Ireland is currently striving to source 10% of the energy required for its transport fleet from renewable energy sources by 2020. As part of the measures being implemented in order to help realise this ambitious target a number of Government schemes have been introduced to financially subsidise the purchase of alternative energy vehicles in an effort to achieve 10% EV (electric vehicle) penetration in the country's road fleet by 2020. The replacement of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles with EV equivalents poses challenges for grid operators while simultaneously offering opportunities in terms of distributed energy storage and flexible load. This paper examines how optimising the charging cycles of an electric car using DSM (Demand Side Management) based on a number of criteria could be used to achieve financial savings, increased demand on renewable energy, reduce demand on thermal generation plant, and reduce peak load demand. The results demonstrate that significant gains can be achieved using currently available market data which highlights the point that DSM can be implemented without any further technological advents. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.