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

That works for me - I have an EV & buy 100% renewable electricity - the point is that the proportion of renewable electricity in the grid at any moment is known (see here)

so once providers don't sell more than is there to sell, it doesn't matter which actual electrons you get. Also, the more demand there is for renewable electricity, the more it will pay generator companies to feed it into the grid to satisfy that demand.

The same is done with Biogas - you can buy regular fossil fuel propane for your (rural, non-mains) gas tank, but you can also buy propane which comes from renewable sources* - the biogas and regular gas is mixed in the supply chain (they're chemically identical), but once they don't sell more Biogas than is put into the supply chain, it doesn't matter which actual molecules you get.

*However, I'm not completely convinced by Biogas, because while some of the gas is produced from rendering waste organic materials, a lot is produced from certified-sustainable palm oil, but I can't see how even sustainable palm oil doesn't increase world demand, and encourage development of non-sustainable sources to satisfy overall world demand.

I postponed KN smart meter installation last week due to Zappi charger installation going in to the external meter. Haven't switched over to a day/night rate with Bord Gais Networks duel fuel plan.

Can anybody tell me if I should avoid the installation so I can say go onto a day/night plan without having to go a smart plan? Or is it that I'll need to get the smart meter installed and go into the smart plan to get the day/night rates?

Bord Gais haven't called me back to "inform" me.

On the positive side, I got a load balancing Zappi charger installed on a pedestal places at the edge of the driveway tarmac. Nice enough job, they had to cut a channel in the concrete, run the cable buried along a path for 10m and run into the pedestal set in concrete.

The fuse would not be upgraded as part of a meter swap out.

To upgrade the fuse they would have to get an electrician to signoff that your house wiring is capable to take the higher current and that would be up to you to organise and pay for.

Smart Plans and Day/Night Plan:

Bord Gais advised me today that with smart meter you have to go on a smart plan and with a day/night meter you don't.

They have said that if you get the smart meter installed, you cannot get a day night meter installed and thus cannot go on day night plan. There is a big enough difference in the day/night rates compared to the smart plans to avoid the smart plans entirely. See the rates I got today attached.

Meters:

The install of the day night meter is not charged. Others have said that there is a big charge to get it removed though. ESB Networks and their national roll out might mean that down the line any day/night meter removal cost could potentially be avoided if you made them aware that you've yet to get your smart meter.

Conclusion:

As others have summarised

, it seems that it it makes most sense as an ev owner to not let ESB Networks install their smart meter and to not get a smart meter, get a day night meter, move to day/night rates, and avoid the smart plans for as long as the rates mean it's worth while.

Getting a zappi installed today. Does anyone have any recommendations on protecting it for wind, sun and rain. I’m thinking of getting a bit of steel and making a small roof and sides to help protect it. I live at the coast and it can be quite rough. Charger will be at the back of the house.

Is there any need? There's nothing in the literature I got with the Eo requiring it to be enclosed I assumed they were built to survive in all weathers.

Is that the Zappi or the Eo you're referring to? I don't live near the sea so I'm ok in that regard although the wall it's on is facing wsw.

Looks like a terrible idea.

Is that door going to be flapping open all the time the cable is attached to the car? I guess they could notch the bottom of the door.

And it looks ok while the cable is neatly wrapped up in the picture but having to wrap that around the charge point each time in that enclosed space would drive me nuts.

And those white boxes arent exactly aestethically pleasing.

The charge point is designed for outdoor use. I wouldnt enclose it, but each to their own.

More jargon to try and bust... What's an adaptive fuse?

From their website:

"In some homes with limited incoming supply, we recommend fitting an adaptive fuse to safely balance your EV charging power against your home consumption.

It automatically ensures that your EV gets power without overloading the fuse and causing a potential outage. We will highlight this to you after you’ve completed your survey so you don’t need to do anything now."

I believe this is the same as "Load Balancing" based on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_VqqT4BmI though I noticed that some manufactures specify load balancing to be balancing between chargers and Dynamic Load balancing to be balancing between all applications.

Similar to the CT clamp your man put on my consumer unit and cabled it to the Eo?

ESBN = ESB Networks? Just reading around AskaboutMoney and here it seems ten years ago you could get away with upgrading your consumer unit/fuse board and then getting ESB to replace the tails. However, it sounds like the electrician then discovered issues with the Wire in your house in general and he would need to sign off on connecting all wiring into a new consumer board, I guess he's determined the wiring isn't good enough.

Unsure, I'm not an electrician. Certainly it will need some way of measuring current used be the rest of the house and I've no smart meter.

@ Manion and meercat: Thanks for your comments.

I guess I know in my heart that the house needs rewiring. Just venting a little bit :) But... But... There's only 2 of us here and we're gotten along fine for the past few decades and there's no history of appliances tripping etc. AFAIK, there's no history of similar in our housing estate of 300+ houses either. I know the EV charger will add extra demands on the meter but the laws of physics haven't changed that much since the 1980's. For example, back in March 2021, the 'rules' changed overnight so you could wire the charger direct to the meter. One day, it was wrong and the next day it was ok.

I guess it's the sticker shock as the cost went from zero to €10k in the blink of an eye. I just bought an EV for €32k with a 'free' charger thrown in. If I'd known there was a €10k+ bill to follow, I think I would have stuck with my smelly diesel... I only have my EV a couple of weeks but back of the envelope calculations say I'll save €1k/yr in fuel so it'll take 10 years to break even (to my simple mind).

So I was just wondering how many houses around Ireland are gonna get caught out with a similar problem. It's a huge potential (and expensive) problem if 800k private EV's are introduced to Ireland by 2030!

Thanks again!