About Residential EV Charging

You’ll need off-road parking, such as a driveway or garage, and you need to be able to get power to it. 

You’ll also want to get a Residential EV installed – unless you want to spend 30 hours trickle-charging your vehicle via a standard three-pin plug.

With the upcoming 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars, and depending on where you live, off-road charging could increase the value of your home.

There are two different kinds of connectors for charging an electric car at home.

Most likely it will be a Type 2 connector. Most vehicles use this type of plug as it was mandated by the EU that all plug-in cars from 2014 must have a Type 2 socket.

There are some cars that have the older, differently shaped Type 1 socket, such as the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. But these are rare. Type 1 to Type 2 converters are available.

• Untethered No attached charging lead. More hassle every time you want to plug in, but allows you to swap out the lead, such as from Type 1 to Type 2 or to a longer lead. 

• Tethered The charging unit has a power lead attached to it. It’s convenient as you can just pull up and plug in, as opposed to retrieving your car’s charging lead from the boot.

This is perhaps the most crucial bit as there's no single power option. Your typical choice is up to 7.4kW for a typical UK Residential EV .

To save money on the charger, you could choose a lower power rate (such as 3.6kW), although it will take longer to charge your car.

It's possible to have an even faster charger, up to 22kW, but very few cars can actually receive a 22kW charge from an AC source like a domestic Electric Vehicle Charging Station

Even if your car is capable of receiving a rapid charge of 100kW or higher, that’s the special DC charging rate, as opposed to the car’s AC charging rate.

If your car can receive an AC charge of 11 or 22kW, it's possible to speed up charging times. 

The only problem is that you need a three-phase connection, which your home is unlikely to have.

Electricity is supplied through either single phase or a three-phase supply. 

The difference between a single phase and a three-phase supply:

• A single phase network, simply put, has one live wire
• A three-phase network has three live wires. You could connect to all three for a faster power supply.

The good news is that the majority of the UK is served by a three-phase network.

The bad news is that most UK dwellings are attached to only one of those three live wires. So, in fact, most homes have a single-phase connection, despite it being a three-phase network.

According to UK Power Networks (the organisation that maintains our electricity networks), the way to check the connection is to look at your fuse box.

• One 100 amp fuse means you have a single-phase connection
• Three such fuses means a three-phase connection.

As the three-phase network is widespread across the UK, it does open up the possibility of upgrading your single-phase connection to a three-phase.

If you want a higher rate of power for Home Charging, find out if it’s possible to upgrade by speaking to your energy supplier.

All Electric Vehicle Charging Station from 30 June 2022 onwards need to be 'smart'. 

This means they can be set to charge your car when there is less demand on the grid or when more renewable electricity is available.

Depending on the model, you may be able to access your smart Residential EV remotely and they will usually work via an app on your phone.

The UK government offers a grant toward buying and installing a Residential EV through the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS), which covers 75% of the cost (capped to a maximum of £350).

However, as of 1 April 2022, the EVHS is no longer open to homeowners (including people with mortgages) who live in single-unit properties such as bungalows and detached, semi-detached or terraced housing – essentially removing the grant from most homeowners. 

It remains open to those who live in flats and those in rental accommodation (flats and single-use properties).

Additionally, in order to get the Home Charging grant, the wall charging unit has to be installed by a supplier approved by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV), previously known as the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV).It will be able to claim for the grant on your behalf. 

A list of full criteria can be found on OZEV’s website.