Anyone got a zappi? How much did you pay?

Not strictly GE related but it kind of is as I need the installer to do the extra CT clamps etc so the zappi ignores the battery.....

Anyway, if you do not mind talking money online would anyone please tell me how much you paid for a zappi installed with a hub and any extra bits to ignore a GE AC3. Just put my order in and wondering what to expect. An electrician mate suggested £800 - £900 after the government grant. The myenergi zappi and hub come to £810, I know I will need 1 more CT clamp so based on my mates estimate the government grant only covers the electricians install fee?

Extra info, the cable run is will be just over 15m, a separate external box for fuses will be needed as my consumer unit is embedded in the wall and other electricians wont even attempt running cables to it.

Does the above sound right?

I had three quotes via myenergi. £967, £922 and £905. Went for the £967 oddly as that one bothered to asked more detailed questions and identified that we'd need another small consumer unit as our current ones are already full. Also they confirmed they would fit the extra CT to show solar and another to show the battery. Booked in for 20th January. EV unsurprisingly delayed for January to March.

judgepd Tad higher than my mate estimated. Do you mind if I ask where in the country are you based? Just region, not city and street etc. I am in Norfolk.

THALL I do agree they seemed a bit high to me too but at least the process so far has been straightforward. I'm in Worcestershire.

judgepd Well the email says I should get 3 quotes within 48 hours. I will post mine on here for others to compare too.

My Zappi (tethered) was about the same as judgepd although I live in Scotland so was able to get the EST grant taken off that. One thing that made mine a little more expensive was due to needing a Harvi to wirelessly connect an additional CT clamp - not because of the distances involved but because the Zappi can only take 3(?) hardwired CT clamps, and I needed 4 in total (Grid, Solar, Battery and Garage supply).

For your cable run plus extra fuse box, your estimate sounds about right.

@THALL Any news on your EV?

judgepd Nothing this year. I contacted the dealer and the sales person who I have been dealing with has been on holiday from Christmas day until tomorrow...... But on id3forums some people who ordered their car just before me have now been told September..... So 11 - 13 months in total!!! Tad over the 20 weeks I was quoted.

@THALL Seems like all manufacturers are pretty chaotic at the moment. We've now been told start of March but I have a feeling we'll be lucky if it's more like the summer.

judgepd Well KIA are telling customers 6 months if ordered now, Vauxhall say if I order now it will be end of March/Early April. So why VW are now quoting 11 -13 months for new orders seems a little crazy. But hopefully I will have an update from dealer this weekend.

On a zappi note I have just had my first quote, £1099! They want £39 more for the zappi 2 than if I ordered direct from myenergi for a start. Mini consuer unit, cable, additional ct clamp £300, £300 labour. Hmm
update
Break down of the only quote I have had so far. Installer zappi & hub price £849, myenergi direct £810. CT clamp for battery Installer price £60, myenergi direct £15. Id call that a bit cheeky!

£300 labour is a (wo)man for a day I would say - the fact that it might only take a couple of hours is irrelevant as they might not have another job they can get to afterwards.
CT clamp uplift is taking the mick. £30 you could sort of justify if they have to pay carriage.

Just had a look back at my quotes and for the actual Zappi and hub they are showing a price of £822, £790 and £945. Only one shows the additional CT as a separate item at £15. 1 has a full breakdown of pretty much every component and wire but the others just say 'other stuff' essentially. All are showing around £300 for the labour.

judgepd £300 labour appears to be correct. The extra's on my bill are obviously charging more for the zappi and hub, then mini consumer unit £120, CT Clamp £60, £120 for cable. Not sure I am going to see a quote for sub £1000 after all. BUT if I get a call today saying I wont get the car until September I might need to rethink things. Waiting 11+ months for a car is a tad ridicules. Might need to look at other EV's again and see what I can get for my 30k budget.

THALL Skoda are 10months and 12 months depending on the model.

I am sure you are aware, whilst installation costs for EV chargers are expensive you get up to £350 grant at present. That ends for domestic customers at the end of March. Emphasis for grants moving to employers and landlords at the expense of home owners :-(

There will be a last minute rush, I suggest bite the bullet and get your order in if you are going to do it anyway

Seye To be honest I am expecting the price of the chargers to drop too. Same as the cars did. I was looking at a Mokka E which after the grant change suddenly got a £3400 price drop on some models making it even better than getting the grant.

