Tariff management schedules EV charging to run during cheaper electricity price windows, usually off-peak, so a vehicle finishes charging by a set time without paying peak-rate prices for power it didn't need urgently.
How It Works
The driver or fleet operator sets a target: charged by a certain time, or a maximum daily budget. The charger or connected app then works backwards from an electricity tariff's price schedule — a fixed off-peak window, or a live half-hourly price feed on a dynamic tariff — and starts charging only when it needs to, at the cheapest available slots, to hit the target on time.
This is different from simply plugging in and walking away: without tariff management, a charger defaults to running at full power the moment it's connected, regardless of what that electricity costs at that exact moment.
Fixed Off-Peak vs. Dynamic Tariffs
| Fixed off-peak tariff | Dynamic (half-hourly) tariff | |
|---|---|---|
| How pricing works | One cheap window, same time every night | Price changes every 30 minutes based on wholesale market conditions |
| What tariff management does | Delays charging until the window opens | Picks the cheapest slots across the whole schedule, which move night to night |
| Typical saving | Moderate, predictable | Can be larger, but variable |
Where It Fits Alongside Load Management
Tariff management answers when to charge. Load management answers how much power is available to charge with at any given moment, based on everything else the site is drawing. A well-configured charger runs both at once: only charging in cheap price windows, at whatever rate the site's total demand allows in that moment.
Neutron's Approach
Our Electron platform and connected Master Units support tariff-aware scheduling out of the box, so fixed or dynamic off-peak windows can be set once and left to run without manual intervention every night.
Does tariff management require a special electricity tariff?
It works best with a time-of-use or EV-specific tariff that has a genuinely cheaper off-peak window, but the scheduling itself is a charger or app feature, not something the energy supplier has to provide. On a flat-rate tariff, tariff management has nothing to optimise against.
What's the difference between tariff management and load management?
Tariff management decides when to charge based on electricity price. Load management decides how much power is available to charge with at any given moment, based on the site's total electricity demand. A charger can run both at once: charging only during cheap hours, at a rate the site's load management system allows.
Want charging that schedules itself around the cheapest rates?
Electron and our Master Units support tariff-aware scheduling as standard.
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