Home charge points (purchase/problems/questions) (See mod note post#1)

tl;dr - 3-ph + 22kW req getting dropped unless the electrician indicates I will definitely need at least 20kVA special connection. If 16kVA is enough to cover our future reqs regarding a extension in a few years, then it's just not worth it as has been patiently explained to me a few times now.

KCross wrote: »

The decision you need to make there is around how likely you are to get 3-phase in the future. Nothing you have described would suggest you need 3-phase but only your electrician and your wallet can really answer that.

Bear in mind its not just the connection charges from the ESB, there is also the electrician charges for (re)wiring your consumer unit for 3-phase. It wont be cheap so you would need a really good reason to retrospectively install 3-ph in this country. Even then, 11kW would be fine for home charging. If you stick with 1ph then obviously 7kW is what you need.

Thanks, going to try and at least confirm about whether an enhanced or special connection would be needed based on some of the existing electrical flickers we've seen as well as the occasional trip. Based on all the feedback I've received so far, unless definitely will need a 20kVA in the future, at which point maybe it's a tighter decision, 3-ph isn't going to be worth considering. So I think can scrub 22kW capable from list of requirements.

KCross wrote: »

No, it wouldnt.

Big difference between getting the "enhanced supply" to a "3-phase supply" from a financial and electrical perspective. The enhanced supply is just taking you up to 16kVA from 12kVA (standard). You can go higher again and stay on single phase if you really need to.

An enhanced supply is a higher rated fuse in the meter box and you have to upgrade the "tails" from the meter to your consumer unit (basically a thicker cable). You may have to upgrade the consumer unit too if it is too old. Getting 3ph in is alot more complicated.

However, the shed/workspace you have described doesnt sound like it warrants 3-phase. 3-ph would be better, of course, for compressors but 32A supply to a shed isnt that big a deal for 1ph and I presume you would not be running those items during the night when the car is charging and with a load sensing charge point like the Zappi it wouldnt matter anyway as it would ramp up/down as the machinery comes on/off. Thats the whole point of getting a load sensing charge point.

I have to admit, despite reading the ESB doc on charges a few times, I did not read it properly and missed the details around special single phase. So yes, definitely looks much cheaper assuming just would need 16kVA than 3-phase. Maybe if 20kVA was going to be needed it requires a bit more checking on the costs.

It turns out the same electrician who will be hooking up my shed fits car chargers, so basically as he's done previous work on the house around water pressure pumps, electric shower, heating system upgrades, etc, he has a good idea on what is in the house and is just going to check what the usage is currently and then based on that and the plans around the shed, car charger, solar, and possible extension, he'll be able to explain where we are and how much additional ceiling would be useful.

KCross wrote: »

Possibly but you still dont need it at home. Do you care if your car finished charging at 3am instead of 6am?.... thats the primary benefit to you really.

If you think you will pay the piper and get 3ph in, then get a 3ph charger but other than that just get a charge point that provides 7kW and it will do you fine.

Worst case scenario is that you sell it on later and get a higher powered one then. Paying up front for something that you are very unlikely to utilise is the wrong direction, imo.

I was thinking more for convenience, if we forget or there is an issue with charging overnight, being able to charge quickly would be useful, but I get the point, can probably charge enough to do a couple of km and plug it in to a higher power one elsewhere.

KCross wrote: »

No issues there. Its been thought of and designed into every charge point. They are not live until it is plugged into a car and the car "asks" for the power.

You dont need the lockable feature if you have a private driveway.

Thanks, it wasn't entirely clear from reading the product descriptions.

KCross wrote: »

Again, is any of that gear going to be running at 1am in the morning when the car is charging? Even if it is, it doesnt matter as the charge point will ramp down to counteract the extra load. If you are close to the max already when the car wants to charge it simply wont start the charge session.

All the more reason to have it actually. You absolutely want the charge point to sense those high loads so that it doesnt become the extra load that causes the fuse to blow.

If you are close to the max already then you need the enhanced supply (16kVA) or maybe the 20kVA if your electrician works it out that you need it.

It's more if I'm running into issues with power consumption excluding the car charger, if I was going to need 3-phase for the extra power in the future figured might as well aim to be able to benefit from it. But it's pretty clear I should check what we're actually using right now before making any plans around future proofing on 3-ph for any charger.

KCross wrote: »

Its not a Zappi fault. Its a fault on the car side.

That's good to know.

KCross wrote: »

One of your requirements above is Solar integration. Do you have Solar already or is that another future proof idea?

There are a few things to consider there. 3-ph does have an added benefit of being able to export more excess than single phase (11kW vs 6kW).

The Zappi is the better known charge point for load sensing and Solar integration. Its hard to see passed it if you are serious about Solar, 3ph, app support and decent load management by default.

The solar is coming, I don't know if it'll definitely be next year, or have to wait until the following, more a case of timing.

I wasn't thinking about the 3-ph exporting more power. I have a feeling that the max I was expecting to produce would have been 4-5kW, so taking in the feedback, not enough for 3-ph to be of any benefit.

Actually looking at some of the set ups recently as well to understand if 3-ph would cause any issues here and I got the impression that it complicates use of battery storage for solar installations so it would likely impose some limitations there. So yes, I'm slowly backing away from the 3-ph.

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

I'd wonder about what you're using in the shed which requires 3 phase, unless you've a piece of equipment which will only run on 3 phase then you can get away with just upgrading your single phase supply

It was more that I was thinking that our max power draw would be high enough that would end up needing to upgrade, however I definitely read the cost doc wrong so the different between the options are definitely prohibitive unless sure that I'll need it.

