Is it possible that it had previously had a CT clamp to monitor house load, but that has been damaged / lost during the smartmeter install. 1.5kW-ish would be about the slowest charge rate possible - 6A is the lowest available current that the chargepoint can offer to the car using AC EVSE protocols.

 

Hi, Thanks for the response. To be honest, I don't even know what is CT clamp. You might be right as the charger was excellent until smart meter installation. It never gave me problem and was charging always at 7.4kW. Do you think any local electrician can fix this? or Should I go back to the energy supplier to correct their mistake? or should I ask ChargedEV who installed the EV charger? Please for your advice. Thanks once again.

 

The installation of the Smart Meter should be downstream from your house fuse box, between that and the mains supply. Depending on how you're set up, you may also have an isolator switch also downstream from the house fuse box.

So in theory there should not have been any issues because of the location of the smart meter before your household supply. But as @divenal mentions, it is possible there was a CT clamp previously and it's not been re-attached.

Do you know if your charger installer installed the 'reference electrode' as noted by Infra in the installation manual for this charger? It isn't always required but can be based on your earthing. That said, again if your charger worked before then the installation of the Smart Meter should not have made any difference.

On page 28 of the installation manual for your charger (see here if you don't have this), it shows how the CT clamp should be positioned. I would check this first, and if not present then whoever did the Smart Meter installation (likely your supplier or maybe the DNO) needs to come back to fix their error. Likely they won't though. So you're left with getting in a general sparky as this sort of thing is standard stuff they should be able to deal with. Of course, if you see the CT clamp left dangling, you can re-attach this yourself as there's no risk. Just make sure the arrow on the outside of the CT clamp casing is pointing towards your house fuse box (i.e. towards the smart meter in the picture below).

 

View attachment 171309
[/QUOTE]

No earth connection to the service head?

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Sorry I'm not sure how it was before. But, I'm not sure whether CT clamp was there before. Please see the photo after smart meter installation.

 

From left to right I see there is an isolator (grey cables from the top going to your house fuse box), smart meter, mains utility supply fuse (80Amps), plus some extra earthing. No idea what the box on the far right is.

Unless there is a CT clamp on the brown cable between the isolator and smart meter, or the brown cable between the smart meter and mains utility supply, both just outside the picture shared, then you have no CT clamp in place that I can see. Without it, your charger will not be able to identify the overall load on the supply. And hence without that, it may well be reverting to a 'safe' lower usage draw.

 

The far right one is the switch for EV charger. Here is the other photo.

 

I would suggest you phone Indra support and ask them what the charger does without a CT clamp being present. That will determine if this is indeed the reason for the reduced performance when charging.

If it turns out to be the case, and if you can't find the previous CT clamp anywhere, you'll need to get someone in to install one.
They are hard-wired into the EV charger itself and are usually a slim black cable. Sometimes the EV charger installer uses a special cable that includes both power and CT cabling between the EV charger and your utility supply area. i.e. to the box on the far right of your picture. In either case, there will be this slim (black) cable with a square plastic clamp which is around 1.5" square (sometimes they're oblong, sometimes they're a bit bigger or smaller). In the picture I shared above, it is the oblong blue plastic clamp with the red tie-wrap on it.
The plastic clamp is the CT clamp and must be put around a live (brown) wire. Preferably on the live (brown) cable between the mains utility fuse and the new Smart Meter. With the arrow pointing away from the mains utility supply towards the house fuse box.

If you don't have the confidence or feel this isn't something you want to deal with, get an electrician.

 

I would suggest you phone Indra support and ask them what the charger does without a CT clamp being present. That will determine if this is indeed the reason for the reduced performance when charging.

If it turns out to be the case, and if you can't find the previous CT clamp anywhere, you'll need to get someone in to install one.
They are hard-wired into the EV charger itself and are usually a slim black cable. Sometimes the EV charger installer uses a special cable that includes both power and CT cabling between the EV charger and your utility supply area. i.e. to the box on the far right of your picture. In either case, there will be this slim (black) cable with a square plastic clamp which is around 1.5" square (sometimes they're oblong, sometimes they're a bit bigger or smaller). The plastic clamp is the CT clamp and must be put around a live (brown) wire. Preferably on the live (brown) cable between the mains utility fuse and the new Smart Meter. With the arrow pointing away from the mains utility supply towards the house.

If you don't have the confidence or feel this isn't something you want to deal with, get an electrician.

Unfortunately there is no one available until Monday due to weekends. So, I have to wait. Definitely I'm not gonna touch those complicated cables as I don't know what I'm doing. The engineer who installed smart meter took all bits and pieces of previous meter. He might have taken the CT clamp as well if there was one. I regret my decision to get the smart meter. Thanks for your time and excellent explanation, much appreciated.

 

This behaviour is almost certainly because the CT clamp has not been reconnected properly.

The installer has an option when they commision the charger for 'load curtailment required'. If this is checked and the charger doesnt see a CT (either disconnected or an odd reading) it will revert to 6A charging (the lowest possible) for saftey reasons.

I think the box at the top right is your EVSE consumer unit. The CT will usually come out of here. Could you take another photo? otherwise, if you could take another photo from further back I'll see if I can identify it.

You should definitely flag this to whoever changed the smart meter. It seems likely they have disconnected a piece of equipment installed for safety reasons causing secondary protections on the charger to kick in.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

 

Wow! this forum is really helpful when we are in need. Thank you both 🙏. I think what you both are saying is right. I have asked my friend to charge his Nissan Ariya using my charger. Even his car charging at 1.3 - 1.4kW. Please see the photos as requested. Thanks

 

See the difference before and after smart meter installation.

 

I am thinking the Current Transformer may have fallen down to the bottom of the cupboard / floor. As perviously stated it should be on the brown cable between the main fuse and the new meter. Looks like these cables are new so I suspect it fell off when the old cables were removed. Is it worth looking at the charger end to see if there is any sign of the transformer cable entering the charger?

 

As you can see from the above pic, there is no clamp which I can see. Thanks

 

I'm having an educated guess.

This black cable looks like it sits next to a twin and Earth (main power) out to the charger.

Could you show a picture of where it goes or what is on the other end?

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

 

I'm having an educated guess.

This black cable looks like it sits next to a twin and Earth (main power) out to the charger.

Could you show a picture of where it goes or what is on the other end? View attachment 171326

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

Sorry I'm outside at the moment. Once I reach home I will get the photo. Thanks

 

The thin black cable has a telecom plug - it's hard to tell from the photo, but it could be telecom or data. I don't see a CT in there.

 

The CT will likely also need recalibrating - the installer selected the curtailment option so if a new ct is being fit that will need checking.

Best get in touch with ChargedEV if they fit it. The meter installer has cost someone a 1 hour callout to resolve this and the cost/logistics on getting a new clamp to you. They should probably be paying for the parts and revisit.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

 

Sure, I will be contacting them tomorrow. Thanks

 

UPDATE:
Engineer from energy provider who installed smart meter came and sorted out the issue. As suggested the glitch was because of not connecting to the CT clamp. Thanks for everyone who helped to diagnose the issue. 🙏