Hello everyone,
I'm starting preparations for transition to an EV vehicle (hopefully an e-niro within the next 18 months) and would like some general advice about a few things from those that have already gone through this.
It all seems rather daunting.
My first objective I think needs to be to sort out my domestic electrical system to facilitate the installation of a 7kW EV charger at home. Inspection of my meter box indicates that a 60A cut-out main fuse, 16mm2 tails and a rather old looking economy 7 meter and teleswitch.
I'm guessing that this is not ideal or perhaps suitable at all and would thus benefit from being updated. So I was thinking of doing the following:
1) contact present electrical supplier with a request to install a new meter (ideally SMETS2 smart meter), 25mm2 tails and an 100 A isolation switch.
2) Contact my DNO (UK Power Networks) with a request to upgrade main fuse to either 80 or 100A and check that my house is not on a looped supply.
Once this is done I would then move forward with a professional EV charger installation - most likely directly from the meter box.
As for charging points, I was thinking of a tethered pod point 7kW solo on the basis that their products appear to be widespread, the latest versions do not require an earthing rod and come with a long 7.5m type 2 cable (useful since we reverse park on driveway and a front charging point would thus be quite a distance away) and they support load balancing (useful in case another charging point gets installed or I have problems upgrading supply to 100A).
However, I've since discovered that Pod Points do not offer scheduled charging or support the latest innovative tarrifs such as Octopus Go or Agile which sound attractive. I'm thus wondering if an OHME wall charger would be better but I'm a bit worried about how weather proof and robust they are, the shorter cable length of 5m and what appears to be a lack of load balancing.
Am I approaching this in the right way?
Any advice on the above would be greatly appreciated, am I missing anything important that I also need to consider ?
Oliver
I'm starting preparations for transition to an EV vehicle (hopefully an e-niro within the next 18 months) and would like some general advice about a few things from those that have already gone through this.
It all seems rather daunting.
My first objective I think needs to be to sort out my domestic electrical system to facilitate the installation of a 7kW EV charger at home. Inspection of my meter box indicates that a 60A cut-out main fuse, 16mm2 tails and a rather old looking economy 7 meter and teleswitch.
I'm guessing that this is not ideal or perhaps suitable at all and would thus benefit from being updated. So I was thinking of doing the following:
1) contact present electrical supplier with a request to install a new meter (ideally SMETS2 smart meter), 25mm2 tails and an 100 A isolation switch.
2) Contact my DNO (UK Power Networks) with a request to upgrade main fuse to either 80 or 100A and check that my house is not on a looped supply.
Once this is done I would then move forward with a professional EV charger installation - most likely directly from the meter box.
As for charging points, I was thinking of a tethered pod point 7kW solo on the basis that their products appear to be widespread, the latest versions do not require an earthing rod and come with a long 7.5m type 2 cable (useful since we reverse park on driveway and a front charging point would thus be quite a distance away) and they support load balancing (useful in case another charging point gets installed or I have problems upgrading supply to 100A).
However, I've since discovered that Pod Points do not offer scheduled charging or support the latest innovative tarrifs such as Octopus Go or Agile which sound attractive. I'm thus wondering if an OHME wall charger would be better but I'm a bit worried about how weather proof and robust they are, the shorter cable length of 5m and what appears to be a lack of load balancing.
Am I approaching this in the right way?
Any advice on the above would be greatly appreciated, am I missing anything important that I also need to consider ?
Oliver