But yes these wait times are getting a bit silly now. I might go see some dealers this weekend, I know I can get a Mokka E they still have the model I want coming on a delivery for March. But recent reviews are dropping the real range of that car more and more which puts me off. I am starting to think it is not the time to switch to electric after all!

THALL Car grants droped for personal and business customers, so the market responded.
For chargers grants will still exist for business, and potentially a lot of demand. I personally dont expect the rates to drop as a result. They are a rip off anyway when you see what is inside them, but they are what they are. Prices will drop when a disrupter comes into the market and makes a reasonable profit rather than an extorionate one.

I have been looking at Kia EV. They are interesting in that they dont have lots of specification options for each model. Basically just pick a 2,3,4+ and the colour. That means if you see one on a forecourt it will be the same as one from the factory ( unlike Skoda that has a really long options list ). There are a few avaialble and they have just changed to 2022 model. 2021 is being discounted at some dealers ( I went into Sheffield last weekend and looked at a 4+). Its the same car as the new one but £2000 less with immediate delivery. Additional ways to bring the cost down by being smart with fianceing it too. That car has a large battery, which is one of the things I am after

Seye Do you mind if I ask which Kia you looked at? Starting at 41k for the new EV6 is a massive jump from my budget.

Got a Zappi but didn't get an OLEV installer, not quite as crazy as I seem as it all went in with the PV so was 5% VAT for that, the Eddi and the Hub. They were pretty much at retail price inc that 5% VAT and my whole labour install was £1500 (including PV, inverter and battery) and very reasonable. West Oxfordshire but company was based in Wiltshire.

It's been good as a basic charger via the app as setting scheduled charging has been very easy (trying to not charge above 80% in normal day to day use as the charge rate ramps down above that figure).

What I don't like is that the DC coupled battery and inverter can't be seen by the Zappi.
I've had a couple of incidents where it's drained my domestic battery and using the auto schedule functions for charging alongside setting the export value margin (as directed by Myenergi) on the Zappi to prevent it doing that with PV isn't an option.

That all said I've had no issues since I set a 5 minute buffer between the Zappis Go charging end point of 0430 and the 100% SoC charge setting on the battery to 0435. The Zappi had previously hung onto a charge and the battery had just maintained it until drained.

I did get 5.5kwh into the car yesterday directly from PV though so looking forward to summer when that can charge the car entirely!

yandards Entirely from solar!?!? Which ev do you have and how much solar? I have realised that on days like today where the sun is out it is so low my panels appear to top out at 1.1kw so wouldn't even start to charge the car :-( Joy of East West configuration rather than South.

THALL Kia eNiro. I tried EV6 but I am feeling old. Lovely when you are in it. Getting in and out wasnt so easy, especially where the seat had been left down and back :-(
4+ is the top of the range and the one I looked at but 2, and 3 are avaialble for less. As I say if you can get 2021 version big discount for the same car. The finance fudge is to use PCP as you may get another £2k contribution from the dealer. After a "reasonable" amount of time pay it off in full. Just check the contract to make sure the penalty isn't too much, but with £2k to cushion that it works out better.

Seye Looks good, though starting price for the long range is 2k higher than the base id3. But I ordered my id3 for 28k so jumping to 35k would be a hard sell to the missus! I don't know, frustrating times.

THALL sell the idea on 7 year warrenty, 10 on the battery

Seye Worth a go. The other issue she wants to get out of the NHS and the jobs she is looking at pay a good chunk less so justifying the other £2k - £5k will be hard. EV's might simply still be too expensive for +200 mile range. Oddly if I had ordered July/August time I would be receiving my id3 about now. But I couldn't decide so late September decision made, order placed, confirm by factory 4th October and now might have huge wait. Was told around 20 weeks..... I guess I could always try the route of getting more discount or free stuff from VW if they suddenly say "oh we need ANOTHER 20 weeks" Free alloys maybe, matts, blah blah

MG ZS EV has had an upgrade. Much bigger battery. Overtly targetting lower end but a lot of car for the money.

https://www.mg.co.uk/new-cars/new-mg-zs-ev?gclid=CjwKCAiA24SPBhB0EiwAjBgkhh4UEqKHMn_5TPuhvU4Ex9crOD_QJfPi0XJSI28wurL7reeajAxxLBoCW-IQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Seye Might go take a look. Just phoned them and the smaller battery is in stock now, the large unit would need to be ordered but didn't give me an eta over the phone.

Just had a call from my VW dealer, my order has a build week of 29 with an estimated delivery end of September 2022. That means 48 - 50 weeks in total from the factory accepting the order 4th October 2021. Plus it is only an estimate and could be delayed further. Not sure what to do now.

