Stop me if this doesn’t make sense… but I want to be a little bit future-proof with what I do without spending the max amount up front.
I work from home and have generous solar (even at this time of year I have 30+ kWh surplus to export, with up to 100+ at peak season). I am getting a new EV shortly (Ford Mach-E) and there is a very real chance that my wife will also have an EV (model undecided) by the end of next year. Which increases our need for speed if we were to share a charger.
I have 3-phase power at home and a SolarEdge inverter system (18.81 kWp). But from my enquiries so far, the 3-phase SolarEdge home charger isn’t available in Australia making it tricky to commit to that eco-system entirely for now.
Does it make sense to just install a 32A socket and some provisional pre-wiring now, before making a bigger purchase in 12 months time or so?
That way I can just get by with a cheaper portable charger (or even a lower-end chargehq supported wall charger) in the short term but am still in a good position to upgrade.
What pre-wiring provisions would make sense to discuss with an installer? Future solar provision? Amperage etc?
This should be viable - any home charger (solaredge or not) would run at max 32A per phase, which is how a 32A wall socket would be wired, so the 32A 3-phase socket would have the right thickness cabling. Then, if the SolarEdge 3-phase home charger couldnt have a pigtail to connect to the socket directly, the sparkie would only have to remove the socket and wire the cable directly into the charger.
The circuit-breakers and cable should be rated to 32A per phase, and can then be re-used for anything. Make sure there is space in your distribution board reserved for 3 x 32A breakers for the new circuit.
As long as you’re confident on the location on the wall you want the future charger and can put the 3-phase socket there so the future sparkie won’t need to lengthen the cable.
and some more guidance on single vs 3 phase chargers here:
and here:
You’re definitely on the larger end of solar systems though.
3 phase chargers are normally 3 x 16A circuits. Single phase 1 x 32A. Pre-wiring a 3-phase circuit that could also support a single-phase will waste a bit of money on larger circuit breakers and switches (being 3 x 32A).
I’ve had two EVs for a while, and especially if you want to solar charge I would install one charger for each car, then just plug in all the time you can. Consider the charge port location on the EVs on your shortlist, having the charger right next to the charger port is very convenient.
