Designing Tariff for Charging Electric Vehicles at Home with Equity in Mind - The Tripartite Tariff - Published Article

Sep 25, 2026

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Electricity tariff design is examined through an equity lens for home EV charging under modern working patterns that include daytime and night shifts. The study critiques existing home tariffs that allocate most off-peak electricity to night hours, reflecting an industrial-age assumption of uniform work schedules. A tripartite tariff is proposed to enable off-peak EV charging opportunities across both daytime and night. Using 15 user profiles spanning low-, middle-, and high-income earners over four weeks, results show inclusive access at lower off-peak rates and reduced disadvantage for groups who would otherwise have limited charging opportunities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryGeneral

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time6 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Limitations of existing domestic electricity tariffs

Motivation for including night and daytime workers

Scenario of EV charging access and off-peak availability

Designing Tariff for Charging Electric Vehicles at Home with Equity in Mind – The Tripartite Tariff Ademulegun, O. O. , Flynn, D. , & Hewitt, N. (2025) . Designing Tariff for Charging Electric Vehicles at Home with Equity in Mind – The Tripartite Tariff. Sustainable Cities and Society, 118, 1-17. Article 106018. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.106018](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.106018) Link to publication record in Ulster University Research Portal Published in: Sustainable Cities and Society Publication Status: Published (in print/issue): 01/01/2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2024.106018 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Document Licence: CC BY For Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) published under Ulster University's Rights Retention Policy for Scholarly Works (RRPSW) When citing an AAM published under Ulster University's RRPSW please use the following citation structure: Author, A. A. (Year) . Title of article. Journal Name,[Accepted Author Manuscript] . PURE Portal URL. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. General rights The copyright and moral rights to the output are retained by the output author(s), unless otherwise stated by the document licence. Unless otherwise stated, users are permitted to download a copy of the output for personal study or non-commercial research and are permitted to freely distribute the URL of the output. They are not permitted to alter, reproduce, distribute or make any commercial use of the output without obtaining the permission of the author(s) . If the document is licenced under Creative Commons, the rights of users of the documents can be found at [https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/) . Take down policy The Research Portal is Ulster University's institutional repository that provides access to Ulster's research outputs. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [pure-support@ulster.ac.uk](pure-support@ulster.ac.uk) Download date: 25/09/2026 Sustainable Cities and Society 118 (2025) 106018 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Cities and Society journal [homepage:](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs)[ www.elsevier.com/locate/scs](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs) | Designing tariff for charging electric vehicles at home with equity in mind – The tripartite tariff
Oluwasola O. Ademulegun a,*, Damian Flynn b, Neil J. Hewitt a
a Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST), School of Architecture & the Built Environment, Ulster University, 2-24 York Street, Belfast, BT15 1AP Northern Ireland, UK b School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland | | | | --- | --- | --- | | A R T I C L E I N F O | | A B S T R A C T | | Keywords:
Electricity tariff design Equity in decarbonisation
E-mobility demand flexibility Home electric vehicle charging Just transition
Left behind group
Time-of-use electricity bill management Transport energy justice | | Extant electricity tariffs model an industrial age when electricity predominantly came from centralised conventional generators, and they still model the pre-pandemic years when virtually everyone shared similar work pattern of working from dawn to dusk. The extant home electricity tariffs offer off-peak electricity mainly during night hours. The tripartite tariff – a home Electric Vehicle (EV) charging tariff that offers off-peak EV charging opportunities during daytime and night hours – is presented. The objective is to assess how access to a tripartite tariff impacts an individual worker’s ability to charge their EV at home using off-peak electricity and implications in cognizance of a democratised nex

FAQs

What problem do current home electricity tariffs create for EV charging equity?

They mostly allocate off-peak electricity to night hours, assuming people work in the day and are home at night, which can disadvantage shift workers who need off-peak charging.

What is the tripartite tariff proposed in the study?

It is a home EV charging tariff that provides off-peak charging opportunities during both daytime and night hours, aiming for more inclusive access.

How did the researchers test whether the tripartite tariff improves access?

They designed the tariff using 15 user profiles representing low-, middle-, and high-income earners working at different times across four successive weeks, then compared charging access under a traditional tariff regime.

Sep 25, 2026

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