[on6702]

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

 

[mikegs]

Do no.2 first.
If the DNO says you can't have more than 60A (without major expense) then priorities for everything else is going to change.

 

[starquake]

Remember you may also need on 1/ an upgrade on tails to the consumer unit in addition and the supplier cannot do this.
Agree, first priority is speaking to 2/ DNO about the fuse, as in my case this took 6 months, a dig, a new supply cable, and a new fuse. All cost nothing to me -> but the 6 month wait would have been annoying if my Niro had already been here.

I would personally do in parallel in addiiton to this. No reason you can't put request for smart meter in same time as request to DNO.

 

[starquake]

Oh and DO consider the OHME Type unteather type-2 Commando option as well as the static install. This has advatange you can buy a Commando extension cable (at 32A rating) for 5 or 10m trivially to run where you need it. Allows you to run however you desire technically. You also can then take the commando with you to other places using commando to charge, which is an advantage many overlook -> a caravan site that we have a family caravan on has commando's available but no EV charging...

Untethered commando IS more of a faff for some, but it does have advantages if you have other things needing a commando. We will be using our commando socket for our jet wash as well as car charging, making it a lot more useful than just a type-2 evse.

I should mention a 32A commando is also a lot smaller/obvious than most chargers on front of house too. Many options available, speak to your electrician.

 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Oh and DO consider the OHME Type unteather type-2 Commando option as well as the static install. This has advatange you can buy a Commando extension cable (at 32A rating) for 5 or 10m trivially to run where you need it. Allows you to run however you desire technically. You also can then take the commando with you to other places using commando to charge, which is an advantage many overlook -> a caravan site that we have a family caravan on has commando's available but no EV charging...

But bear in mind the Ohme doesn't (at present afaik) support manual current setting, so only useful away from home on a 32A commando . Caravan sites are more likely to have 16A sockets, and even these may have reduced capacity in some cases

 

[starquake]

But bear in mind the Ohme doesn't (at present afaik) support manual current setting, so only useful away from home on a 32A commando . Caravan sites are more likely to have 16A sockets, and even these may have reduced capacity in some cases

Oh agreed, but like many things it's on the roadmap and I doubt it'll be months before available. If you were not aware you can also ring ohme support to set a limit at moment too for the short period whilst the facility is added (though you can also set your EV model to also apply the limit for some limits).
Personally luckily the site we use is unrestricted 32A commando and we wil be the second EV owner to charge in this way, and we also visit a place in france with similar 32A commando availability (but no EVSE). I totally agree a tethered EVSE is also more desirable for some, it's just it may not be as useful for all, and this has saved cost of us having both a tethered EVSE, and a second unit for when travelling, as a granny cable would be way too slow given it takes 24 hours on our Niro for a full charge and we arrive near empty to both destinations.

 

[on6702]

Thanks for all the information, will be interesting to see what my DNO says.

 

[steveharvey2001]

Do any charger provers have a solution that offers aĺl of the following features.

1. Single integrated wallbox without an ugly junction box nearby
2. No need for an earth rod.
3. Scheduled charging.
4. Solar excess diversion.

I note that Zappi features #1, #2 & #4 and Ohme features #3 (possibly #4).

 

[mad_rich]

Lack of load balancing with the OHME won't be a problem if you've upgraded your supply. Maybe wait to see how that goes with the DNO. Also perhaps consult with an electrician (or someone on here) re your existing circuits to decide what size of supply you need in order to support a 7kW charger. My feeble 60A supply was perfectly adequate given that I have no major electrical loads except for a 13A oven.

The only thing I would add is that 18 months is a long time in the EV world. There will almost certainly be newer things available a year from now, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were cheaper. (Although who knows what will happen to the OLEV grant in that time.)

 

[DSLRed]

OK, so I haven't done nearly as much research as on6702, even though I seem to have been reading about nothing but EVs and all that goes with them for weeks.

So I have just checked my meter box and there is a lovely 100A fuse in there. Presume that means I am going to be ok, because there wouldn't be such a big fuse if the wiring wasn't built for that load?

 

[mikegs]

there is a lovely 100A fuse in there.

Maybe.
The fuse holders are usually rated to and marked 100A, but you can't see what fuse is actually fitted without pulling it out.

 

[JeffG]

Maybe.
The fuse holders are usually rated to and marked 100A, but you can't see what fuse is actually fitted without pulling it out.

