Reply to post:

Bring the people 'beautiful' electric car charging points, calls former transport minister

rh587

If your drawing 13 amps out of a socket for charging an EV without putting in a seperate supply then there are only 17 amps remaining in the ringmain until the ring main breaker trips. In other words, cook a meal in the microwave and put a kettle on to make a brew, and a breaker is likely to pop.

This is more than a bit of a straw man. Are people really going to plug their EV into the kitchen ring? Complaining that they will only have 17A remaining on the ring is a bit silly (actually 19A if it's a 32A MCB rather than a 30A fuse as in olden days).

As you go on to say, most domestic properties have at least 60A on the main fuse. This is more liable to be a problem if people are running an electric cooker or an electric shower (typically on their own 45A fuse or 50A MCB). Most people shower in the mornings, when cars should be fully charged and in any case, most showers only pull 7.5kW, which is ~30A, but a cooker could pull as much as 40A (if you turn on both ovens and all 4 hobs). In most cases of course you'll only be using a fraction of the actual capacity, and may even have a gas hob and electric oven, in which case the electrical load is dropped further.

So what we're really saying is don't plug it into your kitchen sockets or charge it whilst you're doing dinner (unless you're using gas, in which case go for it!).

For what it's worth, I see many people charging at work. To play Devil's Advocate and go down the "I'm alright Jack" route, both my partner and I work on business parks, both council-owned as it happens. Hers has electric charging points, mine doesn't (yet). She only has to drive a couple of miles anyway and a modern EV could go at least 10 days between charges. I could likewise go a few days on my longer commute. We both park on the street at the moment but that is primarily down to me rebuilding our asbestos-cement garage and clearing it out so you can actually get a car in there, in which case one of us could be charging, whilst the other would probably have done it already at work.

I'd suggest in many cases (though definitely not all), people parking on the street do actually have somewhere to park, its just their lock-up is full of junk. There are certainly terraces further down our road which do not have rear access and that represents rather more of a challenge, but our terrace does - and every property has a garage at the back, it's just no one uses it for their car!

Far more problematic is the overall draw on the grid.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon