EV Charging

A lot of people ask me about charging my Renault Zoe EV. Here's the situation

Home Charging

There's a couple of schemes that seem to be running to facilitate the installation of a charging point at your home. I took advantage of the offer to have a free charging point installed by Chargemaster. I have higher capacity 30A unit which is attached to the outside wall of my garage.

Chargemaster Home Charging Unit

In fact I did pay a small additional fee to get the higher-capacity unit, but they also fitted a new breaker panel in my garage as well. The higher capacity unit require a suitable electrical feed, but as I already had 40A cabling and breakers into my garage, the high capacity unit was available to me. The high capacity unit will fully charge the battery in about 3-4 hours. In most cases I will just be "topping off" the charge as my day-to-day usage is pretty low. The unit has a lock so it can't be used by random people driving past.

Charging Unit close up

When the unit is unlocked, it will charge, but the cable, once inserted, is locked into the unit and cannot be removed until the charge unit is unlocked.

The Chargemaster installations are being done as part of a Government subsidy scheme. In return, you allow them to gather data on your charging. In fact anyone with off-street parking can have a free charger installed; you don't even need to have an electric car! The aim is to get EV owners to encourage their family, friends, and work locations to install them. I'm trying to get my parents to get one installed, so I can charge when I visit them.

The installed charge point includes a SIM which transmits status and usage data to the Chargemaster server. You also get a free Chargemaster RFID card which gives you access to any of the public chargers in their charging network (see below).

As well as Chargemaster collecting your charging usage data, they present it to you on a website:

Chargevision Web Site

This includes details of usage of public charging points, like this one I used in the Bracknell Waitrose the other day:

Log of usage of public Chargemaster  charging points

The care itself also gathers stats which you can view by logging into Renault's ZE Services web site:

Renault Z.E Services website status page

Charge History

Public Charging

As well has encouraging home charging, the UK Government has been encouraging schemes to install chargers in public places. A number of schemes exist including the Chargemaster/Polar network, which I get free access to for at least a year by having one of their home charging units, Ecotricity, and a number of local schemes in London which fall under the Source London banner. Most of these operate by having RFID unlockable chargepoints which you can apply for a card for. The public charging points are typically located at car parks of various types.

I've detailed a couple of the key ones.

Polar Network

This is the Chargemaster scheme which I currently have a free RFID card to use charging points all over the country. In my local town, Reading, there are at least 3 public points. Nearby Bracknell has a couple including this one I used in the Waitrose car park, whilst shopping:

Their website also has a map where you can locate chargers, and see the status of them:

Example of Chargemaster charging point map

Ecotricity

Ecotricity is one of the large energy supply companies in the UK. They have a eoclogical emphasis compared with most of the other companies. Locally to me they have a large windmill which, amongst other uses, can be used by EV owners to charge their car.

Ecotricity Windmill at Reading

Ecotricity are also installing rapid charge points in many of the Welcome Break service stations on the UK motorway network. Rapid chargers will give you an 80% charge in around 30 minutes. The Ecotricity charging network is currently free to use.

Ecotricity Charge Point Map

General

There are also a number of websites like ZapMap and some associated phone apps which give you details of local charging points.

Zap Map UK charging points

Zap Map details of a charging point.

So, as you can see, in the UK there are plenty of options for charging an Electric Vehicle.