Hoping it's not necessary to add "which you're not allowed to do."

 

[on6702]

Does seem a bit crazy that the regulations don't insist that the actual value of the present fuse is labelled on the exterior.

 

[DSLRed]

Hoping it's not necessary to add "which you're not allowed to do."

Which I have no intention of attempting!

 

[Jrtev]

Do any charger provers have a solution that offers aĺl of the following features.

1. Single integrated wallbox without an ugly junction box nearby
2. No need for an earth rod.
3. Scheduled charging.
4. Solar excess diversion.

I note that Zappi features #1, #2 & #4 and Ohme features #3 (possibly #4).

Andersen

 

[Sean Nugent]

Do any charger provers have a solution that offers aĺl of the following features.

1. Single integrated wallbox without an ugly junction box nearby
2. No need for an earth rod.
3. Scheduled charging.
4. Solar excess diversion.

I note that Zappi features #1, #2 & #4 and Ohme features #3 (possibly #4).

I was under the impression that the zappi did scheduled charging as well. Not that I have one

Sean

 

[Sean Nugent]

I was under the impression that the zappi did scheduled charging as well. Not that I have one

Sean

Its boost timing. Set that to equal the time you want to charge

 

[Bodgerx]

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

If your EV supports scheduled charging (e.g Ioniq, Kona etc.) a Pod Point with the Octopus Go tariff will work fine.

 

[on6702]

Given the intelligence in modern ev cars do we actually need home chargers to be clever as well? Isn't it case of unnecessary duplication in many cases?

I'm coming round to the opinion that given that all recent and likely future generations of EVs feature sophisticated on-board charging options (e.g. the kia e-niro has scheduled timing, off-peak hours and priority, variable charge rate etc) that it doesn't make sense to buy an expensive programmable charger unless you want solar options.

Why spend more on a charger if the car can do it already, and perhaps more reliably?

I suppose one case might be if you need to keep charging records for financial purposes but otherwise.......

 

[starquake]

Given the intelligence in modern ev cars do we actually need home chargers to be clever as well? Isn't it case of unnecessary duplication in many cases?

Yes we do and no we don't (it's not dupliication).

Agile from Octopus is a variable tariff with prices varying per half hour, and a OHME charger can maximise this so that if for example the electricity price overnight varies the peak prices are not used. There IS little benefit of a smart charger WITHOUT having a tariff that maximises this like Agile.

Lets look at LAST night in Eastern regions as an example:
Time / Price

00:00 - 00:30	8.38
00:30 - 01:00	6.04
01:00 - 01:30	7.50
01:30 - 02:00	5.53
02:00 - 02:30	6.66
02:30 - 03:00	4.85
03:00 - 03:30	6.17
03:30 - 04:00	4.87
04:00 - 04:30	5.73
04:30 - 05:00	5.07
05:00 - 05:30	5.51
05:30 - 06:00	5.73
06:00 - 06:30	5.73
06:30 - 07:00	7.72

So last night there were 2 period where the price was under 5p, with a 6 p in middle. If my car only needs say 20kwh to top off, and I can fill say 3.5 per half hour, I need to be charging for ~7 half hour of the above periods. A smart charger that can pick the cheapest of the above periods will save ~ 10p on that charge alone (and it would turn off at 3-3:30am). A dumb charger that can just charge by time, will end up paying more on average. Also a smart charger can be programmed to ONLY charge when rates below say 4p

I note with an OHME (and a few others that now offer this) you just plugin, and let teh cahrger work out the best periods to charge.

If however you are on a FIXED 5p for 4 hour rate like Octopus go, you'd just be FINE on the above example with a dumber charger and the inbuilt feature (but you would also be paying a TON more outside the cheap rate). But bear in mind the above example is for a 7 half hour period charge (so fits in a 4 hour charge window). If my car was empty, I'd be paying full price for the remaining 4-6 hours needed to FILL the car. OHME will work out the best half hours OVER 24 hours to charge, and sometimes these are in middle of day..

So why bother if last night was over 5p and Go was cheaper in most of the periods, well, because it's NOT always more than Go, and in fact on Average I've found over the course of a year, in every 1-2 week period I would be able to charge for considerably less than Go in this region at least with a suited smart charger (and my daily usage for home use is cheaper too). My expectation is I will plugin car after work/use, and leave the charging to the charger to keep me 50% charged all the time for local trips, and use cheaper rates to top-up to 80% or 100% when I can.