Joined
·
5,746 Posts
Given the concerns already about potential peak load when we have 7kW car charging on most domestic properties, I'm sure the DNOs will be right behind that idea ... holding a very big knife
Pod point 43kW charge point charging at 5 kW??
21 - 40 of 40 Posts
Joined
·
471 Posts
I was at a meeting with a power company a couple of years ago and they were quite keen on the idea of having three phase to all new homes as their view was that this would help resolve the phase balancing problems that are starting to show in some areas of the low voltage network. The bloke had a presentation showing a typical new UK housing development with a three phase supply running along the road with each alternate house connected to each phase in a repeating sequence.Given the concerns already about potential peak load when we have 7kW car charging on most domestic properties, I'm sure the DNOs will be right behind that idea ... holding a very big knife
He suggested that with chargers being put in to new houses the problem that was bound to come up would be when more chargers were on over night at off peak rates on one of the three phases than the other two as there would be little in the way of normal load balancing and so there would be higher neutral currents than the network was designed to deal with. If all these new chargers were fed from three phase supplies the problem would go away.
Joined
·
5,746 Posts
That was normal for underground feeds when I was in the industry (with SEEBoard) about 50 years ago.
It could be a problem, but unbalanced loading is already handled. If a fuse for one phase blows, so every third house goes dark, it all still works. And once car charging is common you'd expect random off-peak operation to be at least partly spread across the phases.
If restricted to, say, 11kW it makes some sense, but if all those off-peak loads come in at 22kW I'd think that might present a different set of challenges to the network.
Perhaps worth trying it on a few new builds, though the developers will probably push back against the extra costs involved.
Joined
·
471 Posts
The stupid thing is that three phase to all homes is completely normal across most of Europe it seems to be only the UK and Ireland that have this system of supplying homes with just a single phase. The story I heard was that the single phase to homes thing and other oddities like the use of PME were all down to savage cost cutting where reducing the cost of the cables was more important than anything else.
Sure a three phase system can cope with limited amounts of imbalance for a time but the way it was told to me was that the key thing was the length of time that it had to deal with a severe imbalance and car charging was something that could lead to longer periods of abnormally high imbalance than the system was originally designed to be able to handle safely. I can get the point behind this as the load that car charging presents is going to be for longer than any other normal domestic load.
Sure a three phase system can cope with limited amounts of imbalance for a time but the way it was told to me was that the key thing was the length of time that it had to deal with a severe imbalance and car charging was something that could lead to longer periods of abnormally high imbalance than the system was originally designed to be able to handle safely. I can get the point behind this as the load that car charging presents is going to be for longer than any other normal domestic load.
Joined
·
5,746 Posts
From what I've seen this a bit of a myth. It seems to be more readily available then in the UK, particularly in certain countries, but isn't supplied routinely.
Having a hefty cooking range seems to be a common reason to have it.
Well, yeah. That's just life.
Joined
·
471 Posts
When I was working in Germany and Austria I didn't see a single house with just a single phase supply it seemed to be standard there for all houses to to have three phase even older places. France seemed to have a mix of some three phase and some single phase supplies but three phase was a lot more common than here or in the UK.
Joined
·
943 Posts
5 years ago I bought a used Nissan Leaf from an utterly clueless dealer. Sad to hear dealers are still just as ignorant. Direct your frustration at them maybe?
To be fair, dealers assume you can fill up your car with petrol or diesel, and that you know how to drive it.
At least topping up your EV with an AC isn't as expensive a mistake as putting petrol in a diesel, I gather the AA/RAC charge around £200 now to deal with that, and you've lost the tank of fuel as well.
At least topping up your EV with an AC isn't as expensive a mistake as putting petrol in a diesel, I gather the AA/RAC charge around £200 now to deal with that, and you've lost the tank of fuel as well.
I don’t think so. There has to be some responsibility and expectation of the new owner to do their research. You don’t see IKEA employees telling you how to build their furniture and besides, all cars come with manuals.
I agree with you... When I have picked up a car from a dealership they go over a few things with you at handover, at least they have with me. Explaining about the socket charge rates should be discussed at that point.
I have spoken to several new EV and hybrid owners at charge points who didn't have a clue and just thought that if they plugged in the type 2 attached cable it would give them rapid charge...
I don't think everybody sits down with the manual when they get a new car and if they use the type 2 at home I can see how easy it would be just to assume that is the 'normal' connector to use.
Joined
·
471 Posts
The other point worth making is that the manuals are now far more complicated than they ever used to be. after months of ownership I still find I need to click the bookmark for the manual and have a read up on how something works as there is just a mountain of things to learn about cars nowadays.
Technically she was still correct! It must save a few fractions of a second off.
Joined
·
2,123 Posts
It only charges the 12V Battery.
<PEDANT> ... thus reducing the demand on the HV battery supplying the dc:dc converter and, indeed, saving a few fractions of a second when charging 😉 </PEDANT>
Joined
·
943 Posts
It doesn't even do that properly in my experience. Just a gimmick. Solar on the roof and bonnet will become common I reckon though.
Aptera & Sono are slapping solar all over their vehicles.
21 - 40 of 40 Posts
