THE GREEN PARTY has promised to facilitate a cut in electricity prices for electric vehicle (EV) owners if reelected to government.

Green Party Minister of State Joe O’Brien said that the amount of electricity stored in an EV battery is “surprising big” compared to the typical household power demand.

“Over the course of a day, the average Irish household uses less than a sixth of what a typical EV can store in its battery,” he said.

The party said that most EV owners currently charge their car batteries at night as electricity tends to be cheaper to use due to lower demand, but most owners don’t come close to using their full battery charge during a normal day. 

Speaking today, O’Brien said that the Green Party will introduce a system where EV owners can charge their car batteries using low-price electricity at night, and then run their homes using that same electricity during the day – if returned to power.

“This means they get to avoid paying more expensive day-time rates for electricity,” he said, adding that it was also more environmentally friendly, as most electricity generated at night comes from wind power, while gas plants are used during the day to supplement increased demand.

The new system would also allow EV users to sell a portion of the electricity from their car batteries to the national grid for a profit when demand is high, such as during winter nights when lots of families are cooking and watching TV at the same time, the party said.

A similar system is already in place which allows homes to sell surplus electricity from their solar panels to the grid.

“The Green Party has been leading the way for years on making green technology more accessible to households such as cutting the red tape around installing solar panels or making them cheaper or harnessing the potential of offshore wind. That’s why it’s so important that we’re part of the next government,” Minister O’Brien said.

In September, it was reported that new registrations of electric vehicles were down 29.3% last month compared to the same month the year before, according to figures released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry.

The chair of the Irish Electric Vehicle Association said that the decline in electric vehicle sales has been driven by a reduction in grants provided by the government.