In this article, we will take a look at everything you need to know about electric vehicle charging, including how to charge an electric vehicle and how much does an electric vehicle charging installation cost? Charging an electric vehicle at home If you want to charge an electric vehicle at home then you need to have a home charging point installed, so that you can hook your electric vehicle up to it when you park it. If you don’t have a charging point installed yet, you can use an EVSE supply cable connected to a 3-pin plug socket as a backup occasionally. Most electric vehicle owners choose to have a home charging point installed as it has built-in safety features, and is a much faster way to charge the car. A home charger tends to be a weatherproof unit that is mounted to a wall and features a connected charging cable or a socket for plugging in a portable charging cable. Electric vehicles have either Type 1 or Type 2 connectors, so you will need to make sure you choose the right home charger which is compatible with the type of connector you have on your vehicle. Cost of installing an electric vehicle charger When it comes to electric car charger installation cost UK, this normally starts from around £449 – if you take advantage of the UK Government’s OLEV grant. If you are an electric vehicle driver you could be eligible for a £350 OLEV grant towards purchasing and installing an electric car charger at your home. Once you have installed your electric car charger, you then only need to pay for the electricity you use to charge the car – which will vary depending on your supplier. It is good to know, though, that the average cost of driving an electric car is between 2p and 5p per mile, which means you could save around £1000 a year more than petrol or diesel car drivers. How fast can you charge your electric vehicle at home? Charging speed for electric vehicles is measured in kilowatts per hour (kWh). Most home charging points offer you charging speeds of between 3.7 kWh and 7 kWh giving you between 15 and 30 miles of range per hour of charge. However, the maximum charging speed may be limited by your vehicle’s onboard charger, so it won’t matter if you have a 7-kWh charger if your car only allows a 3.7 kWh charge. If you are interested in an electric vehicle smart charging consultation, then please get in touch with the D-ENERGi team as we can not only help you with electric vehicle charging but also make sure your energy tariff is the lowest it can be too.

With the UK Government focusing quite heavily on their plans for a zero-emission future, we take a closer look at the electric vehicle charging regulations uk that you need to know about. There has been a steady stream of Government initiatives over the past few years that have made their plans for the direction of travel quite clear. The focus has clearly been placed on electric vehicles, and the provision of the infrastructure to support them (primarily electric vehicle charging point installation) which is critical to their plans to reduce the amount of carbon emissions in the country. The need for more progress to be made in the field of electric vehicle charging is shown most clearly in a recent report from The Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders which revealed the sales of electric vehicles has recently skyrocketed. Yet, the country as a whole still seems to be in a period of transition. The Government has announced that the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles will end in 2040, and there is currently a lot of work being done around the mandatory provision of electric vehicle charging points in a new home and commercial building developments in the future. The Government also recently pledge money for local councils to draw on if they wanted to install street charging points for electric vehicles, where there was a car parking space available for them to do so. However, this is not enough. More still needs to be done to deliver a coherent electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the UK at scale, to give drivers the confidence that they will be able to find a charging point wherever they travel. In the meantime, however, if you as an individual want to install an electric vehicle charging point, the planning rules are much clearer. You do not need to get planning permission to install an electric vehicle charging unit on a wall if it is in an area which you are legally using for off-street parking – provided certain conditions are met – and these are: The electrical outlet must not exceed 0.2 cubic metres in size The electrical outlet must not face onto or be within two metres of a highway You cannot install an electrical outlet on a listed building or on a site designated as a scheduled monument There are also several considerations you need to take into account for leasehold properties, for example: Landlord consent may be required for installation to take place Additional rights for access and maintenance may be required, as well as an obligation to repair There needs to be a clear allocation of responsibilities   Whilst most of the planning regulations relating to the installation of electric vehicle charging points for personal use are clear, you may want to think about looking for electric vehicle charging stations near me instead, as then all the hard work has been done for you.

With the charging infrastructure in the UK growing rapidly, this article will tell you everything you need to know about your electric vehicle charging station. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are becoming more and more popular and are increasingly better developed than they have previously been and so the number of electric vehicle charging points is growing on a daily basis. There is still a little confusion over the terminology involved with electric charging, as it is still such a new technology, so this guide will hopefully clear up a little of the jargon involved. What is an electric vehicle charging station? There is no standard definition for an electric vehicle charging station at the moment, but the most widely held belief is that if there is more than one electric vehicle charging point in the same place then it becomes a ‘station’. This may not be on a petrol station forecourt though – charging stations tend to be tucked away in the corner of a car park somewhere – either a motorway service station or a multi-storey somewhere. You may be able to find individual charging points on the street still, and some local councils are looking into some experimental ideas such as lampposts with charging points attached, but the move towards more electric vehicle charging stations is being mainly driven by a change in consumer behaviour. How many public electric vehicle charging stations are there? According to Zap-Map, a company that monitors the charging infrastructure within the UK, there are currently around 14764 locations providing 23128 individual chargers. It is interesting to note that these numbers are continually increasing, with 773 charging points being added to the map within the last 30 days alone. This means there are now more electric vehicle charging points in the UK than there are petrol and diesel stations! How long does it take to charge an electric vehicle? If you think about the wide variety of electric vehicles available and the number of companies who offer electric vehicle charging points, then it should come as no surprise that the actual length of time it takes to charge an electric vehicle can vary wildly as well. The length of time taken usually relies on how many kWh the charging station offers and how many the electric vehicle can accept, and there are three different charging rates: Slow charging rate = 3 kWh (around 8 hours to fully charge from empty) Fast charging rate = 7 to 22 kWh (around 4 hours to fully charge from empty) Rapid charging rate = 43 to 50 kWh (around 30 minutes to charge 80%)   Hopefully, this has cleared up some of your questions about electric vehicle charging. We are focusing on this subject for our next few blog posts, so keep reading to find out more.

Electricity bills are some of the largest expenses that many business have to deal with. If you are running a business yourself, then it is highly likely you are wanting to find out more about how monitoring costs and reviewing your firms energy efficiency can help you save on business electricity. Here are some tips for you on how you can do just that! Switch tariffs at the end of your contract. When your business electricity contract comes to an end, you will usually be automatically rolled over to a more expensive tariff, which is known as an ‘out-of-contract’ rate. If this has happened to you, then you need to sort it quickly, as it can lead to large bills. The best thing to do in this instance, then, is to compare business electricity per kwh from a wide range of suppliers, to find the tariff that is the best for you. Complete an energy audit. As well as looking at whether there is a cheaper tariff out there that would be better for you, you can also complete an energy audit of your business which will not only give you an overview of how your company uses energy, but also what areas of waste there are. The Carbon Trust has lots of guides and tools available to help you with this, or if your turnover is more than £50 million or you have more than 250 staff then you can have an energy audit completed as part of the Government’s Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) Turn equipment off when it is not being used. We all have a large amount of equipment in our businesses, such as desktops, printers, tv’s and so on. Do you know if they are turned off overnight or at weekends when they are not in use? Every piece of equipment that is left on may only be costing you pennies individually, but when added it up it can mean a larger bill than expected at the end of the month Use the right kind of meter. When it comes to switching your energy supplier, you may also be offered a smart meter, if you don’t already have one installed. If you are a larger business, you may be offered a half-hourly meter instead. Both of these options are a good idea as they help your supplier to base your bills on the exact amount of electricity you are using, which will also encourage you to be more energy efficient   If you want to compare business energy per kwh to find out whether you can get a better deal or not, then get in touch with the team at D-ENERGi and let us take care of that headache for you.