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EV Charger Install - any electrician?


Adam2

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We're doing 1st fix in the garage and planning for the EV charger. If I bought one of these QubEV can any electrician fit it or do you need some special certificates?

This seems so cheap and doing this now makes sense. Payback on a smart one on lower cost electricity (like Intelligent Octopus) doesn't seem worthwhile

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  • 3 months later...

Resurecting this one too see if any ideas on how to control charging with a dumb ev charge unit so that it operates only during certain hours. 

 

Given the energy crisis seems sensible to add solar, use this in the day and then at night stuck up cheaper energy for the ev, heating etc

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11 hours ago, Adam2 said:

Given the energy crisis seems sensible to add solar, use this in the day

The problem with that is, without some storage to act as a buffer, you have to match supply and demand.

As an EV is basically a storage device with wheels and seats, if it can accept small, low power, sips of energy, then that is the better way to do it.

 

It is also worth comparing utility values.

If, with a car it costs x to get to work, and you earn y. You may be better off washing clothes during the day (and hang them on a line to dry).

Edited by SteamyTea
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On 08/03/2022 at 15:53, Adam2 said:

We're doing 1st fix in the garage and planning for the EV charger. If I bought one of these QubEV can any electrician fit it or do you need some special certificates?

 

Bit late to the party, but for others who might follow:


I believe you did need to use someone certified if you wanted to claim the home charging grant, but the system changed earlier this year, and only flat owners and renters qualify for the subsidy.

 

I don't believe an electrician needs any special certification to install a charger.

 

You do, however, need some special kit if you want to do the required testing. I don't know how common it is for a typical one-person-band electrician to have this kit. The electrician I use just bought the required equipment in the last few weeks, as he now has enough interest from his regular clients to make it worthwhile having.

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12 hours ago, Adam2 said:

Resurecting this one too see if any ideas on how to control charging with a dumb ev charge unit so that it operates only during certain hours. 

 

Given the energy crisis seems sensible to add solar, use this in the day and then at night stuck up cheaper energy for the ev, heating etc

 

Most EVs allow you to program their charge times, so you can match that to, eg, the Octopus Go cheap period.

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On 14/06/2022 at 09:48, SteamyTea said:

The problem with that is, without some storage to act as a buffer, you have to match supply and demand.

As an EV is basically a storage device with wheels and seats, if it can accept small, low power, sips of energy, then that is the better way to do it.

I work at home pretty much all the time + my wife 2-3 days a week so figured we'd use a fair amount of our own generation and divert excess to the immersion (though need the right solution for that having read the recent posts about challenges with that so may need source a low kW immersion element?). Have ASHP and intend to use for cooling also so that would seem like we'd have a reasonable chance to use what we generate of we plan accordingly

 

Issue of course is modelling this to factor in the many days where we will not get sufficient solar so would be paying higher price for electricity if we went for an off-peak rather than a standard tariff. Though a model is of course imperfect so maybe we install and have std tariff and monitor for a while before changing to off-peak.

 

The car realistically will be charged over night probably twice a week 75kWh battery (often 20-90% charge). Shame the car is  a bit too old to support bi-direction, maybe that's an excuse for a new car 🙂

 

Anyway, seems like one approach is max of 10 panels on the roof + cheap and cheerful EV charge unit .  Looks like Bimble will do 3.75kW kit for 1.8K which seems decent enough and easy to get all in one place + the EV charge unit I linked earlier at just £300 unless anyone can advise on better options.

 

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