Project EV Chargers

[AndyM]

Our electrician has specified 2 chargers as part of our workplace charging scheme

1x Project EVA 07D-SE-W
1x Project EV pro earth 07S-S-RFID

Does anybody have any experience with these models and is there anything I should be looking out for?

Thanks

 

[BugEyed]

These are Growatt products rebranded by the importer for the UK market. They are decent charge point with some excellent features such as support for solar, but are let down by a poor App. What features do you need/want?

The first one requires some form of Earth protection (PEN fault detection or TT earth), the later doesn't and comes with an RFID card to authorise charging and potentially separate billing (great if you let a neighbour use it as well or are worried that one will steal electricity while you are out).

 

[AndyM]

Thanks, they both seem to come with RFID from what I can tell which sounds like a great feature.

Our needs are:

1. Control of their use as they'll be in a semi-public location and it seems we may even be able to charge for use which is a bonus but not required.
2. Untethered so cable theft isn't as tempting.
3. The ability to schedule/delay charging to tie in with Octopus Go tariff.
4. A decent warranty.
5. Reliability.

I don't anticipate we'll need anything in the way of solar but again it's nice to know it will be possible. What is it about the app that lets it down?

 

[dgs99]

I've had a Project-ev charger for 12 months now. It all worked well until last week, when when Project-ev suggested an upgrade to the Electric Miles app. I didn't find much benefit in this and it also did not have a solar charge option so deleted it. However, this disabled my connection to Project -ev, as apparently when you register with Electric Miles you join a different server which kills the connection to Project-ev app. It's a fairly basic home charger which I had installed for £150 at the same time as my solar panels.

 

[BugEyed]

You can lock a cable into the unit to create a pseudo tethered unit to avoid having to unplug a bulky wet cable on a wet day.
The App works in a clunky way - it didn't used to have much functionality, but now is just unfriendly.
The design is decent but with a main circuit board with soldered components rather than discrete replaceable assemblies. My first one died after 18 months but was replaced without quibble, the second's going strong after 30 months. Growatt have a decent reputation in their homeland of China.

 

[Jomarkh]

We had this delivered a while back and no one wants to fit it.
Is it possible to connect it up in a TT island but only feed it to run as two type2 7kW single phase outputs?

 

[BugEyed]

Yes!

Just make sure that only Line 1 is connected otherwise you might kill some Zoë.

Edit: You may want to return/resell it as it's more costly than 2x single phase units

 

[BugEyed]

Our electrician has specified 2 chargers as part of our workplace charging scheme

The ability to schedule/delay charging to tie in with Octopus Go tariff.

I'm confused. Is your workplace at home? It's unusual to use Go at a business as often there's no one there to charge at that time.

 

[AndyM]

We operate a 24 hour shared office.

 

[BillyWhizz]

I have the project EV pro earth it’s really is a good charger and since the app was updated it’s much better

 

[AndyM]

I have the project EV pro earth it’s really is a good charger and since the app was updated it’s much better

That’s reassuring, thank you.

 

[Harry]

These are Growatt products rebranded by the importer for the UK market. They are decent charge point with some excellent features such as support for solar, but are let down by a poor App. What features do you need/want?

The first one requires some form of Earth protection (PEN fault detection or TT earth), the later doesn't and comes with an RFID card to authorise charging and potentially separate billing (great if you let a neighbour use it as well or are worried that one will steal electricity while you are out).

App has been updated. Works just fine.