Ecarni, NIE out, ESB in

reboot

New private takeover in N.Ireland. At the hand over ceremony, Paul Mulvaney, executive director innovation of the CP network at ESB said " The CP network in N.I is one of the most advanced integrated CP systems in Europe. So now we know.

cros13

reboot wrote: »

New private takeover in N.Ireland. At the hand over ceremony, Paul Mulvaney, executive director innovation of the CP network at ESB said " The CP network in N.I is one of the most advanced integrated CP systems in Europe. So now we know.

It's largely just making official what was the status quo for a long time.

Too many groups were "part" of eCarNI. One only has to look at the clusterf*ck of Source London, 66 organisations including 27 local authorities. Result more than half of the chargers inoperable, different fees and parking rules from charger to charger, numerous authentication issues and poor charger placement. And absolutely nobody willing to take responsibility for any part of it.

One of the the charger locations I found in London would have cost £150/day to park, £5/hour to charge and three of the four chargers were down.
The worst part is that the "chargers" were only 13 amp sockets.

reboot

reboot wrote: »

New private takeover in N.Ireland. At the hand over ceremony, Paul Mulvaney, executive director innovation of the CP network at ESB said " The CP network in N.I is one of the most advanced integrated CP systems in Europe. So now we know.

https://www.ecarni.com/ecarni-handoverhttps://www.ecarni.com/ecarni-handoverhttps://www.ecarni.com/ecarni-handoverhttps://www.ecarni.com/ecarni-handover

reboot

cros13 wrote: »

It's largely just making official what was the status quo for a long time.

Too many groups were "part" of eCarNI. One only has to look at the clusterf*ck of Source London, 66 organisations including 27 local authorities. Result more than half of the chargers inoperable, different fees and parking rules from charger to charger, numerous authentication issues and poor charger placement. And absolutely nobody willing to take responsibility for any part of it.

One of the the charger locations I found in London would have cost £150/day to park, £5/hour to charge and three of the four chargers were down.
The worst part is that the "chargers" were only 13 amp sockets.

Quite so,and its early days perhaps to ask ESB questions, but one immediately springs to mind.
Will they be supplying only 16Amp home charge points to Leaf owners in the South, and 32Amp to Zoe owners in the North?

Dexter1979

reboot wrote: »

Will they be supplying only 16Amp home charge points to Leaf owners in the South, and 32Amp to Zoe owners in the North?

I would think so. This decision has more to do with wiring and price. The UK home charge point grand is higher and Renault add a bit as well. Lots of older Irish homes don't have the wiring to support a 32A charger.

reboot

Dexter1979 wrote: »

I would think so. This decision has more to do with wiring and price. The UK home charge point grand is higher and Renault add a bit as well. Lots of older Irish homes don't have the wiring to support a 32A charger.

Hi Dexter,for reasons, you for one will fully understand, I'm thinking of packing the Threads thing in, how do you feel about it, you must feel the same sometimes?

Dexter1979

reboot wrote: »

Hi Dexter,for reasons, you for one will fully understand, I'm thinking of packing the Threads thing in, how do you feel about it, you must feel the same sometimes?

I'm a committee member of the Irish EV Owners Association. I'm actively trying to make it better for all owners. I do video logs and help people online.

No, I'm not feeling like packing it in. I am having to much fun with my car

reboot

Dexter1979 wrote: »

I'm a committee member of the Irish EV Owners Association. I'm actively trying to make it better for all owners. I do video logs and help people online.

No, I'm not feeling like packing it in. I am having to much fun with my car

Many thanks for your useful insights here and elsewhere, I admire your great Patience,may you enjoy Zoe ,and maybe Nav next?
Your a better man than I am,live long and prosper.

Dexter1979

Dexter1979 wrote: »

I would think so. This decision has more to do with wiring and price. The UK home charge point grand is higher and Renault add a bit as well. Lots of older Irish homes don't have the wiring to support a 32A charger.

Actually this is not true at all, first the porper way to determine if the wiring is indeed inadequate is to have an electrician determine this and not go by the usual Irish way of guessing "ah sure it must be this is Ireland can't have been done right sure every tom dick and harry was doing home cabling."

I have ran 32 amp cable from my consumer unit to the wall where the electrician connected his own cabling to the charge point, for me to have 32 amp charging all I need is the 32 amp EVSE and the correctly rated RCBO ? in the consumer unit.

The house was built in 1974 and has a total capacity of about 15 kw well within the capabilities of most homes in Ireland I would say, the car will charge mainly at night when there are no 9 Kw showers going, no cooking etc. We don't have an electric shower because we would waste the hot water from the oil heating so why bother. I don't think a lot of people with lecc showers get this.

The Leaf is on it's own separate circuit from anything else in the house newly cabled correctly so this "Irish homes are not suitable for 32 amp charging" is complete and utter nonsense.

And I know I go on and on but you really can not underestimate the value of 32 amp charging. Dexter knows the value of having much faster AC charging !

cros13

Deleted User wrote: »

I have ran 32 amp cable from my consumer unit to the wall where the electrician connected his own cabling to the charge point, for me to have 32 amp charging all I need is the 32 amp EVSE and the correctly rated RCBO ? in the consumer unit.

My nature is to over engineer everything. At my parents place in the country I uprated their supply to 29kVa, ran 150A rated cable to a new commercial style consumer unit with 40A D breakers for the chargers in the shed and fitted two 7.4kW chargers with their own RCBOs off 3x8 64A rated cable runs. Got a friend who's a 1st class commercial electrician to sign it off. Total cost including the chargers: €1500.

