We often get asked if we support time of use tariffs so here's a quick explanation of why it's not as simple as you might think.
Loop’s mission is to enable our users to slash their carbon emissions. We believe empowering customers to shift their energy use to different times of day with different costs and different levels of carbon intensity will be a key enabler.
But time of use tariffs aren’t currently supported by Loop.
Why not and what are the challenges?
The first challenge is that UK energy tariffs are more complex than you’d expect. Until recently, there were around 70 energy companies in the UK. Of these, most have multiple tariffs. And these tariffs are different in each of the 10 different UK electricity regions. It adds up to tens of thousands of tariffs. But worse than this: there is no standard for publishing these tariffs. If each supplier published their tariffs in the same format on a specified page on their website we could readily compile a full tariff list. Unfortunately they don’t.
The second challenge is that some of these tariffs require data on electric vehicle charging. For example, Ovo's "Charge Anytime" tariff offers EV charging at a discounted rate. In order to accurately say how much you've spent we need to know both your total use and how much of that use is at the discounted EV charging rate.
The third challenge is that we’re a small team and there’s a lot that we want to do! Time of use tariffs are growing within our customer base but are still relatively niche, so we’re prioritising adding more widely-used functionality first.
Those challenges aside, our mission is to reduce carbon emissions in UK homes. We believe time of use tariffs will be a key tool to get there so Loop will support them in the future, helping you minimise both your fuel bill and your carbon emissions.
If you have any questions about this please email support on support@loop.homes.