New Zealand’s electricity market just changed in a way that matters directly to every EV owner. As of 1 July 2026, the Electricity Authority requires all large power retailers, including Contact, Meridian, Mercury and Genesis, to offer a time-of-use or off-peak pricing plan, with full compliance required by 30 October 2026. In practice, this means nearly every household in the country now has real access to cheaper overnight power, whether or not they’ve been offered it before.
For EV owners, this is the single biggest lever available to reduce charging costs beyond just “charging at home instead of in public.” Here’s how to actually use it.
Why this matters more than switching to home charging alone
Charging at home already beats public charging on cost by a wide margin. Public DC fast charging in NZ typically runs 40-85 cents per kWh, compared to home rates that can sit well under 20 cents per kWh overnight on the right plan. But a lot of EV owners charge at home on a flat-rate plan without realising there’s another 40-50% saving sitting on top of that, simply by shifting when the charging happens.
NZ’s power pricing follows a predictable daily pattern:
- Peak: weekdays, roughly 7am-11am and 5pm-9pm, when power is most expensive
- Off-peak: overnight (typically 9pm/11pm to 7am) and most weekends, when power is cheapest, but only if you’re on a plan that actually prices it that way
On a flat-rate plan, the price is the same all day, so none of this matters. On a time-of-use or off-peak plan, it matters a lot.
What the major retailers are currently offering
Every retailer structures this slightly differently, so it’s worth understanding the three broad approaches rather than just picking whichever plan is advertised loudest:
- Free-hour plans: Electric Kiwi’s model gives you a single movable free hour each day, which you place wherever suits, commonly used to run a full EV top-up charge overnight.
- Discounted overnight window plans: Meridian’s EV Plan offers lower rates specifically between 9pm and 7am, plus a set rate for any solar you export. Mercury’s equivalent EV plan applies a percentage discount to the same overnight window.
- Free block plans: Contact’s Good Nights plan gives a few hours of completely free power in a fixed evening-to-midnight window, with a paid-for option (Good Charge) offering discounted power across the full night.
The right choice depends entirely on your actual charging pattern. A free 9pm-midnight window is only valuable if your car can realistically finish charging inside it; a full 9pm-7am discounted window suits a slower overnight trickle charge better. This is exactly the kind of decision that’s much easier to get right with a charger that can be scheduled rather than one you plug in and hope for the best.
The part most guides leave out: scheduling only works if your charger can do it
Here’s the catch with all of these plans: the saving only exists if the charging actually happens inside the cheap window. Manually remembering to plug in at 9pm and unplug before 7am works, but it’s easy to forget, and it doesn’t help at all if you get home at 6pm and just plug straight in out of habit.
A charger with built-in scheduling removes the guesswork entirely. You set your off-peak window once, based on whichever plan you’re on, and every charge from then on happens inside it automatically. If you’ve also got solar, a charger that can prioritise solar generation during the day adds a second, completely free source of charging on top of the off-peak saving.
Our Ocular IQ Home Solar 7kW is built around exactly this: smart scheduling to match whatever off-peak window your retailer gives you, plus solar matching if you’ve got panels, so you’re not relying on memory to capture savings that are otherwise sitting right there in your power plan. At an average charging cost around 28c/kWh on a standard rate, a 70kWh battery costs you close to $20 to fully charge; on a good off-peak plan, that same charge can come in meaningfully cheaper, for the same 400km-plus of range.
Putting it together
If you’re charging an EV at home in New Zealand right now, there are two separate questions worth answering honestly:
- Am I actually on an off-peak or time-of-use plan, or still sitting on a flat rate because switching felt like a hassle?
- Does my charger actually charge during the cheap window, or am I relying on remembering to plug in at the right time?
Getting both right is where the real saving is. Not just charging at home instead of in public, but charging at home at the right time, automatically, every night.
Not sure what setup makes sense for your home, your car, and your power plan? Our EV charger price estimate tool will give you a clear picture in a couple of minutes, and our team can help you match a charger and schedule to whichever off-peak plan makes sense for your household.
