EV charger installation on a Canterbury Victorian terrace
The cable-route conversation is the whole conversation. On a Wincheap or St Dunstan's Victorian terrace, the OZEV grant is not usually in play, off-street parking is the pinch point, and the SWA route decides the price.
A 7kW home charger is a 32A single-phase circuit - small in electrical terms, easy to install where the property has been designed for it, and harder on a Canterbury Victorian terrace where the property emphatically was not.
Off-street parking is not optional
The Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021 and the OZEV chargepoint grant both require the charge point to be sited on private land, not overhanging the highway. A cable trailing across a public pavement is not compliant, cannot be grant-eligible, and is a trip-hazard liability besides.
On the Wincheap main road frontage, most Victorian terraces have no off-street parking at all. There is nothing I can do to install an EV charger there compliantly. On the side streets - Old Dover Road area, some St Dunstan's Terrace properties, and parts of the Nunnery Fields area - small side alleys or rear driveways sometimes allow a compliant install.
The Canterbury on-street public charging network (Blink, Ubitricity lamppost-mounted units, the Riverside Park & Ride bays) is the answer for terrace owners without a driveway. It is not the answer this article is about.
Cable routes on a terrace with a driveway
Where the property does have off-street parking, three cable routes are common:
- Side-wall route. Cable exits the property through a side wall (party wall on a mid-terrace, side elevation on an end-terrace), runs along the side wall in a channel or on a cable-tray, and terminates at a wall-mounted charger position in the driveway. Cleanest install where the side wall is available and the driveway is next to it.
- Under-eaves route. Cable exits at the eaves, runs along the eaves in a channel, and drops to the charger position. Preferred where the side wall is not usable - for example a party wall shared with a neighbour who does not want a cable on their side.
- Buried SWA. Cable buried in the driveway between the consumer unit position and the charger. Cleanest visually, most expensive, requires digging up part of the driveway. Usually only viable if the driveway is being resurfaced anyway.
Voltage drop across the run needs to stay inside 5% at full 32A load. On a standard Canterbury Victorian terrace with the consumer unit at the front of the property and the driveway also at the front, cable runs are short (5–10m) and 6mm² SWA is sufficient. On rear-driveway installs the run is longer and 10mm² SWA is more usual.
OZEV grant status
The current OZEV chargepoint grant scheme is restricted to renters and flat-owners who do not own the freehold, and to landlords fitting a chargepoint at a rented property. Homeowners with off-street parking who own the freehold do not qualify.
That excludes most Canterbury Victorian-terrace owner-occupiers. The grant is worth £350 off the install cost where it applies. Where it does not apply, the install is quoted at full price and no grant paperwork is filed.
DNO notification
UK Power Networks are the DNO across Canterbury. Domestic EV charger installations sit on either G98 (post-install notification) or G99 (pre-install notification) depending on:
- Whether the charger inverter or output falls within the G98 limits (3.68kW per phase for micro-generation, higher thresholds for EV chargers)
- Whether the property has other significant load (existing PV, existing EV chargers)
- Whether load-management is fitted to protect the main fuse
Most standard domestic 7kW installs on a Canterbury Victorian terrace with 100A supply headroom notify under G98, post-install. I file the paperwork within the required 28-day window.
Load management on a 60A supply
Older Victorian terraces on Wincheap and St Dunstan's sometimes still have 60A main fuses rather than the modern 100A standard. On a 60A supply, adding a 32A EV charger circuit leaves 28A headroom for everything else in the house - enough for lighting and standard appliances, not enough for cooker + shower + EV simultaneously.
Load-management devices (Zappi with Harvi, Ohme Pro, Myenergi Eddi) throttle the charger to whatever supply headroom is available in real time, so the main fuse is protected. On a 60A supply the charger might dip from 7kW to 3.6kW during cooking peaks, then back up overnight. Sub-optimal but compliant, and cheaper than a supply upgrade.
Supply upgrades from 60A to 100A are a UK Power Networks job, quoted separately by the DNO. Turnaround varies - typically 4–8 weeks. On a Canterbury terrace where a lot of EV charging is planned, the supply upgrade is often the smarter long-term move.
Not sure if your driveway works?
Send a photo of the driveway and the meter/consumer unit position to {EMAIL}. I will tell you the likely cable route, the DNO route (G98 or G99), whether OZEV grant applies, and the fixed-price install cost before you commit.
Sources: Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021; BS 7671:2018 Amendment 2:2022 Section 722 (Electric Vehicles); OZEV EV Chargepoint Grant guidance 2024/25; UK Power Networks Distribution Code G98/G99 procedures.