street lights and EV charging points

[Taylortwocities]

Agreed. FYI, I have a looped supply. My service fuse is 100A. I have no intention of going the EV route so I don’t have any concern. My (linked) neighbours are both 80+ so don’t expect them to be looking for EV.
The next people who live there might, but that will be their problem.

 

[JohnW2]

Agreed. FYI, I have a looped supply. My service fuse is 100A. I have no intention of going the EV route so I don’t have any concern. My (linked) neighbours are both 80+ so don’t expect them to be looking for EV. The next people who live there might, but that will be their problem.

Indeed. I think many people have forgotten common sense and have over-interpreted this "not allowed with a looped supply" and are failing to understand that all that matters is the capacity of the supply (which, one imagines, is reflected by the ratings of fuses which the DNO have deemed appropriate to install).

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I have a 60 amp fuse for all the property, that's a house and a flat under the house, and yes it would need reviewing before a heat pump or EV charging point was installed, it is clear why it was 60 amp, the originally fuse box isolator was only rated at 60 amp, but likely it could be upgraded if required.

The supply to street lamps may well be unmetered, there is no real reason for metering 10 lamps switched on for a set time each day, easy to calculate what they use. However with an EV charging point can't see the DNO trusting the billing agents equipment, although they might, I know with the EV charging point at the railways the first 15 minutes is not charged out, it is to allow people to set up the app to pay for what they use, and we have found people standing by their car unplugging and plugging back in every 15 minutes.

Although it is a 22 kW outlet, it seems most cars only charge at 7 kW, few it seems can use all three phases, so they could travel to next EV charging point at a caravan site and charge at same rate, caravan site only single phase it seems.

But it seems it is the registering with the billing agent which causes the most problems, charging at home can be a simple commando socket OK £155 which is not cheap, but be it a welding set or EV both can use a standard 32 amp socket in the garage, the person fitting the socket may not know it is going to be used to charge an EV, and if I took power to a garage today I would consider fitting a 32 amp commando socket, plus it means the charger is not linked to DNO and they can't remotely turn it off.

I can't see anyone driving their car down our shared drive with 3 other homes, to try plugging into my power socket. But on the street some method of stopping the unauthorised from using the supply is required.

As to caravan sites it was common to have a 16 amp supply for each caravan and the site worked on average usage, so set fee for hook-up, but that would not work if people also charge their cars from the supply.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

As to caravan sites it was common to have a 16 amp supply for each caravan and the site worked on average usage, so set fee for hook-up, but that would not work if people also charge their cars from the supply.

With m/waves, fridges, kettles, toasters and heaters, etc. it's unlikely to have any spare capacity anyway.

 

[JohnW2]

I have a 60 amp fuse for all the property, that's a house and a flat under the house, and yes it would need reviewing before a heat pump or EV charging point was installed, it is clear why it was 60 amp, the originally fuse box isolator was only rated at 60 amp, but likely it could be upgraded if required.

I'm not sure about the logic of that "it is clear why". When a DNO installed a supply, they didn't necessarily know anything about the 'rating' of the fuse box, and certainly nothing about the 'rating' of a fuse box which might be installed in the future.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

It would have been irresponsible to have swapped the 60 amp fuse for a larger one when the main isolator is rated at 60 amp. The same applies if the fuse was already 100 amp and some one fits a RCD rated 63 or 80 amp with MCB's totalling over that rating in a consumer unit.

Yes I have seen it done, but that does not make it right.

We do see the attitude, the 32 amp trips so fit a 40 amp, or type B trips so fit type C without checking the cable sizes or loop impedance. But that does not make it right.

And there are some items we need to be careful with because of how long they run for, immersion heaters, washer/driers, and EV charging points. Most items used at home run for less than an hour, I know my son when living on a narrow boat could run a 3 kW washing machine on the 40°C cycle on a B6 MCB, but a B4 tripped. The heating element was used for such a short time, he wanted a hot fill washing machine, but today these are only made for the likes of narrow boats at around twice the price of a domestic washing machine.

I see no reason why we could not have a row of charging points designed to reduce charge rate the more that are in use, I seem to remember reading how these were available. So 6 EV charging points can be set up so total of all 6 does not exceed 100 amp.

But the problem is of course one wants the car to be charged when you return to it. If you plug into a 22 kW charging point before going on a 2 hour train trip, one expects to return to find 44 kWh has gone into the vehicle, returning to find only 14 kWh has transferred may mean you need to spend some more time in the cafe to get a little more charge, this however has a knock on effect, it means the next visitor to the Heritage railway does not have a free EV charging point they can use.

It seems the rules on charging for electricity in caravan sites does not extend to EV charging points. With a caravan site one is not allowed to make a profit by re-selling the electric, one is only allowed to break even. In theory although clearly would not work in practice, if 20 caravans use 20 kWh and you have charged for 40 kWh you should refund them, minus a same admin charge. For statics that may well work, but for touring caravans it is a bit hard unless the supply is metered.

