Pod Point Installation by voltEV in Hove, Sussex
In this article we are covering the installation of a Pod Point EV Home Charger in Hove, East Sussex. We thought it would be useful to begin documenting our installations. Potential customers can understand the process and more importantly, see the end results! There is a video at the bottom of the page which is well worth a watch if you are considering using voltEV for your EV charger installation.
Here we are looking at a Pod Point charge point. These are affordable, no nonsense units. You simply plug your electric vehicle in and they begin to charge. You can monitor your charges and also set timers, this is all done via the Pod Point App which is also the app you need when using Pod Point public chargers. The Pod Point public chargers are now popping up all over the place and at the time of writing this most Tesco stores in Sussex and Kent have Pod Point chargers that are free to use as long as you have the Pod Point app!
The unit itself is fairly compact and with the tethered units, as we have here, the charge lead simply wraps around the circular body and the plug is clipped into the supplied holster. In reliability terms, we haven’t had any faulty units to date. They are competitively priced and here at voltEV we offer a Pod Point price match guarantee so you really can’t get them installed cheaper anywhere else!.
Untethered/socket only units are £549 inc VAT fully installed with an OZEV grant!
Tethered units are £599 inc VAT fully installed with an OZEV grant!
EV Charger Location
In this case, the charger was required by the client to be installed within the timber lined garage of the property. The consumer unit was also located here so the cable run to the Pod Point was fairly short. However, the garage has an automatic garage door and the charger had to sit below the door runner but high enough to not be in the way of the Electric Vehicle when being parked or its doors being opened.
The EV in this case is a BMW i3 and is a fairly compact electric vehicle. The ‘charge port’ on these is on the offside rear of the car. As you can see in the photos the 7.5m long lead from the Pod Point is long enough to reach right into the drive, allowing options for the customer when he needs a charge! The BMWi3 also has a type 2 charging socket. These are becoming almost universal with car manufacturers these days. We have a Nissan ENV-200 Zero Emissions van. This has a Type 1 socket but that is basically because it’s a Nissan Leaf in disguise! Even the newer Nissan Leaf has a type 2 socket nowadays.
The Pod Point EV Charger
As previously stated, the Pod Point charger is a great bit of kit, simple, affordable and discreet. voltEV are approved third party installers for Pod Point and we are able to match Pod Point installation prices. The Pod Point uses WIFI to provide its data connection to the network. This allows it to communicate with your app so you can keep an eye on charging progress and more importantly, how much you’ve spent in a specific time period. After all we all know electric vehicles are cheaper to run than petrol or diesel but it is great to see in ‘real world’ terms exactly what your weekly or monthly spend actually is!
The Pod Point is installed with a CT clamp. This is a small monitoring device that clips onto the main electricity supply to your property and monitors overall energy usage, often termed as ‘dynamic load balancing’. Why is this important? The majority of the EV home chargers we install are 7kW chargers. This equates to about 32 amps, which is quite a big load. If your house only has a 60 amp main fuse, when the EV is charging it will be using just over half of your total capacity. If you were to switch on another large load such as an electric shower or a hot tub, there is a small risk that you could blow your main fuse. The Pod Point monitors your overall usage and only utilises free available energy. This means you are safe to carry on as usual without the risk of being plunged into darkness! Clever stuff. In reality most people will be charging their electric vehicles at night on cheaper rate electricity so the balancing is more of a safety precaution but it is a useful feature nonetheless.
So, the Pod Point EV charger is a great unit and has all the basic features required of a modern EV chargepoint. We’ll move onto the specific installation next.
The EV Charger Installation in Hove, East Sussex
There is a full video below that covers the basic stages of the installation so we do not really need to go into too much detail here. We are only 20 minutes away from Brighton and Hove, I was actually born in Brighton! So if you are in the local area and would like us to quote for your EV Charger installation, simply click here and fill in our simple contact form and one of us will be in contact. Following this a fixed price quotation will be sent out and then it’s just a case of booking your installation day. It couldn’t be simpler.