I’ll explain where I’m going with this.

As I understand it, Octopus are offering an EV charging tariff that allows Octopus to take control of the charging period, the customer tells Octopus that for example that they want the car to be 80% charged at 8.00 am tomorrow, Octopus will charge as and when it suits them as the supplier to achieve the outcome the customer wants.

https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/

Currently it only works with a Tesla, the car controls the charging so the EVSE is simply set to fast charge, this means the car needs to connect to the customers WiFi whilst parked and connected to the EVSE or have a Hotspot within the car to allow the charging to be controlled by Octopus.

The next step is for the EVSE to be put in control of the charging rather than the car and to allow the EVSE to be controlled by Octopus, which is what Octopus are collaborating with Wallbox to do.

So presumably all EVSE will need an Internet connection to access the best tariffs, not just a connection to report usage.

This is okay if a reliable WiFi connection is available, but I’m guessing hard wired connections will often be required with a data cable running to a completely different location to the electrical intake and consumer unit, with the risk of breaching zones with different electrical earthing arrangements at either end of the data cable.

mapj1 said:

could and from the EMC point of view, usually should

Hi Mike, point being, if you are separating TT to avoid connection to PME, no good connecting it back through the data cable?

Defeats the object of the exercise ... I already said that for EMC usually both ends is better, but it's not the whole story.

Sparkingchip said:

So presumably all EVSE will need an Internet connection to access the best tariffs, not just a connection to report usage.

This is okay if a reliable WiFi connection is available, but I’m guessing hard wired connections will often be required with a data cable running to a completely different location to the electrical intake and consumer unit, with the risk of breaching zones with different electrical earthing arrangements at either end of the data cable.

Yes ... and integrate with a home Energy Management System with solar, battery storage etc., is also being muted.

Wired connection is probably the way to go ... but it may not be Ethernet depending what system you put in.

A lot of energy management/load curtailment seems to be done through EIA/RS 485 (Modbus / CANbus). But from a wiring perspective, there's not a lot of difference (485 cabling often now using cat 5 cable, plus RJ45s with the EIA/TIA 568B pinout).

Salespeople like to give features a fancy name to upsell products, so it’s important for installers not to get lost in a world full of gobbledygook. 

Zappi has a feature called “esense” all it is is a terminal in the EVSE allowing it to be hardwired with a 1 mm cable to the off-peak contactor of a smart or dumb meter switching the boost on in the EVSE when an off-peak tariff is available, allowing the meter to take control of the charging period utter regardless of it being smart or dumb.

Now that seems straightforward.

eSense
The eSense input can be used for two function:
1. It can be configured to automatically activate a Boost during ECO or ECO+ charging, whenever economy tariff electricity is available. The eSense input must be wired to a circuit which is live or an external volt free contact which closes during the economy tariff times for this to function.
2. It can be used to limit the zappi output or stop the charge – for instance, using an external contact from a smart meter or control box provided by the Distribution Company who may require the ability to control the power being used to charge an EV if their network is overloaded