With an EV charging point the supply is metered, so if the company is charged at £B per kWh if on same rules as caravans it should charge £B plus admin charge which is low, however it seems this is not the case, and company are charging up to 4 times what they are paying for the power to the DNO.

It seems using an EV and not having the option to charge at home, is not just an inconvenience but expensive. Unless things have changed? I watched an old top gear show where they were trying to drive length of the UK in electric and ICE and compare, and the cost of using a rapid charger was really high.

Between problems logging into payment systems, and EV charging points not working, one can see the problem facing Carl Benz's wife as she tried to drive with early (first) petrol car. With my EV (a ebike) I could remove my battery and go into a Pub and ask if I can charge it, never tried it, but option is likely there, but putting a car battery into you back pack and walking to the Pub is not really an option. And when my battery is flat I can still pedal the bike, again that option not there with a car, why cars don't have solar panels on the roof I don't know? Then during the day where ever parked outside it would gain some charge, they are fitted to caravan roofs so why not cars?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Then during the day where ever parked outside it would gain some charge, they are fitted to caravan roofs so why not cars?

The difference is scale between charging a typical 80 or 120 amp/hour battery in a caravan and a EV which has a massively larger amp//hour rating. Less roof space available to on a car, to mount solar.

 

[Mottie]

I remember my son telling me about the time he went away with friends and their kids for the weekend and one of them had a Tesla. He said that he charged it up through a normal 13 socket in the kitchen of the place they were staying in, passing the cable out through the window.

He said his mate was being all smug about the fact he was getting a free charge up when they heard a noise from the roof and looked up just in time to see a tile from the roof slide off and land smack on the A pillar, damaging that as well as the windscreen. Apparently, repairs to Tesla's can only be carried out by a main dealer?

 

[winston1]

why cars don't have solar panels on the roof I don't know? Then during the day where ever parked outside it would gain some charge, they are fitted to caravan roofs so why not cars?

The area of a car roof is so small you’d be lucky to get 100 watts off it which would make no effective difference to an EV battery. A caravan roof is much bigger and only charging a leisure battery which does not have to propel the vehicle.

 

[ericmark]

My car sits on the drive for weeks without use, so common for me to have to connect a smart charger to recharge the battery, even 100 watt for 3 weeks would be 25 kWh assuming 12 hours of daylight.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

My car sits on the drive for weeks without use, so common for me to have to connect a smart charger to recharge the battery, even 100 watt for 3 weeks would be 25 kWh assuming 12 hours of daylight.

My car does the same, but neither of us make what anyone would describe and normal car use. In your case, you could maybe get away with a portable solar cell, plugged into your car, to charge it.

 

[Tigercubrider]

A film studio that I was at uses covered car parking (like a car port) for car charging and the food is a solar panel

 

[Why Not Indeed]

why cars don't have solar panels on the roof I don't know? Then during the day where ever parked outside it would gain some charge, they are fitted to caravan roofs so why not cars?

You can specify a solar panel on a Hyundai Ioniq 5 which they say will get you about 2000km/year...but not in the UK. Probably more useful in sunnier climes, but still borderline gimmicky.

 

[Taylortwocities]

You can specify a solar panel on a Hyundai Ioniq 5 which they say will get you about 2000km/year...but not in the UK. Probably more useful in sunnier climes, but still borderline gimmicky.

But we have global warming. It's going to be blazing sunshine, everywhere, all the time, very soon.

 

[JohnW2]

It would have been irresponsible to have swapped the 60 amp fuse for a larger one when the main isolator is rated at 60 amp.

I can't get as excited as you (or many people) about the 'ratings' of switches, so I probably would not say 'irresponsible', albeit 'wrong' - in a domestic CU, the main switch will virtually never carry (let alone be asked to 'break') a current anywhere near it's 'rating', let alone the 'rating' of the DNO fuse ... and, in any event, a fuse will allow a current well in excess of its 'rating' to flow for an appreciable period of time.

However, that was not my point - which was that when the DNO install, say, a 60A fuse, they don't necessarily know the 'ratings' of what it will currently be connected to, and certainly not about what it may be connected to in the future.

The same applies if the fuse was already 100 amp and some one fits a RCD rated 63 or 80 amp with MCB's totalling over that rating in a consumer unit.

Again, I can't get excited about that. It must be extremely common for an RCD 'protected by' an 80A or 100A DNO fuse to itself be protecting circuits with MCB ratings totalling more than its 'rating' - the pedantic would presumably even say that one couldn't even have two 32A circuits protected by a 63A RCD (since 64 is greater than 63) unless the DNO fuse was 60A!!

Kind Regards, John