Just an aside but are you 100% on wanting the Zappi for it's Solar Matching or is it the Myenergi ecosystem as well?
I have an Indra/Kaluza/ChargedEV SmartPro (depends where you buy it) that does all the solar matching and has been faultless.
It can't match any of the other Zappi tricks/apps but does work well for solar matching and may turn out cheaper if thats all you need it for.

hoggy I will take a look, thank you. I was after the ability to work with Agile too. But the zappi is the only myenergi item I would have. Their other devices are not applicable to my setup.

THALL That is crazy. I was chatting to a friend who is trying to sort out a salary sacrifice scheme for their workplace and several lease companies have absolutely assured them that they have ID3s in stock and waiting to lease to people (could be just marketing waffle though). I tried to convince my wife about an eNiro or indeed the MG ZSEV but neither looked 'fancy enough' whatever that means!

judgepd Yeah I just spent my lunchbreak looking at the MG and it is odd. The wheels just seem too small? Sadly there is not much under £40k. My ceiling is £30k really.

THALL 6kw, 175 degrees so pretty much directly South. I'm losing a lot through shading too as my lower string is getting direct shadow from my neighbours roof. I've had 11.9kwh today with that lower string producing half of the upper one at best.

That over 10kwh figure has been about right for these sunny days, compared to mid Sep when both strings are within 100w of each other and my peak generation so far was 32.87kwh on the 20th Sep - system install date of 8th Sep.

EV wise its an E208 GT, somewhat smaller but its mostly for Mrs Yandards to use for work (community nurse) still good enough to get 3 of us in to head off on longer journeys as well. Been really pleased with it so far, the 100kw DC charge rate from 0 to 80 % in 30 mins is a great option on the longer trips where we need to charge. Tried a Zoe and was bloody horrible by comparison, nothing else in the budget of under 30k that had decent range too.

Not for everyone though, we do have off road parking so can charge at home, the car can manage our longest regular run (120 miles or so) in the middle of winter no problem and we don't tend to do a lot of dual carriageway or motorway speeds.

Peugeot also offer a 100k, 8 year warranty on the battery including break down cover for the entire 8 years for a traction battery fault. The warranty is down to 70% SoC (30% loss) over that period too. Keep in mind that must be a worst case use scenario too, all DC rapid charging, operation in extremes of temperature etc.

You can see where the tree gets in the way! 3.4kWh generated today - basically from the south string. There are a few other trees that the sun doesn't clear in the winter which seems to knock some off too.

For anyone interested I got more quotes for Zappi's.

Mini consumer unit
cabling
3rd ct clamp
£988 and £1000 exactly after the grant

The £988 is a very local company which helps

THALL Per my V2L thread, we've just ordered a Kia EV6 and have been given a delivery date of July 29.

JJB We're waiting on an Ioniq 5 at the moment which has V2L too. I can charge at work for free and had thought I could run the tumble dryer from the car when I get home as it's the highest energy consumer in our house. I'm not sure whether in practice I would ever really do it though (and my wife thinks my plan is ridiculous too).

JJB Very nice. But a tad more than the 28k I paid for my id.3 I just do not have the budget to jump from 30 to 40k sadly.

THALL I have a zappi but my install had a number of extras cabling etc £1200.

I am not seeing a Harvi in this discussion. I had 2 CT clamps hardwired into the Zappi at a cost for time and cabling. The guys who fitted my GivEnergy (also MyEnergi installers) told me it would have been quicker and cheaper to have installed another Harvi which integrates via the hub. I have a Harvi, 24m from the Zappi, measuring the grid which integrates via the Hub. I connected a CT from the battery to the spare terminals in the Harvi (there are 3), set it up in the Zappi and it works a treat. At some point I will lose the CAT5 cable and fit another Harvi.

mjkelly5a I did speak to myenergi about getting a zappi before ordering and asked about the harvi, but as the only myenergi device I will ever have is the zappi they said a zappi and hub with extra ct clamp. But when I place my order tomorrow I will mention it to the installer and see what they say. I am all for less wires!

mjkelly5a Small update, you mentioned a Harvi I didn't realise until I just accepted it that the new quote for £988 includes the zappi, hub and a harvi so win win. Just accepted so hopefully get an install date as soon as possible.

THALL The Harvi has 3 sets of terminals. the Zappi will integrate with 3 Harvi'. So I think you can have 9 CT clamps if needed.

