EV Charger Installation in London, Designed Around Your Solar and Battery

We install home EV chargers across London and around 50 miles beyond. If you already have solar panels or a home battery, or plan to, we set the charger up to work with them, so the car uses your own electricity where it can and the battery is not emptied into it by accident.

Solar Panels London is an MCS-certified solar and battery installer. Every charger installation starts the same way: we check your supply, your earthing and what else in the house draws power, before we recommend where the charger goes and how it should be set up.

Charging your car from your own solar panels

A charger with a solar mode watches how much electricity your home is sending to the grid, using a small sensor (a CT clamp) at the meter. When the panels are producing more than the house is using, it sends that surplus to the car instead of exporting it.

There is one limit worth knowing. A car needs a minimum charging rate before it will charge at all, roughly 1.4 kW on a normal single-phase home supply. On a dull day the surplus is often below that, so the charger either tops up from the grid or waits, depending on the mode you choose. Solar charging works best for cars that sit at home during the day, and alongside a cheap overnight tariff for everything else.

Adding a charger to a home that already has a battery

This is where most installations go wrong, and it is the main reason to have the charger set up by someone who understands the battery.

If you do not have a battery yet, our guide to what size solar battery you need explains how an EV changes the sizing, and adding a battery to existing solar panels covers the retrofit route.

Your supply: why we check the load first

A typical home charger can draw up to 32 amps for hours at a time. Add a heat pump, an electric cooker and a battery charging from the grid overnight, and a home can ask for more than its supply can safely give.

So before we quote, we look at your main fuse, what else is on the supply and when it runs. Where the numbers are tight, the charger can be fitted with load management, which turns the charging rate down automatically when the house needs the power. Where a supply upgrade is genuinely needed, we tell you early, because that is arranged with the network operator and has its own timescale.

Safety: earthing and the right protection

Most London homes have what electricians call a PME earth, where the supply's neutral and earth share a conductor in the street. If that conductor ever breaks, metalwork connected to the earth can become live. Indoors that risk is managed. Outdoors, with a car body you can touch while standing on wet ground, it is not acceptable.

The wiring regulations therefore require extra protection for an outdoor charger on a PME supply. In practice that usually means a charger with built-in protection that detects the fault and disconnects, along with the correct type of residual current protection. We confirm the earthing arrangement at the survey and specify the protection to match. It is not something to leave to chance or to a plug-in lead.

How an installation works

London homes: terraces, flats and no driveway

Government chargepoint grants

The government's chargepoint grants are running for a final year, to 31 March 2027. They cover flat owners and renters with private parking, households using an approved cross-pavement solution, landlords and workplaces. There is currently no grant for owners of houses with their own driveway.

Grants are claimed by an installer authorised for the scheme, not by you, and eligibility depends on your circumstances. Check the current rules on GOV.UK, and ask us about your situation when you enquire.

Common questions