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2 electricity supplies to one building

Former Community Member over 4 years ago

Hello, I am a not an engineer but need some advice on uk wiring regulations please.

A national utility company is fitting a 32A charger in my garage for an electric vehicle.

The garage is detached from my house but there is an existing circuit from the house consumer unit to the garage for lighting and a power socket. The cable runs along a garden wall.

The new charger will have its own cable run from the same consumer unit in the house down to the garage.

My problem is that the engineer who came to do the installation refused to do it as he said the garage is a building in its own right and regulations do not allow 2 supplies to one building.

My question is: Do 2 wiring circuits from the same consumer unit constitute 2 supplies If the consumer unit is located in an adjacent building?

I would have thought that this was still a single supply and to have 2 supplies you need 2 separate meters with 2 consumer units which is not the case here but then, as I said, I’m no engineer.

Edit.....The engineer stated that the regulation related to avoiding the risk of a voltage between 2 different earths. To me this again only makes sense if you were talking about 2 totally different supplies from different meters and therefore possibly different sub stations etc.

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0 Simon Barker over 4 years ago

The standard home charger is only 32A, so nowhere near the 80 or 100A of a supply fuse. The average UK person only drives a few tens of miles a day, in a car that might do 150 to 200 miles on a charge. So most of the time any given car will not be charging.

If the supply is inadequate, or if the customer only has a 60A supply that can't be upgraded, then the charging rate can be reduced to 16A. That's still enough to mostly recharge a car in one night.

If the DNO's infrastructure needs upgrading to allow for EVs, then it needs upgrading. That's why we all pay a standing charge on our bills. Arguing that we shouldn't do something because our obsolete 20th century infrastructure can't cope seems so backward. The local gas supplier in my area gas been going around digging up the roads to replace obsolete cast iron and steel gas mains with shiny new plastic ones, because it needed doing. It shouldn't be beyond the ability of DNOs to reinforce their infrastructure if that's what's needed.
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0 Simon Barker over 4 years ago

The standard home charger is only 32A, so nowhere near the 80 or 100A of a supply fuse. The average UK person only drives a few tens of miles a day, in a car that might do 150 to 200 miles on a charge. So most of the time any given car will not be charging.

If the supply is inadequate, or if the customer only has a 60A supply that can't be upgraded, then the charging rate can be reduced to 16A. That's still enough to mostly recharge a car in one night.

If the DNO's infrastructure needs upgrading to allow for EVs, then it needs upgrading. That's why we all pay a standing charge on our bills. Arguing that we shouldn't do something because our obsolete 20th century infrastructure can't cope seems so backward. The local gas supplier in my area gas been going around digging up the roads to replace obsolete cast iron and steel gas mains with shiny new plastic ones, because it needed doing. It shouldn't be beyond the ability of DNOs to reinforce their infrastructure if that's what's needed.
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2 electricity supplies to one building

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