I'd guess that heaters, compressors, vacuum, and a table or mitre saw running at the same time would probably be the extent in the shed. Maybe our couple of electrical gremlins are just bad choices on how some lighting is wired on to the wrong circuit as something else thus causing the LEDs to blow in one of the rooms rather than loading the supply overall at certain times.

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Also, you'll likely be charging the car at night time to take advantage of cheaper electricity, so as long as you avoid any midnight welding or carpentry then you're probably safe

If you have a charger with load balancing then the issue is mooted, the charger will reduce power down to zero if needed to prevent the house supply from being overloaded

Understood, the 3-ph was about taking advantage of the higher power based on the assumption I would need to upgrade the supply even if not getting the car charger, making it potentially worth considering. However based on the feedback here, as he's doing both the shed and will be doing the car charger now, he's going to check the current power usage to see if any upgrade is needed and unless it needs a special connection it's off the table from what I've learned.

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

The Zappi should cover everything you need. The issue with the ID.3 is specific to that car and is because VW have a deep sleep mode which the Zappi sometimes can't wake it up from, it hasn't been reported on any other cars AFAIK

Indeed, I'm giving the list of the 4 options to the electrician to see if he's got any experience with those particular ones. I did uncover one thing that might make the sync ev and zappi v2 slightly more attractive than the eo mini pro2 and wallbox copper sb. The former two don't require separate earth rod or additional device. should reduce the fitting cost for both of those. The eo mini pro2 appears to recommend a Garo earthing device. The wallbox cobber sb mentions requiring an earthing rod, not sure if that is inter-changeable with the garo earthing device, but definitely a bit extra cost.

the_amazing_raisin wrote:

It sounds a bit like you might have a fault in your wiring, an LED bulb really shouldn't be pushing you over the limit, they typically only draw a few watts anyway

They are however sensitive if there is something drawing a high load going on and off whens it on, and it was often on most of the day

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

I'd consider getting an energy monitor like below

https://openenergymonitor.org/

You can take a look at the power consumption of your house and hopefully get an idea of what it pushing you towards the limit of your current connection

That definitely looks interesting, also interesting to see the open source for the car charger, shame it's a power interlock based approach instead of load balancing, as otherwise it might tempt me away from some of the other solutions.

It appears at least some of the car charges with the dynamic load balancing have this built in since they are monitoring the load placed on the supply, so it comes bundled. If we end up selecting one that doesn't expose this info, I'll probably consider picking one up.

baby fish wrote: »

Some questions about charging, haven't really looked into this so just starting here:

1.Any features that need to get/avoid or are all chargers more or less the same?
2. Anything to future proof the installation?
3. Any suggestion of chargers to get/avoid
4. Can the charger location be any distance from the fuse board as long as a suitable cable is supplying the charger?
5. Sometime in future when we have 2 EV , is it just add another charger box with its own supply from fuseboard? Will having a 2nd EV reduce charge rate if both are charging at same time?

Here's my take

1. Consider a charger with load balancing if you have some heavy consumers of electricity in your house (heat pump, electric shower)
2. Cable for a 32Amp (7kW) charger even if you're only getting a 3kW one. Swapping a charger later is much easier than running a new cable. Some people suggest running cat-6 cabling to your charger, I wouldn't say I see the point
3. Zappi, EO Mini and Wallbox tend to get good reviews
4. I guess there is a technical limit where the current drop is too high, but unless you're talking hundereds of metres you should be fine. I've about 15m of cable from my charger to fuse box and no issues
5. You'll definitely need load balancing in this case, 2 EVs charging at 7kW will put you right at the limit for the enhanced ESB connection (16kVA).

The Zappi has the ability to run 2 chargers from a single connection, you can wire them back to the same cable as your original charger. You'll need to configure a group limit and the chargers will ensure they stay under this limit.

The 2 Zappis can be configured to prioritise 1 charger over another, or to share the available power

Cyrus wrote: »

afaik earth rods are a uk requirement but not here.

Just had that confirmed by the electrician here today as well, so seems like the install is really just down to how complex the box is to fix to the wall and where the cable has to be run from.

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Here's my take

1. Consider a charger with load balancing if you have some heavy consumers of electricity in your house (heat pump, electric shower)
2. Cable for a 32Amp (7kW) charger even if you're only getting a 3kW one. Swapping a charger later is much easier than running a new cable. Some people suggest running cat-6 cabling to your charger, I wouldn't say I see the point
3. Zappi, EO Mini and Wallbox tend to get good reviews
4. I guess there is a technical limit where the current drop is too high, but unless you're talking hundereds of metres you should be fine. I've about 15m of cable from my charger to fuse box and no issues
5. You'll definitely need load balancing in this case, 2 EVs charging at 7kW will put you right at the limit for the enhanced ESB connection (16kVA).

2. Run the Cat6. Some chargers require it for load management
3. For multiple chargers go for Zappi or Wallbox
4. There is no limit on how long the cable run can be. You just need to increase the size of cabling after certain distances.

fits wrote: »

I want to install a zappi. Can I order it online and get our electrician to install it?

Yes, as long as he is a registered electrician that can provide a cert.

Do I have to wait until car is registered in our name before applying for grant?

No, but you do need grant approval letter before you do any work

Checkout the SEAI website. All the info is there.

Very useful info, i must report mine as well. Cheers.

BrownFinger wrote: »

Zappi RCD problems
I've had a few random RCD trips on my zappi (once a month approx).
Seen a few others with the same problem on facebook.
Contacted them and its a known fault so they are sending me a new unit.
Just in case anyone else is having the problem.

Zappi v1 or v2?

any one get their ev grant into their bank account recently , im about 5 weeks waiting and just wondering how long its taking at the moment .