: how the rates compare in practice, what the eligibility rules really are, and which homeowners EV Power genuinely fits.

The EV Power tariff is a single off-peak window applied across all home consumption, similar to E.ON Next Drive Smart and unlike Intelligent Octopus Go (which targets the EV charger specifically). The headline numbers, taken from British Gas's own published tariff page (referenced as the EV Power May27 tariff, current as of 01/04/2026):

The £330/year saving figure comes from British Gas's own modelling — it assumes a household charges enough for 7,000 miles of EV driving and uses the off-peak window to capture that consumption. The methodology is reasonable, but every supplier's modelled saving baseline is the price-cap default tariff (currently around 27p/kWh), and it assumes you would not have switched away from that anyway. Read it as 'this is what you save vs doing nothing', not 'this is what you save vs the best alternative'.

The clearest way to think about EV Power is alongside the other major UK EV tariffs in 2026. We've tracked each on this site — see the Best EV Tariffs UK 2026 ranking for the full set.

On the off-peak number alone, EV Power is the highest of the four. The annual difference for a 7,000-mile EV (≈ 2,000 kWh of dedicated charging plus ≈ 1,000 kWh of whole-home off-peak appliances) works out roughly:

• Vs IOG: 9p − 5.49p = 3.51p/kWh on 3,000 kWh = ≈ £105/year more on EV Power.
• Vs OVO Charge Anytime: 9p − 7p = 2p/kWh on 2,000 kWh of EV charging only (OVO is EV-only) = ≈ £40/year more, partially offset by the whole-home benefit on EV Power.
• Vs E.ON Next Drive Smart: 9p − 8p = 1p/kWh on 3,000 kWh = ≈ £30/year more.

The Power+ upgrade reverses some of this. At 7.9p with the Hive Charger and the 25% all-home saving on a paired British Gas tariff, the effective rate looks closer to E.ON Next Drive Smart on the EV side and competitive with OVO Charge Anytime once whole-home savings are included. The catch is the Hive Charger requirement: see Best Home EV Charger UK 2026 for what you would otherwise be choosing instead.

Three eligibility hurdles, all standard for an EV tariff:

• Smart meter capable of half-hourly reads. SMETS2 or compatible SMETS1 — the same requirement as IOG and OVO Charge Anytime. British Gas installs smart meters free for any customer who doesn't already have one.
• Direct Debit payment. Mandatory. No prepayment-meter or quarterly-bill route on EV Power.
• Online account management. You self-serve via the British Gas website or app — no paper bills.

Switching from another supplier takes the standard ~5 working days under the Faster Switching Programme. Switching from another British Gas tariff is faster, typically the next billing cycle. Mid-contract exit fees may apply if you switch out before the term ends; the personal projection at sign-up will list these.

EV Power lands cleanly with three groups:

• Existing British Gas customers who don't want the friction of switching supplier and don't need to wring every last penny out of the off-peak rate. The 5-hour window covers a typical 30–40 kWh overnight charge on a 7 kW unit comfortably.
• Drivers buying a Hive EV Charger — the Power+ upgrade meaningfully closes the price gap and the Hive unit is OZEV-listed and Smart Charge Points Regulations 2021 compliant. (See our UK home EV charger installation guide for the regulatory context.)
• Owners of incompatible chargers for IOG — Octopus's Intelligent Octopus Go has a finite list of supported brands and models. If your charger isn't on that list, EV Power's no-restriction approach is a workable fallback. (Worth comparing against OVO Charge Anytime's PAYG mode, which solves the same problem.)

It's the wrong call if your only goal is the cheapest possible off-peak rate (IOG wins on raw price), if you have a battery over 80 kWh that needs more than 5 hours to top up overnight, or if you're not interested in being locked into the British Gas / Hive ecosystem to capture the Power+ savings.