Charger User  FAQ

The Home 7 and Home 7 Plus are both single phase chargers and will deliver 7kW/32-amps to your car. Home 22 is a 3-phase charger and can deliver three times the power. The Home 22 will require a 3-phase supply to deliver 22kW to your car.

Single phase power supply is common in approximately 85% of domestic UK properties. Simply put, it is where power to your home is delivered down one live wire protected by one fuse normally 60, 80 or 100 amps. If you have single phase power, then the highest rate of charge you can get from an EV charger is 7.3kW (kilowatts).

The main difference is the amount of power that can be delivered, a 3-phase supply can typically deliver three times the power a single phase can.

Take a look near your electricity meter, you should be able to determine from that what looks like a fuse from one or three sockets, and if only one then you are on single phase. Most domestic UK properties (approximately 85%) have single phase.

A 22kW charger will need a 3-phase supply to deliver up to 22kW to your vehicle. However, you can install a 22Kw charger on a single phase power supply. This is useful if you are thinking about getting a 3-phase upgrade in the future. If you do this, then you’ll generate up to 7kW.

To get a 3-phase upgrade you will need to contact your distribution network operator (DNO) they will be able to advise what the next steps will be. If you don’t know who your DNO is, contact your electricity provider or search on the internet “who is my DNO”.

Load balancing is a safety feature which automatically balances the power consumption between your house and the charger, to avoid overloading your fuse. For example, if your home has a 60A fuse, and you turn on the electric ovens, electric showers and other high draw appliances and try and charge your vehicle same time, there may not be enough load available for the charger to charge at the maximum rate (which is 32A). When this happens, the charger automatically lowers the charge rate to avoid overloading your supply.

You will need to purchase a Simpson & Partners Energy Manager (EM) to enable load balancing.

Yes, the installer will just need to connect to one phase within the charger.

This will be determined by the loads in your home and can be assessed by an electrician, however you can make an assumption if you have a fairly large fuse board and/or some large appliances i.e. Induction hob, several ovens, hot tub etc.

In a domestic property the fuse will be one of three sizes, 60, 80 or 100 amp. This should be printed on the side of the fuse and while it is usually correct, sometimes the number indicated on the sticker may not be accurate. Your electrician can check this for you, or you may be able to find out from your electrical network operator (DNO).

Yes, you can. With an S&P charger you can include the Home Energy Manager within your purchase, this will allow the installer to set a limit that will not be exceeded and therefore will protect your supply fuse.

With an untethered charger, tethered mode allows you to lock the cable into the charger so that it cannot be removed. You can use this mode to prevent cable theft or just for added convenience.
While charging the cable is locked in.

You can lock your charger using the padlock button on the S&P app home page, this disables the charger, it stops the charger from delivering any charge.
When the button is orange the charger is disabled.

This is controlled by the vehicle and not the charging equipment, in most cases unlocking the vehicle manually will release the plug, however if this does not work you may need to check your vehicle handbook or speak to your dealer.

Yes, we are. We have worked hard to ensure all the S&P chargers are fully compliant with the new government regulations.

Our chargers do not offer bi-directional charging.

This idea is still in it’s early conception stage, and not supported by many vehicles. Bi-directional charging is not possible with standard EV chargers, and requires specific, bulky and expensive charging equipment.

Similar to all standard “Mode 3” EV chargers, our chargers rely on the vehicle’s on-board charger to convert AC power from the mains to DC power to charge the batteries. In nearly all EV’s currently available, the on-board charger only works in one direction  – so you can’t take energy out of the batteries and feed this back into the grid.

The majority of our chargers’ smart features work over Bluetooth, however the reporting feature is the only one that requires a Wi-Fi connection.

Your charger will need to be connected to the internet to record the charge logs to be displayed in the charge history. If your charger is offline during the charge session, the logs will not be recorded.

If there is weak signal at the location of the charger, we would recommend using Wi-Fi boosters to strengthen the signal to ensure charge logs are recorded.

There are three different solar charging modes:

• Eco: Only charges if there is solar surplus above the minimum threshold of 1.4kW, if not it stops charging
• Eco Max: Pulls from the grid if the surplus falls below the minimum threshold, to bump it up to just above the threshold to continue charging
• Max: Uses a combination of solar surplus and grid energy to charge at the maximum possible rate

Simply select your solar mode from the app schedules page.

So, for example, you could set up two schedules –
1. Use Eco during the day to only charge with solar (if there is sufficient surplus).
2. If you still need to charge the car, select a grid off peak time for the second schedule.

The solar monitor is a wireless device that monitors the solar generation directly and reports this data in our app.
It does not enable the ability to charge using solar generation, this is enabled by the Energy Manager.

The solar array you choose in the future may have an app or monitor that display your generation, but not all solar arrays offer this, older ones in particular, so this device allows our customers to see their solar generation in our app too.
It helps to see everything in one place.

Our Wired and Wireless Energy Managers are monitoring devices which enable load balancing and solar charging. If you don’t have solar panels then the EM still provides load balancing.

The Wired EM is compatible with both the Home Basic and Home Plus EV chargers, while the Wireless Energy Manager is compatible with the Home Plus EV charger.

The Wired EM is a wired connection from the consumer/fuse board to the charger, it can be a good option when the charger is installed quite close to the consumer board.

The Wireless EM uses LoRa (Radio) technology to communicate with the charger. The Wireless EM has 2 modes –
1. In Standard Mode the Wireless EM has a range of up to approximately 65m.
2. The range in Long Range Mode is up to approximately 120m.
Long Range mode is only supported when using an external USB-C power supply.

We sell type 2 to type 2 charge cables, they are 7m in length and of the highest quality –

Type 2 Cable

The charger can connect to one device at a time using Bluetooth. To connect using Bluetooth, make sure Bluetooth is switched off on any other devices where the S&P app is installed.
The charger can connect to more than one device using WiFi.

This is the Locking Function button.

The charger can automatically switch between schdedules without user interaction.
Schedules are stored locally and are not dependent on a cloud connection.

You can set up to 3 timed schedules on the S&P app by pressing the schedule button on the chargepoint homepage.

Stand next to your charger as you will need to be connected via Bluetoooth for the Wi-Fi connection. Launch the S&P app > select your charger > press the settings cog in the top right > the first option on the will be your Wi-Fi settings. Click on this and search for your Wi-Fi network, select and put your password in to connect.

To start charging immediately you can use the override button to override an active schedule.