Electric car charging on Site

[Scorpio]

I have read that some Sites are asking owners and visitors not to charge electric cars from the Sites electricity supply.  Apparently in some cases the Sites main circuit breakers have been tripping and causing power outages to all caravans on Site.

Linkback: https://staticforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,764.msg2024.html#msg2024

[Tonks]

That really doesn’t surprise me. We bought a new car (Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid)last week and purposely chose a non plug in hybrid model for just that reason.

Linkback: https://staticforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,764.msg2025.html#msg2025

[Sparkalicious]

I charge my car, full electric, on site off of a dedicated socket I installed on my 'van with no problems and the guys on site have seen it plugged in. It's only 16A so 4kW, most would probably plug into a standard socket at 10A. The electric fire probably uses more.

Most of this comes from poor education on the sites part thinking the cars are drawing huge amounts of power. Yes they do if you have the correct equipment installed but in the cases of a 'van, it's just a normal socket and has the same draw as a toaster.

Linkback: https://staticforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,764.msg2026.html#msg2026

[Scorpio]

Hi Sparkalicious, I agree with you, the electric cars are not the main problem, but they contribute to it and they are quite visible, so attract the attention of the staff as they are plugged in for several hours.
If each van has a 16amp supply and ALL vans use that amount of power at the same time, it can overload the site circuit breakers.  There is an assumption that not all vans will draw the maximum power at the same time, so the site current rating (whatever it may be) normally copes without incident.  This year has been exceptional as nearly all vans have been occupied for most of the season and many more kettles, toasters, hairdryers etc have been used more often and are probably the reason for the overload, but no-one sees those.  It is the cars that attract attention.

Linkback: https://staticforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,764.msg2027.html#msg2027

[Sparkalicious]

I agree, when EVs get much more mass adopted there will be an issue. But then I hope that the charging infrastructure will be at the point that actually it's not worth plugging in every night and you can just pop by somewhere to charge during your stay. At the moment, that is possible but it's not a great experience. Time and investment will solve that.

I've only seen a handful of EVs on our site so I can't say it should be too much of an issue yet. But it seems, with all it's facilities our site must have a pretty robust connection.

Also, sites are going to have to upgrade their connections and provide charging points. Our site is talking about it, whether it happens is another thing.

The world needs to de-carbonise and EVs a very small part of that but every little helps. In the short term they will at least clean up the air quality and improve the noise pollution. It can be grating every time a noisy car or van drives past our 'van and rumbles away.

Linkback: https://staticforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,764.msg2028.html#msg2028