Does anyone know what my next step might be? I have a SYNCEV charger which kept going into fault mode. SYNCEV said that according to their logs this was due to an over voltage of more than 253 volts for more than 3 minutes. I contacted my DNO who came a week later and fitted a monitor. On collecting it a week later they said there was a problem and they would let me know when they had sorted it. Almost 6 weeks later I emailed for an update and was told this had been passed on to the relevant department to lower a transformer tap. After a couple more weeks I emailed this new department and to date have had no reply. I have monitored the voltage myself with a FLUKE multimeter and have got readings of 258.9. I realise this is a peak reading but I also have videos of the meter showing constantly over 254 volts in a socket in my garage. My charger is showing a RED fault LED mode on a daily basis leading to failed charges. Is there any way I can apply more leverage to my DNO?
Supply Overvoltage ignored by DNO
Ian Miilroy
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DNOs can have a dispensation to not meet the ESQCR standards for supply voltage (and available power) for some locations. Homes at the end of long supply cables are a particular problem, especially with PV generation. The issue the DNO has is that if they set the tap on the transformer so that the houses nearest to it never have a voltage above 253 VAC, if someone at the end of the long cable has PV, then it's quite probable that when the PV is generating, although the supply at the transformer is still under 253 VAC, at the end it could be higher.
The Zappi uses a very much more sensible way of detecting an open PEN fault risk, it detects a fault current in the circuit protective conductor to the car. If it detects such a current it knows there is a problem with the PEN being at too high a voltage relative to literal earth, so shuts off the live terminals and the protective earth, to remove the risk.
Thumbs up for the Zappi from me. We used to get the very occasional “Over voltage” warning which led to the EV not charging as the Zappi had tripped itself out.
Myenergi updated the firmware. It will still log any such faults but is now less susceptible to tripping out.
Myenergi updated the firmware. It will still log any such faults but is now less susceptible to tripping out.
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Watched a video today about the upcoming changes to EVSE charging delays. Mr Zappi seems quite a cool dude.
He could do with a proper haircut though but if I didn't have my podpoint, I'd likely consider a zappi even though they are a bit ugly.
Gaz
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As I pointed out in an earlier post, SMETS2 meters do, inter alia, send high voltage warnings. The warnings were explained to me in an email from SPEN late last year:
Quote: My Smart Metering team had a look at your actual smart meter voltage readings over the last 10 days to review the average RMS voltage for every 30-minute period within this time frame. Before I comment on their findings, there are three thresholds of note. These are explained below;
I pressed SPEN hard as it wasn't just my EV or Zappi that was tripping out because of high voltages. My Powerwall 2 Gateway would also disconnect my property from the Grid when an over voltage situation was detected. Tesla Support very helpfully provided me with a graph showing the voltages that their system was recording.
Quote: My Smart Metering team had a look at your actual smart meter voltage readings over the last 10 days to review the average RMS voltage for every 30-minute period within this time frame. Before I comment on their findings, there are three thresholds of note. These are explained below;
- Statutory Voltage Limit (defined in the Electricity, Quality and Continuity Regulation 27) – 253Volts (V)
- Smart Meter Over Voltage alarm trigger level – 258V (Statutory Voltage Limit +2%)
- Smart Meter Extreme Over Voltage alarm trigger level – 265V (Statutory Voltage Limit +6%, although limited by the smart meter’s maximum voltage reading)
I pressed SPEN hard as it wasn't just my EV or Zappi that was tripping out because of high voltages. My Powerwall 2 Gateway would also disconnect my property from the Grid when an over voltage situation was detected. Tesla Support very helpfully provided me with a graph showing the voltages that their system was recording.
Just in case anyone else comes accross this post like i did, you can force your SyncEV charger to work above the default 253V cut out as a workaround whilst your DNO investigates like i had to. To do this i setup my charger in the 'monta app', then on a browser (not app) log into monta website and go to your charger. Scroll down to the connection section and click 'view logs', go to "OCPP configuration" tab, click 'get configuration', then edit the "UpperLimitProtectionVoltage" and change from 253 to 260 (wouldnt suggest anything higher as sounds unsafe), tick "save as config override" and "send". All done. To refresh settings on this page click "get configuration" button at top of page again, as otherwise shows previous config of 253V still. hope that helps somebody.
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Some charging points use grid voltage as their PEN-fault mitigation, this is both a terrible (but compliant) method and susceptible to the kind of over-Voltage that is common on the UK LV network in normal operation.
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We're currently also having over voltage issues.
We get voltage up over 257V at times, it prevents us using our solar. Coffee machine also forgets all it's setting but everything else seems to work OK. The Podpoint doesn't seem to care.
When the voltage is approaching the upper limit the inverter will not raise the voltage above the limit, hence we lose the ability to self consume either solar or battery. Our GivEnergy inverter seems to handle this reasonably gracefully, in that there are no dramas or alarms, it just doesn't raise the voltage above 253V (so we lose some or all of our ability to self consume but it holds at 253V to use as much as we can if the voltage is still under 253). It then resumes full output without complaints when the voltage drops again.
