Power to EV charge point

[vivienz]

I'm thinking hard about my first fix electrics now as I'm not that far away from them. 

 

I want to have the wiring in place for an EV charge point in the garage.  I don't have an electric car and I'm not sure if or when I will have one, but it makes sense to be to get the wiring for it done now, just without the termination as I don't know what type of EV it might be.

 

I'm also having a reasonably sized solar PV array, primarily going into sunamps but possibly to an EV as well. 

 

My question is this: does the wiring to the EV point need to go directly into the PV or is it more likely to be on a general circuit, i.e. one that will be from the mains, be that E7 or whatever the tariff is at the time?  I ask because I had a site visit for the solar installation today and the implication was that the wiring from the PV array will need to include the EV point if I want to use any of the PV for that purpose.

[Jeremy Harris]

The EV charge point just needs a dedicated radial run from the supply, much like a cooker or immersion heater.  You can either run it from the main consumer unit in the house, or sometimes it's easier to run it from it's own dedicated CU.  If you only have a single phase supply, then there's no point in going for more than a 14 kW charge point.  The cable size will be determined by the voltage drop along its length, in all probability.  I ran 6mm² SWA to our garage, fed from a small CU with a 40A DP RCBO in a small CU in the meter box.  6mm² is overkill, but it reduces the voltage drop at the garage end.

 

I have a 14 kW charge point at the garage end of the drive, plus a 7 kW charge point at the other end, so I can charge wherever I happen to park the car.

 

 

[newhome]

Mine just comes off the main CU. People on E7 etc set a timer to charge it during the cheaper periods but I’m on a normal tariff so it charges whenever I plug it in. 

[jack]

We ran two big SWAs from the consumer unit into the garage and have left then coiled there ready for when we get an electric car.

 

Makes sense to have one to a convenient outdoor point too. We really should have run one to near where we usually park our smaller runabout car (which will likely be replaced with an electric fairly soon), but we didn't actually realise when we were building the house that this is where that car would end up getting parked!

[vivienz]

Thanks, chaps, just the answer I was after.  No need for any expensive extras running from the PV set up.