I know the answer is "whenever the power company says is cheapest", but from a mental model perspective: is it better to plug in the car to charge on a sunny day where solar is generating excess capacity (on other roofs, not mine)...or better when the overall grid utilization is low, like in the middle of the night?
@chris_gammell if it was your solar then day, because it takes load off the grid and you probably couldn't sell your excess electrons for as much as grid ones cost. But since it's not your solar, then night, because if you have variable pricing it will be cheap then when load is low.
@ferrix@chris_gammell add one additional set of constraints: provided the weather is not extreme. If it's extreme then plug in when you'll have the least impact to the high priority power use.
@ferrix@chris_gammell I have solar on my roof and an electric car. When I'm wfh I plug in during the day and charge from the excess of my solar. The effective cost is about $0.04 per kilowatt hour. That's all the power company will pay me for that. That puts my Bolt EUV at about 350 miles per gallon equivalent.
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