We can also see the grid voltage in the GE data and can display it on a graph. Took a while to figure this out but once we found the grid voltage everything becomes clear.
Bloody annoying though. You plug the car in to the granny, or stick the immersion on because it's a sunny day, only to see later on that your actually pulling from the grid rather than running on solar and battery. We've yet to have a day of full solar output regardless of having had days with crystal clear blue skies.
The DNO have now fitted a voltage recorder for the week. Looks like we were 2 hours over 253V out of 24 hours so far.
We get voltage up over 257V at times, it prevents us using our solar. Coffee machine also forgets all it's setting but everything else seems to work OK. The Podpoint doesn't seem to care.
When the voltage is approaching the upper limit the inverter will not raise the voltage above the limit, hence we lose the ability to self consume either solar or battery. Our GivEnergy inverter seems to handle this reasonably gracefully, in that there are no dramas or alarms, it just doesn't raise the voltage above 253V (so we lose some or all of our ability to self consume but it holds at 253V to use as much as we can if the voltage is still under 253). It then resumes full output without complaints when the voltage drops again.
We can also see the grid voltage in the GE data and can display it on a graph. Took a while to figure this out but once we found the grid voltage everything becomes clear.
Bloody annoying though. You plug the car in to the granny, or stick the immersion on because it's a sunny day, only to see later on that your actually pulling from the grid rather than running on solar and battery. We've yet to have a day of full solar output regardless of having had days with crystal clear blue skies.
The DNO have now fitted a voltage recorder for the week. Looks like we were 2 hours over 253V out of 24 hours so far.
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Well we could raise the voltage limit in the inverter settings, the UKPN engineer actually suggested this also. If I raise my output limit above 253V then surely I am creating overvoltage problems for others or at least making them worse. And then I'm also breaching the regs.
I'd far rather the DNO supplied 225-240V, rather than try and deal with 240-257 by raising it further for everyone else, and testing everyone else's devices to see which ones survive high voltages. Doesn't seem like the best solution if I can get the DNO to turn it down a notch.
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This is very annoying and doubly frustrating because the DNO aren't interested about fixing a situation that is outside the spec they are mandated to maintain. The problem will be that there are a few houses on the same transformer as you at the very end of a too-long too-thin LV cable who were getting low-voltage and the cheapest way to fix it was for the DNO to retap the transformer and give those closeby over-voltage.
You can upgrade the cable between your CU and the inverter. for example if you swap a 4mm² for a 6mm² the inverter will have to raise the Voltage less to push the same power. This is more effective if the cable from your inverter to CU is more than a few metres.
You should also be very careful about upgrading your EV charging point, because another model might refuse to work in the over-voltage condition.
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Not entirely coincidentally we recently had 60 new homes added to our village in the field next to our street. No new infrastructure as far as I can tell… just more homes on the same infrastructure.
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That'll be it!
It's not even rare to be in your situation!
I know people who use a UPS to protect sensitive electronics from the over-voltage.
All you have to do is report them to Ofgem and they are then given a fixed time to rectify (14days from notification ?). You might want to advise the DNO first. Been there ,done that -its the only way. It could be as simple as taking a different single phase off the 3ph street supply.
Yes they did that to me but it did not spur them in to action until i complained to Ofgem
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Good to know. The engineer seems less than enthusiastic about resolving the problem.
So far UKPN as an organisation have been quite responsive and useful. I’ve been pretty happy with the interactions so far, but we’ll have to see if they really resolve it.
I’m reasonably optimistic though. They were fairly quick on the original solar approvals. They also then came and upgraded the fuse when I asked within a week.
They have been responsive with this so far as well. Someone came out within hours of me telling them there’s a problem and requesting them to come do something. And whenever I have spoken to them I get a text with the persons name and an extension number with a reference number should I need to go back to them.
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Well hallelujah
Lo and behold seems that my voltage has indeed dropped a bit. The overnight peak was only 246V and yesterday and today doesn’t look like we’ve been limited by our voltage which would be great. The voltage did briefly not only drop to 230, but actually below it. Hopefully the poor sods at the furthest end of the line are still getting 216V… although right now we are doing our bit raising the local voltage with solar export.
A couple of weeks ago I got a letter from UKPN confirming that the voltage was indeed out of spec (not news) and saying that they would now task the appropriate team to fix it. The Engineer had warned me that radio silence was to be expected… but said they would actually do something, just maybe not be great at telling us about it afterwards. Hopefully we are done with this one now.
There is work afoot in my local area next week and I contacted SPEN on the number given. Apparently the transformer that feeds my side of the village will be changed as part of all the other work (new overhead lines, poles etc) so I'm hoping this will resolve the high voltage issue I have.
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Well I hope it’s fixed for you. Don’t know what DNO area you are in, but UKPN have been pretty good once I figured out how to contact them.
Thanks. Our DNO is SPEN (Scottish Power Energy Networks) in North Wales and Merseyside. Will wait and see what happens to voltage after the works and then kick off again if still high. 
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