Which EV home charger?

[SteamyTea]

55 minutes ago, NSS said:

223 miles

In a month?

 

What are the standing losses?

 

39 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

used 1.6 Focus

I take it is a diesel.  My 1.8TDI only does that on a decent run, locally it seems to be about 55 MPG.

[NSS]

40 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

For comparison, just bought a used 1.6 Focus for commuting (£4600).  Have done just over 2000 miles in the last 4 weeks and its averaging 64.9 mpg (incl. short trips to the shops).

 

Average fuel price £1.80 per litre, so about £8.10 per gallon, 8.1/65= 12.5p.

Fair play, but if I was doing 500 miles a week I'd be driving something different too.

[Thorfun]

Hi @NSS. Glad the Zappi is working out well for you. I've recently purchased an EV charger having used a 3-pin plug for the last 3 years! I wanted something that worked with my solar PV and batteries and, obviously, the Zappi was near the top of the list. 

 

But....

 

...I decided to go with a Hypervolt charger in the end. not as intelligent as the Zappi for solar/battery but it was quite a bit cheaper! since having it installed by my sparky I have mostly used it to charge from solar PV in what Hypervolt (HV) call their super-eco mode in which is requires a minimum of 1.4kW being produced to charge. I have noticed that in this mode it will also sometimes discharge from the battery to charge. I think the logic is that if the house is exporting to the grid then the HV will ramp up the charge to the car. I guess then that if the solar PV generation drops maybe the battery kicks in to cover the shortfall quicker than the HV reduces the charge rate. I'm not really sure but it seems to work!

 

The reporting side of things is poor in comparison to the Zappi but from my battery usage data I can see that it's working. when you consider that there's hardly anything running in the house at the moment, just site lights mostly and so any consumption in the graph below is the car charging. you can see that the battery definitely discharges to help out with the charge and when the car doesn't need power (or there isn't enough power being generated) the car stops charging and the generated electricity goes back in to the batteries.

 

 

what this basically means is that for the last month since I installed the HV I have been running the EV for free. 🙂 According to the HV app the amount of energy it has put in to the car during October would've cost me £133.06. I think that's a pretty darn good saving in a month.

 

 

[NSS]

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

In a month?

 

What are the standing losses?

 

26 days (from collecting it on 28/09 until the last charge on 24/10) but under 3 weeks effectively as we were away (in the Macan) for a chunk of that period.

 

As for any standing losses, they're negligible. 

[NSS]

16 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

Hi @NSS. Glad the Zappi is working out well for you. I've recently purchased an EV charger having used a 3-pin plug for the last 3 years! I wanted something that worked with my solar PV and batteries and, obviously, the Zappi was near the top of the list. 

 

But....

 

...I decided to go with a Hypervolt charger in the end. not as intelligent as the Zappi for solar/battery but it was quite a bit cheaper! since having it installed by my sparky I have mostly used it to charge from solar PV in what Hypervolt (HV) call their super-eco mode in which is requires a minimum of 1.4kW being produced to charge. I have noticed that in this mode it will also sometimes discharge from the battery to charge. I think the logic is that if the house is exporting to the grid then the HV will ramp up the charge to the car. I guess then that if the solar PV generation drops maybe the battery kicks in to cover the shortfall quicker than the HV reduces the charge rate. I'm not really sure but it seems to work!

 

The reporting side of things is poor in comparison to the Zappi but from my battery usage data I can see that it's working. when you consider that there's hardly anything running in the house at the moment, just site lights mostly and so any consumption in the graph below is the car charging. you can see that the battery definitely discharges to help out with the charge and when the car doesn't need power (or there isn't enough power being generated) the car stops charging and the generated electricity goes back in to the batteries.

 

 

what this basically means is that for the last month since I installed the HV I have been running the EV for free. 🙂 According to the HV app the amount of energy it has put in to the car during October would've cost me £133.06. I think that's a pretty darn good saving in a month.