GivEnergy and MyEnergi are working together to integrate both systems. In November the installer spoke to them and they were allegedly 2 months away from releasing some techie stuff to do it.

mjkelly5a Ah excellent. Well my install will be done by the end of March to claim the grant, but no EV until September so wont be able to test it all. But I am still happy it is all underway!

So, the installer is fitting my zappi at the moment. He's really not happy about the way the previous installers fitted the battery. Apparently they forced two sets of meter tails in to 1 fuse, they fitted a plastic box of some kind that should be metal and they are powering the EM115 meter from the fuse next to it as there was no space left. I wonder if I should be contacting them to explain themselves.

judgepd Maybe get some pictures to send to GE to confirm if it ok or not? If confirmed wrong, or unsafe its grounds to get them back to sort it.

THALL Good idea, thanks.

judgepd not sure but two meter tails into a single DNO fuse sounds dodgy to me.

Should have been Henley blocked or similar if they needed to split the main supply on the consumer unit side of the system.

Also you should have had some testing certs on top of the MCS identifying new installed circuits as required.

I think it's my poor understanding and bad use of terminology but it sounds like what they've done is put 2 sets of wires in to 1 MCB in the consumer unit. The zappi installer is adding some type of junction just after the electric meter to sort it out properly. I'm going to get him to explain it again to me when he's all done but wanted to leave him alone to get on with it for now. Doesn't seem like he should be having to sort out other people's dodgy work though.

judgepd if the consumer unit had no free slots they should have added a Henley block after the meter unit and fitted a 2nd consumer unit - they should be metal now not plastic under latest wiring regs.

Sounds like a bit of a bodge job by your original installers from what you've said!

I think installers are required under regulations to ensure what they are doing is sound and also consider the existing installation. They don't need to check anything but if they see something wrong whilst in an area, ie the consumer unit cover is off, and it's dangerous they have to let you know.

yandards So it seems I was wrong. The situation is that the additional consumer unit that has the PV and now battery in was linked to the main consumer unit by just putting an extra set of wires in to the main MCB in the main consumer unit. But this wasn't done by the battery installers, it was actually the solar installers 8 or more years ago. Because of this, the Zappi installer didn't want to add the charger in to that small consumer unit (and it had no space anyway) so he did what should have been done right from the start and split the main meter tails nearer the meter and took a new set to another small consumer unit just for the Zappi. I can't get the original solar installers back as they went bust years ago but the Zappi installer did say that the battery installers shouldn't have just ignored the dodgy wiring and would have definitely noticed it.

Also, sorry Givenergy, but the update time of the myenergi app blows the Givenergy portal out of the water (just missing battery SOC).

judgepd Ah that makes sense, so it should have had a Henley block fitted being fed from the output side of the meter and the Henley block then feeding each of the consumer units. That would also make sense why your solar consumer unit is likely plastic as I think the wiring regs for the time would still have plastic CUs as an option (1st Jan 16, just checked).

That's pretty much what I have albeit all my stuff was fitted at once.

Just as an aside, when mine was installed, they commented that my existing consumer unit was plastic (I installed in in 1993 as a split RCD/not board as was the recommendation at the time - but also split the power 4 ways - down, up, garage and kitchen which I think was advice) - but they installed a new small metal consumer unit for the new inverter, battery and meter and also increased the earth block size as that was too small and a henry block for the power.

anglefire When my Zappi was installed to replace my EO charger in Aug 2020 they insisted on changing out the plastic CU, that had been fitted by the EO installers in 2016, with a metal CU. I was told it was because of any CU fires on plastic boxes.

My plastic solar CU was changed out for a metal CU in November when they fitted the batteries and solar edge.

mjkelly5a that's interesting, I know they changed from plastic to electric to prevent fires due to misinstallation of MCBS on the rail system.

Surprised your installer insisted on swapping the CU over though, guess it comes down to them certifying the work as being compliant with current regulations.

yandards It seems to be a fairly common action. I wonder if it is a requirement.

I'm an engineer (retired on a great pension :-) ) and the move to sue for the slightest infringement over recent years has built in a natural caution. So I get why they do it.

Mine did mention the plastic CU but also said that there was no requirement to change it or rewire the house. To be fair it has been 29 years since it was last resided so probably needs a coat of looking at.

Got my zappi install booked in for Feb 15th. Zappi 2 in black tethered with hub and harvi. Unless the installer comes in an EV van I wont be able to test it all until September however 👎️