It's a question we hear often, "How do I find the best public EV charging rates in Ireland?". With more than 30 charge point operators (CPOs) on the island it can be difficult. However, we do have several tips for getting the best prices wherever it is you do decide to charge.

1. Know what's around. What CPOs are in the area you're planning to charge in, use a Discovery & Route Planning service to figure it out if you need to. This will help limit or figure out which of the subsequent tips are of use. For example, if you're looking for CCS charging in Killarney, you'll have a choice of ESB ecars, ePower, & EZO... so, as you'll come to learn, that may get you thinking whether you can avail of ePower's discounted off-peak charging rates (tip #3), & assume there's no day / date promotions or discounts (tip #7).

2. App v. Contactless. A number of CPOs offer a discount for not using contactless payment to pay at the charger. Ionity & Applegreen Electric offer a discount of €0.04/kWh, & €0.05/kWh, when using their app to pay for your charge.

3. What time is it? A number of CPOs offer discounted off-peak charging rates. Hours, & savings, may vary - though you can reasonably assume late night to early morning. In the case of the below, each (ePower, Weev, Tesla) offers a greater than €0.20/kWh discount during these times. Other CPOs offering time variable rates are Brite, & Source (Subscription required).

ePower (23:00 - 06:00)	Weev (22:00 - 07:00)	Tesla (22:00 - 09:00)

4. What are you driving? A number of vehicle manufacturers offer a discounted pricing service if you've one of their vehicles. These generally entail a subscription (which we'll cover next) though subject to a VIN verification, with the fee waived for an introductory period, e.g. BMW Charging's free for the first year. An outlier to this is Tesla, who provide a lifetime of discounted (or free) Supercharging at Tesla Superchargers (compared to their pay as you go (PAYG) rates for non-Tesla vehicles).

5. Consider a Subscription. As we say in our New EV Owner's Guide, divide the monthly subscription fee by the difference between the PAYG & subscription charging rates to determine how much charging you’ll need to do before subscribing becomes the less expensive option ESB ecars' €4.79 a month, offering a €0.05/kWh discount. You'll therefore need average at least 95/kWh of charging per month before you'll see savings versus PAYG.

6. Shop around. A CPO's pricing isn't necessarily universal across their own network, & can vary by location & site host. Two notable examples of this being chargers located at Aldi (ePower) and Lidl (EZO), both of whom charge a lower than usual €0.45/kWh (AC), and (Lidl-only currently) €0.50/kWh (DC).

Additionally, the majority of CPOs support interoperability & / or roaming, for example, you can use ESB ecars & Ionity chargers with your EZO account. CPO pricing can vary when on other services, most notably Octopus Electroverse, but be careful, while some may be lower, others may be the exact same, or even higher - as illustrated below.

ePower at Aldi, using Electroverse	ePower at Aldi, using ePower

7. What day / date is it? Aside from time, a number of CPOs also feature promotions or discounts on specific days or dates. Examples include:

• Weev Wednesday - My Weev users charging at Weev branded chargers on these days receive an equal credit amount back on to their account.

• Brite - In addition to time based pricing, pricing varies by day, with mid-week (Tuesday - Thursday) receiving up to €0.10/kWh of a discount compared to other days.

• Applegreen's July 24 "birthday" - Applegreen Electric's a €0.24/kWh discount for app users on that day.