When you decide to buy an electric vehicle, it's essential to have a charging station installed at your home. But homeowners are often faced with a dilemma: can their current electrical installation accommodate a charging station? In this article, we take a look at the situation.
When you decide to buy an electric vehicle, it's essential to have a charging station installed at your home. But homeowners are often faced with a dilemma: can their current electrical installation accommodate a charging station? In this article, we take a look at the situation.
Before installing a charging station, you must make sure that your electrical panel complies with current standards. Be aware that a relatively old panel is not suitable for receiving a terminal for security and performance reasons. Therefore, if you have an old house with an old panel, you will have to change your device.
Let's say your sign already complies with the latest standards in force. To know whether it needs to be replaced or not to accommodate a charging station, you will need to take stock of the capacity of your panel and the margin it has to be able to support such a device.
If your box is spacious enough to accommodate new components for installing the charging station (circuit breaker, differential switch, etc.), you will not need to change it. On the other hand, if no additional space is available, you will have to think about replacing it with a more suitable model.
Before installing your charging station, you should take the time to take an inventory of the electrical devices you have at home and assess your consumption needs during the day.
In other words, if you use almost all the devices at the same time, it is very likely that your consumption will be saturated most of the time. You should then consider replacing your case if it no longer has additional space.
On the other hand, if you do not use almost all your devices at the same time, you therefore have a margin to operate the terminal without having to increase the available power.
Charging stations are available in various wattages. In short, the more power, the faster your vehicle is charged. However, a more powerful terminal requires greater resources in terms of electricity.
So, if you have chosen to buy a powerful terminal (generally over 7.4 kW), you will have to change your panel and even your electricity contract. On the other hand, if you opt for a 3.7 or 7.4 kW terminal, replacing the box is not systematic.
In any case, after reviewing these points, you should always seek advice from a certified electrician before making the decision to replace your electrical panel or not. A professional will be able to assist you in choosing the terminal adapted to your needs and in carrying out the installation work of the terminal as well as the possible replacement of the box.
