Charging my EV from a first floor flat

Hey @Robert.Young ,

Ummm... Hate to say this… But I’m afraid you’re extremely likely to struggle here. Both your landlord and the local council would almost certainly object to that plan as written. More from a health and safety i.e. trip/fire risk than anything else.

There’s no solution that I can think of which could realistically overcome this.

The only option I can think of, would be to see if a dedicated EV Charger can be installed close to the EV itself. That would at least allow you to potentially take advantage of stuff like OVO Charge Anytime provided you installed a compatible Charger (or had a compatible EV) and allow charging at a faster rate while still using green juice.

@Robert.Young what are your thoughts based on blastoise’s advice?

OVO fit smart chargers. You may also consider a subscription to an EV charging network. Are there public chargers nearby?

I have contacted my local councillors. One is hoping to see me the week after next; the other (ironically my Green Party elected representative) is delegating my task to someone else. Fortunately I am an owner occupier - so no landlord, only co-owners to placate.

There are public charge points about 5 minutes walk away but I can only leave the car there for 3 hours. Therefore if I want to use “the greenest electricity” I’d either have to stay up late or get up early .

I was hoping that OVO might have an idea. There is a company called Trojan that supply on street charging units but only to rent at a high monthly cost. I’ve also been recommended this company.https://bumblebeeev.com/apartments/

Does OVO have any other suggestions?

Robert Young

Just butting in here, and it’s not the point I know, but the Greenest energy isn’t necessarily at night. This pair of graphs show Today and Tomorrow (21st and 22nd June) and the greener times are during the day. The graphs are from my PodPoint charger app and relate to the South East region of England. There are other apps that show CO2 values for electricity generation but this is the clearest I’ve seen. 

Yep as Julia mentions, day time charging can work. It’s all that sun! You just need a good public charging subscription...

I believe we’re working on something for those that can’t have an EV charger… but I can’t say any more then that at this stage. 

Let us know how the discussions with the local councilors go if you can?

I’ve also heard that Ubiquiti have been working on an EV Charger as part of their UniFi Connect stuff. Not sure if it’d be suitable for the use case but may be worth a look. However, please research this option carefully as you’d need more than just their EV Charger if you went down this route.

Nice spot, @Blastoise186!

@Robert.Young these might be worth exploring...

Good morning everybody,

Thanks for all your help.

The meeting with my councillor was postponed & I’m still waiting for a new date.

I’ll certainly explore this options suggested. The variability of the “greenest” electricity timings is another headache. As I live “north of the border” I think wind rather than sunshine will be more consistent!

Robert

Not sure that green slots will be a problem @Robert.Young as your part of the country seems to be very green in power generation. The region is often the lowest registered in the UK (image for 25th June pm)
 

You might also want to check out the new gov department and their grant scheme if that might fit at all 

https://pod-point.com/guides/driver/ozev-grant

Morning Everyone,

Thanks especially to Blastoise186 , Tim & BPLightlog

The Government grant is only for flat dwellers and businesses with off street parking . Grrr!

The Unifi Connect tip only got me as far as connecting my IT.

I’ve just registered with Bumblebee but I’m supposing I’ll need permission from the local authority as I only have on street parking.

On a more positive note one of the councillors is prepared to come & see me- an appointment on Tuesday 4th!

The other (the environmentalist) has stopped replying,

Robert

Worth a try on those government grants though I guess. I think the bot probably still got it right, it just didn’t know about that restriction. :)

UniFi Connect would also suffer the same downside in terms of the EV Station charger - you need off-street parking for it to work at all.

That reminds me actually. The other option that MIGHT be worth exploring is Ubitricity, which you can find at https://ubitricity.com/en/ . They used to be known as SimpleSocket before they got acquired by Shell.

Their idea is to turn lampposts into on-street EV Chargers for people in your situation. The basic concept is that they install their equipment into an existing lamppost (or install a bollard with the equipment in it near to one) that uses the same electricity supply as the lamppost. It’s for slow charging only (Rapid/Supercharging is NOT supported!) and works best for overnight charging or for longer stays of a few hours. You then just turn up, plug in, activate the charge via the app/website and pay for what you use. Cheaper rates are available at off-peak times and they fully support scheduling a charge to only run during off-peak while still leaving the EV connected and the cable securely locked to prevent theft during the peak hours.

That’s solved these problems in some areas and it may be worth exploring here.

Thank you Blastoise186

The lamppost is on the house side of the pavement not the street side.

However there is a street lighting manhole between our front door & the kerb. I will contact Ubricity and then see what my local authority councillor says on Tuesday.

Slow charging (ie 3kW per hour) would give me 100miles of range on an overnight charge. If I need more then I wouldn’t be at home anyway!

Thanks again,

Robert

Gotcha. For that, I recall there being some kind of ingenious solution that puts the cable under the pavement in a way that makes tripping on the cable impossible and keeps it out of the way, while still making the cable easily removable. Apparently local councils will often approve that because it creates the best of both worlds.

I’ll see if I can find it again.

Ah ha! Found them buried away in my notes. To help make things fair, I’ll name all of the ones I’ve found. Please review all of them as they might not all be suitable:

• Kerbo Charge
• Gul-e
• Stormguard
• Pavecross

The list is purely in the order I found them.

Once again thank you Blastoise186

It’s 5 minutes to 5 o’clock on a Friday so I’ll stop for the evening.

But you’ve supplied me with homework for the weekend!

Robert

Morning everyone,

Just a (delayed) update on my progress with my plan for on street charging.

My local councillor came to see me and was very sympathetic. The lack of provision of public chargers and their poor maintenance record was discussed. The nearest public charge point to our house (ironically) has been out of service for several weeks! Up here there is a Scottish Government body ChargePlace Scotland attempting to co-ordinate public chargers. They claim most charge points are repaired within 48 hours; however their own “chat” facility somewhat contradicts that! The time at the charger is limited to 3 hours so effectively rules out overnight charging. The cost per unit is at least 66% above the price cap so both environmentally & economically it’s a poor solution.

My councillor advised me to write to the Convener of the Transport & Environment Committee, which I have done. I was also advised to contact the other two councillors for the ward- which I have done.

Finally I’ve tried again to contact the Green Party councillor to promote the idea of storing overnight generated electricity to allow use the next day at the peak demand time. A “purchase deal” from a big energy supplier (eg OVO) to sell overnight electricity & then buy back excess electricity would be a useful argument for those of us with EV’s but no off street parking. Any suggestions, Tim?

Robert