Only one EV charger at home?!

We're talking about domestic premises. Funnily enough I have a domestic premises.

My point exactly, the wire is what matters, not the fuse or contract.

Ah, they don't do that in the UK. In the USA, they actually put a number inside them. Probably easy enoguh to make one, it's just a bit of yellow paper.

We're talking about domestic premises. Funnily enough I have a domestic premises.

My point exactly, the wire is what matters, not the fuse or contract.

Ah, they don't do that in the UK. In the USA, they actually put a number inside them. Probably easy enoguh to make one, it's just a bit of yellow paper.

We're talking about domestic premises. Funnily enough I have a domestic premises.

My point exactly, the wire is what matters, not the fuse or contract.

Ah, they don't do that in the UK. In the USA, they actually put a number inside them. Probably easy enoguh to make one, it's just a bit of yellow paper.

Which does not qualify you to say what is or is not inside the electricity meter.

I used to work in the electricity supply industry and I can assure you that each Board (as it was then) put a unique impression on their seals.

In the USA, they actually put a

Yes it does, since I have observed it. I know it only logs usage. Pre-smart meters, the only output was a number, how many units used since it was installed.

Interestingly wrong, since there is no impression here.

Certainly. Here they charge you more the faster your contract is. You want 15A? Fine. You want 30A? Fine, pay double. And you also pay for what you actually consume. We are greedy over here.

We did not touch the seals, we rewired the cables in the back, where they are not visible.

Kinsey may have answered it above, but ...

Is it just me or can the utility provide the current and can your house wiring sustain it?

Funny, the rest of the UK uses 230V. I wonder where he lives exactly?

So, you have only looked at the outside and not checked whether it is fitted with any sort of internal overload cut-out. The rating of this meter as 40A max implies that there should be something of the sort, as other meters have different maximum ratings:

Correct for the period when I worked in the industry and the meter readers were Electricity Board employees, who visited every three months. With meter reading now sub-contracted out, I doubt anybody checks the seals, so marking them is probably redundant.

A wet string area, as it was known to the engineers when I worked in the industry, implying that the overhead wires might as well be wet string for all their capacity. However, in the days when the only electricity uses in the home were lighting (probably a single 40W* bulb in each room) and a radio, 40A was more than generous.

*When he came back from the war my father upgraded the 25W light bulbs my mother had installed to 40W. For somebody used to oil lamps, 25W was bright enough.

The incomers in even quite old houses from the 1970's are typically good for 100A though they are like mine often fused at 60A or 80A. Our VH has exactly the same cabling and 100A on each of the two available phases.

I expect just like with he 13A fuse in practice the nominal 100A fuse will pass a considerably higher current for a while before it fails.

The local network cables rely on load diversity which can be a source of trouble when everyone puts the kettle on at half time on a Wembley final day. It may well spell problems for fast charging cars overnight too when they become more common.

That wouldn't be very difficult to fake if you were so inclined.

That's the problem. The 100A (or lower) supply is based on the assumption of relatively short duration peak load and longer periods of partial load, not long, large, continuous loads.

Car chargers run for many hours at a time, so two or three of those, plus washing machine and tumble dryer (moved to night time for a cheaper tariff), electric heaters, immersion heater and the possibility of the electric oven and hob (according to my son, it's not unusual for households with students to be baking cakes at 4am, after the night-club!), plus someone getting up early and using the 10kW electric shower and you have a load that the supply cable was never meant to take continuously, plus a higher than normal peak to an already stressed supply.

As well as that, if every house has something along those lines, the entire street supply will be over-stretched.

There is a reason for car charger installations having to be notified to the DNO - most households have no comparably large loads that run for such extended periods.

EV chargers can be configured to sense the total load being offered by the property. If the supply is 100A then the charger can throttle back the current being taken by the car so it stays within the 100A envelope. Somebody turns on the 50A electric shower, the car drops down to a low current, once the shower is finished the car ramps up the current again. If there are multiple chargers they can be configured not just to obey this, but to cooperate in sharing the load: eg charger 1 has priority over charger

1. That arrangement saves going outside at 3am to unplug one car and plug in another.

So there isn't a problem of busting your supply, assuming everything is installed right.

That I agree is more of a problem. I expect we'll start to see tariffs that encourage load shedding at times of high local demand (eg cooperation between local cars to stagger their charging times), especially since the miles people do in the average day might only require a few hours of charging. Such already exist for national demand.

The DNO needs to know how to size their network, so it's useful data for them.

Theo

...

Now that you mention this, it is very true. I recognize that trait in my late father.

I would go into the dining room, switching all the 8 bulbs (probably 25W each), and he would come and switch half of them off and growl at me (the lamp had a double switch, so 4 or 8 bulbs).

Now I have the same ceiling lamp with the biggest CFLs/LEDs I could find at the time, for that lamp thread (E14).

Once we visited my mother village, a place that had no running water on the houses. They had electricity, but no meters. The company charged a fixed amount per number of bulbs in the house. There were no sockets. Year 1969 or thereabouts.

When the builders smashed my input cable from the substation,. the electricity board replaced the 60A fuse in it with a 100A one. So it blew the cable *properly*. They then identified where the break was. As far as I know that 100A fuse still exists irrespective of any 'contract'.

We had the same upgrade performance free when our company 100+PCs kept blowing the main fuse after a power cut, again with no change on contract.

A large fuse upstream.

And usually a main house circuit breaker,

Its colder in Britain.

My meter limits to 10A. This is an ancient contract, and the meter is modern, so in actual fact it can not limit under 15A. Design fault.

However, there is an external fuse on the external house wall, which I think is 60A, and that is a hard limit. It can not have a big margin because the company wires will not take the current and will melt the insulation.

...

We just don't drink tea :-P

No, we have all the hot water we want. Gas powered, typically.

Obviously, by contracting a charge point.