I'm considering installing a 25kW CCS rapid charger in the shed too.

cros13

cros13 wrote: »

My nature is to over engineer everything. At my parents place in the country I uprated their supply to 29kVa, ran 150A rated cable to a new commercial style consumer unit with 40A D breakers for the chargers in the shed and fitted two 7.4kW chargers with their own RCBOs off 3x8 64A rated cable runs. Got a friend who's a 1st class commercial electrician to sign it off. Total cost including the chargers: €1500.

I'm considering installing a 25kW CCS rapid charger in the shed too.

Is that not over doing it a little ?

I'm more of a fan of higher voltage and less current , especially for ev charging. It's more efficient but I suppose the extra cost of 3 phase would be too much over higher current single phase. I don't know how much the ESB charge for 3 phase ?

25 Kw ccs, you'd have to be on 3 phase for that.

cros13

Deleted User wrote: »

Is that not over doing it a little ?

I'm more of a fan of higher voltage and less current , especially for ev charging. It's more efficient but I suppose the extra cost of 3 phase would be too much over higher current single phase. I don't know how much the ESB charge for 3 phase ?

25 Kw ccs, you'd have to be on 3 phase for that.

Overdoing it...doesn't sound like me at all...

Nope. The 25kW CCS charger runs off single phase and the 29kVa single phase ESB connection can *just* handle it too (which isn't a problem, apart from the EVs the house rarely draws more than 1kW). I rated breakers etc for 120A in preparation.

3 phase is more efficient though have you calculated how much you will loose at this power level on single phase ? to convert to 400 odd volts DC ?

cros13

Deleted User wrote: »

3 phase is more efficient though have you calculated how much you will loose at this power level on single phase ? to convert to 400 odd volts DC ?

Build out cost for three phase to that location approaches €5000...

cros13

cros13 wrote: »

Build out cost for three phase to that location approaches €5000...

There is no 3 phase close ? 5000 euro's is mental money !

I personally can't see the need for 25 Kw DC charging myself, I think if someone can get from 25 to 90% in about 22 hrs than I couldn't see the need for faster home charging.

But I do think the ESb and Nissan Ireland's approach of only allowing 16 amp charging is just plane wrong and they should be encouraging people to charge at home as much as possible not needing to use fast chargers. I guarantee the busier the fast chargers get the more people will regret not having 32 amp charging especially when the ESB start to bill for their use. The convenience of getting into a fully charged car after plugging into a public AC point and not having to look for a fast charger is just brilliant !

I also think the ESb should be making builders more aware of future electrical requirements and providing new homes with the availability of more power.

Imaging 2 EV's charging at 6.6 kw and you having storage heaters ? what are they 5 Kw each ?

Dexter1979

I'm aware of the benefits of not having to use fast chargers but am no electrician. I have seen people in older houses without a properly wired fuse cabinet. ESB installed a home charge point and wiring somewhere but wanted ESB networks approval to turn it on so didn't hook it up.

3 phase sounds great. Unsure how much it would cost me. I'm in an estate so that may help. 11kW would be my goal. Same 16A as now but 3 phase.

And Reboot, I guess I just have less problems using the car. If I had your problems things might be different.

Dexter1979

Dexter1979 wrote: »

I'm aware of the benefits of not having to use fast chargers but am no electrician. I have seen people in older houses without a properly wired fuse cabinet. ESB installed a home charge point and wiring somewhere but wanted ESB networks approval to turn it on so didn't hook it up.

3 phase sounds great. Unsure how much it would cost me. I'm in an estate so that may help. 11kW would be my goal. Same 16A as now but 3 phase.

And Reboot, I guess I just have less problems using the car. If I had your problems things might be different.

The ESb simply can't make assumptions that every home is wired incorrectly and unsuitable for 32 amp charging , by that assumption then all homes are equally unsuitable for 16 amp charging.

The cable for the Home EVSE is going directly back to the consumer so there shouldn't be any problems accept for the consumer unit itself but that's cabled directly into the home supply from the street via main fuse so I can't see the problem unless the main feed into the house is completely botched up.

It's just a typical Irish way of doing things !!!

SpaceTime

Sounds like they're restricting it to the lowest common denominator rather than assessing each home's wiring.

Considering that many kitchens have cooking appliances that need pretty hefty amoerage.

Alternatively give people a grant to get their own contractors ?

I mean, for example, it should be possible to install an interlock that would lock out the electric shower while the car is charging for example if the supply is quite stingy to the house.

You can install interlock circuits where you'd flick a switch that would trip a contactor on the panel so either the shower or the car would be on, but never both.

The one thing that is highly unusual in both Britain and Ireland is the use of instantaneous water heaters, i.e. electric showers.

32 amps is only 32 * 230V = 7360Watts. That's not much different from a cooker.

Our cooker is on a 45amp circuit for example and draws 10kW at peak load (which would be sustained if we were doing a lot of cooking simultaneously. It's not just on/off).

In general though, the ESB is highly conservative when it comes to wiring standards compared to most of the world. The layers upon layers of fusing for example is highly unusual.

Irish supply:

Main ESB fuse ---> Meter ---> Cut Off ---> ---- Consumer Main Switch ---- > Main Fuse ---> RCDs & MCBs ----> Local fusing plug top / fused connection units --- Appliance.

In the rest of the EU it's more like:

Network ---- Power Co Fuse --- Meter --- Cut off ---- Switch --- MCBs/RCDs --- Appliance

Even in Britain, they don't bother with the consumer main fuse for example.

Anything can be done but as usual in Ireland there is always a reason why something can't be done which is usually BS.