 

 

Very good. The eco+ mode on the Zappi requires 1.4kW surplus and we rarely generate that much at this time of year so just dump any excess into the Power Diverter. It will perhaps be different when there's more sun, but the current Go rate, the fact that we utilise so much of our PV already, and the relatively low mileage we use the Mini for, means battery storage is probably not for us (at least not until V2H becomes a possibility).

[Pocster]

I have Andersen charger . Too expensive imho but you can customise the colour choices 😁 . Does look smart . With the cable wrapped into it - it doesn’t look like a charger ( which is the effect I wanted ) . By careful management ( I.e as soon as I see export I plug the EV in ) - current runnings costs for EV are zero . Indeed electricity costs to date ( offsetting import against export of course ) are near zero .

A simple way I do it is my direct debit to octopus is £25 a month . After 12 months I have £300 in credit 😁

[elite]

@pocsterHave there been any issues with Andersen going into administration and subsequent buy out by Evios?

[Pocster]

13 minutes ago, elite said:

@pocsterHave there been any issues with Andersen going into administration and subsequent buy out by Evios?

Oh ! Didn’t know they had !!! When did that happen ???

[Pocster]

17 minutes ago, elite said:

@pocsterHave there been any issues with Andersen going into administration and subsequent buy out by Evios?

Just read up ! You are indeed correct !!  No issues ( yet ) - does say Evios will honour current Andersen products and customers 

Edited November 1, 2022 by pocster

[elite]

23 minutes ago, pocster said:

Just read up ! You are indeed correct !!  No issues ( yet ) - does say Evios will honour current Andersen products and customers 

Good to know, they do look smart 🤞 they keep support, always a worry with devices tied to external services

[Thorfun]

2 hours ago, NSS said:

Very good. The eco+ mode on the Zappi requires 1.4kW surplus and we rarely generate that much at this time of year so just dump any excess into the Power Diverter. It will perhaps be different when there's more sun, but the current Go rate, the fact that we utilise so much of our PV already, and the relatively low mileage we use the Mini for, means battery storage is probably not for us (at least not until V2H becomes a possibility).

I guess that's a benefit of having a 10.5kWp array! even at this time of year with the storm we had today we generated 16.54kWh. 🙂 

 

 

also helps that we haven't finished the house yet so pretty much all we generate goes in to the car or battery before exporting. I'm sure once we're in the car won't get as much love.

 

 

[NSS]

52 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

I guess that's a benefit of having a 10.5kWp array! even at this time of year with the storm we had today we generated 16.54kWh. 🙂 

 

also helps that we haven't finished the house yet so pretty much all we generate goes in to the car or battery before exporting. I'm sure once we're in the car won't get as much love.

 

 

 

A measly 3.6kWh for us today. We'd have been better off with nano-hydro generators in the rainwater downpipes!

[jack]

17 hours ago, NSS said:

A measly 3.6kWh for us today. We'd have been better off with nano-hydro generators in the rainwater downpipes!

 

8.5 kWh for us yesterday, from an 8.5 kW array.

 

Can you spot when the storm came through?

 

[Guest28]

I was looking for an EV charging point that also could be used to plug in a temporary garden office or a caravan etc.

 

It was a pillar type I was looking for that could be used to either charge EVs or power a temp garden office. 

 

Its because I was looking at installing an EV charging point on our land about 30 meters from the houses, I wanted a 2 in one solution that could also be used to power other stuff if needed.

 

Does anyone know if such a thing exists? I've tried a google search but can't really see anything.

[SteamyTea]

Why not just wire in a commando socket alongside the charger?

[Conor]

7 hours ago, MBT6 said:

I was looking for an EV charging point that also could be used to plug in a temporary garden office or a caravan etc.

 

It was a pillar type I was looking for that could be used to either charge EVs or power a temp garden office. 

 

Its because I was looking at installing an EV charging point on our land about 30 meters from the houses, I wanted a 2 in one solution that could also be used to power other stuff if needed.

 

Does anyone know if such a thing exists? I've tried a google search but can't really see anything.

 

Doubt it. Just pull through a couple more cables through your duct when installing the EV charger and install an external socket where needed.