EV CHARGING EQUIPMENT

Spend £70 or less on a EV looky likey consisting of a labeled 13-amp single socket and a near useless RCBO in a plastic box and you will need to spend a couple of hundred quid on a consumer unit with a new consumer unit with a type B 30 mA  DP RCD in it

Perhaps cat & pigeons time. I've been re-reading 722 and noticed that the requirement for a B-type RCD could be read as applying only to charge points with BS EN 62196 outlets (whether fixed sockets or trailing lead connectors) - and so not BS 1363 ones (or BS EN 60309 ones for that matter).


I think the wording isn't clear - specifically whether "socket-outlet or vehicle connector complying with the BS EN 62916 series" should be read as 'any kind of socket outlet, or BS EN 62916 vehicle connectors' or 'socket-outlets complying with BS EN 62916 or vehicle connectors complying with BS EN 62916' (why don't we use brackets in English?). But as the same phrase is used several times further on in 722.55.101.0.201.1 where it 'clearly' meant to mean the 2nd option - so I'm fairly confident that the authors didn't mean to include BS 1363 sockets in the requirement.


Then there's the question of whether that interpretation makes logical sense and is safe. I guess one point of view is that if the source of these d.c. fault currents is thought to be the d.c. 'pilot' wires in BS EN 62916 charge-point to vehicle wiring system (the ones that communicate acceptable charging rates, that the vehicle is connected and so on) - then the absence of these in a BS 1363 plug/socket system might be seen as reducing the risk. OK these signals are present further downstream, after the in-lead box of tricks - but then that box of tricks was (originally) meant to be plugged into an ordinary socket which should have no presumption of upstream B-type RCD protection - so that box should provide whatever protection is necessary (but that'll be down to whatever product standard it's meant to comply with rather than BS 7671).


So maybe, just maybe, there is a market for these 'mode 2' charge points.


   - Andy.

Spend £70 or less on a EV looky likey consisting of a labeled 13-amp single socket and a near useless RCBO in a plastic box and you will need to spend a couple of hundred quid on a consumer unit with a new consumer unit with a type B 30 mA  DP RCD in it

Perhaps cat & pigeons time. I've been re-reading 722 and noticed that the requirement for a B-type RCD could be read as applying only to charge points with BS EN 62196 outlets (whether fixed sockets or trailing lead connectors) - and so not BS 1363 ones (or BS EN 60309 ones for that matter).


I think the wording isn't clear - specifically whether "socket-outlet or vehicle connector complying with the BS EN 62916 series" should be read as 'any kind of socket outlet, or BS EN 62916 vehicle connectors' or 'socket-outlets complying with BS EN 62916 or vehicle connectors complying with BS EN 62916' (why don't we use brackets in English?). But as the same phrase is used several times further on in 722.55.101.0.201.1 where it 'clearly' meant to mean the 2nd option - so I'm fairly confident that the authors didn't mean to include BS 1363 sockets in the requirement.


Then there's the question of whether that interpretation makes logical sense and is safe. I guess one point of view is that if the source of these d.c. fault currents is thought to be the d.c. 'pilot' wires in BS EN 62916 charge-point to vehicle wiring system (the ones that communicate acceptable charging rates, that the vehicle is connected and so on) - then the absence of these in a BS 1363 plug/socket system might be seen as reducing the risk. OK these signals are present further downstream, after the in-lead box of tricks - but then that box of tricks was (originally) meant to be plugged into an ordinary socket which should have no presumption of upstream B-type RCD protection - so that box should provide whatever protection is necessary (but that'll be down to whatever product standard it's meant to comply with rather than BS 7671).


So maybe, just maybe, there is a market for these 'mode 2' charge points.


   - Andy.