What name would you like to appear in your review?
Rick Ozanne
What is the make & model of your charging unit?
myenergi zappi 22kW untethered
What year did you have your charging unit installed?
2021
Which company installed it and would you recommend them?
Little Green Energy Co. – yes they did a good job.
How much did you pay for your unit and installation?
£850.
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Why did you purchase this particular unit?
We went for the zappi as it was one of only a very few chargers available at the time that could easily be integrated with solar. It also had a built-in PEN fault protection so didn’t need an earth spike; our driveway has several buried pipes, cables, drains etc in it so the earth spike was potentially a big issue for us.
Plus, it’s made in Britain with excellent support. We were having solar and a PW2 installed at the same time, so we bought the zappi, an Eddi, 2 harvis and a hub. We already had 3 phase supply to the house, so for a modest extra cost we decided to buy the 22KW unit to future-proof our charging capabilities.
List 3 or more points that you like about the charging unit.
- Easy to use
- Fast charging when you need it
- Can be used to divert spare solar energy into the EV rather than exporting it
- No earth spike required!
- Looks good
- Really good support
- App is really intuitive, clear and easy to understand
- The CT clamps make sure you never overload the mains fuses
- The display is easy to read, even in bright sunlight.
List 3 or more points that you don’t like about the charging unit.
- In hindsight, I wish we’d bought the tethered version as it’s more convenient to use. On a rainy day when the car boot is full you really don’t want to be unloading everything to get the charging cable out. With the tethered version it’s already there and waiting!
- The display is OK most of the time, but ideally would be a bit bigger
- The display back-light could do with staying on longer at night. The self-test procedure is still running when the light turns off.
Outline any faults you have experienced with the unit.
- On 2 occasions that that I can remember in the last 12 or so months, it failed its self test and the EV didn’t charge. This was when setting a scheduled charge to use cheap-rate grid power. Some sort of alarm on the app (audible and visual) would help a lot.
- We’ve also had a couple of occasions where the internal protection tripped out when it was set to run the full 32A.
Provide your overall rating for the charging unit.
Tell us about your home charging routine.
We have a Honda e whose battery is quite small (~28kWh usable). We tend to charge when the battery’s state of charge falls to around 35-40% as we know from experience that we will often use 25-30% in a day and we don’t see the point in risking running out. For us, it’s all town driving and we rarely cover more than 120 miles a week. This means 2 charges a week typically, sometimes 3 in the winter as the heater in the car uses a lot of power.
If you were buying a new charging unit now, what would you buy and why?
There are many more chargers to choose from now but I think I’d still buy the zappi, albeit the tethered version. Overall I’m pleased with it and it’s been very reliable (so far, save for some odd glitches) plus it integrates so well with our solar, Powerwall 2, Eddi etc.
Tell us about your electricity provider and tariff. Would you recommend them?
We’re based in Guernsey so we have no choice but to use Guernsey Electricity. That said they are very good and don’t seem to exploit their monopoly. Most power is imported green power from France (mainly wind, hydro and some nuclear). We pay ~20.7p per kWh peak and ~8.6p per kWh off-peak. We’re on their standard ‘Economy 12’ tariff so we get 12 hours per day at the cheaper rate which is split into 10 hours overnight (9pm to 7am) and 2 hours in the afternoon.
They offer a really good buy-back scheme so we are paid 9.9p per exported unit. How much does the EV cost to run Buying in at cheap rate we pay about £18-£20 per month in winter and next to nothing in the summer as we charge either from solar or we export spare solar energy which offsets the import charges. Overall cost to run the Honda e is around £10 a month averaged over a year. We were previously spending £70+ a month on diesel!!
Are you part of a charger-sharing scheme for those who don’t have their own charger?
No, we’re not. I’m not aware of any such schemes locally.
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