Hi, just wondering if any one knows if this could be used to attach an EV charger to.
the house is about 10 years old, so I doubt the builders were thinking about EV charging points. thanks, Ad1
the house is about 10 years old, so I doubt the builders were thinking about EV charging points. thanks, Ad1As a fully qualified spark and EVCP installer:
For a typical domestic 7kW EVCP install, you would require 6mm2 3 core SWA (Armoured). However, voltage drop is taken into account depending on the distance from the Consumer Unit (CU) your EVCP is installed. If your charger is back to back to the CU, you may get away with having 4mm2 SWA or if its going to be located at the other side of the garden or be part of a garage supply for example you may need 10mm2 SWA or larger depending on the run/supply.
As a best guess soley from your picture, the SWA cable size seems like 3 core 2.5mm2, so is highly unlikely to be suitable for a 7.4kW EVCP. The overall diameter of 6mm2 SWA is 16.6mm compared to 14mm for 2.5mm2 SWA, if you can gauge it yourself. Are you sure this supply is not for a detached garage or the likes?
Your House was built around 17th edition wiring regulations, although some amendmats to the 17th edition had taken place, Regulations regarding EV’s didn’t get meaningfull untill the latter part of the 17th edition and really took off in in 2018 when the 18th edition wiring regulations came into practice.
That said your house is unlikely to require much wotk if any to allow an EVCP to be installed, other than the possibility of a new cable run to the EVCP and a change of MCB to 32A. Your DNO cut out is highly likely to be 100A given the age of your home and earthing arangements in place, although these were slackened somewhat with the introduction of the 18th edition. Also based on the age of your home it highly unlikely you are on a looped supply.
It use to be the case with TN-C-S and PME systems earths(I suspect your home PME) that it was often a requirement to have an earth electrode (TNT earth) within a certain distance of the installation of the EVCP. This was to protect upstream faults with the Neutral or earth cable, which would disconnect the supply. This is rarely case today as the majority of EVCP manufacturers have an inclusive circuit that detects a neutral – earth failure (or even partial failure) and immediately puts the charger into a fault mode while at the same time disconnecting live, neutral and earth from the car via a single earth relay and double in series live and neutral relays. EVCP’s can now send diagnostic data on this and other safety related issues via ethernet or more commonly by a Wifi connection to promptly report any faults to the DNO. Also as part of the governments smart charger regulations, that also require internet connection of the EVCP, it is therefore important you check you have a good wifi signal at the point of wanting your EVCP installled or a data cable willl need to be installed!
By no means is this in depth of the full process however, your Motability EVCP install is likely to be anything other than a basic standard install , as long as you don’t want it fitted somewhere that requires alot of cabling or on the opposite side of your meterbox! Don’t worry about it! 🙂