Surge protection

Protective enclosures for charging points combine, within a single housing, all the protective devices required for an electric vehicle installation: residual current protection, circuit breakers and surge protection, all with automatic reset. They eliminate the need to assemble the system piece by piece in the distribution board and ensure that the installation complies with the relevant requirements.

What safety features does a charging point need?

ITC-BT-52 specifies the following for each charging point dedicated residual current protection —not shared with other circuits—, protection against overloads and short circuits, and protection against DC fault currents, because the vehicle’s charger can inject DC current that overwhelms a conventional residual current device.

Added to this is surge protection, particularly in installations with photovoltaic systems or in areas prone to frequent storms.

Why is it better for the reload to be automatic?

Because charging takes place at night when no one is around. A circuit breaker tripping due to a transient power surge at three o’clock in the morning leaves the car uncharged until the following morning, and if the socket also powers other circuits, it leaves other things out of action as well.

The models rearmable from Toscano They check that the fault has been rectified and restore the service; if the fault persists, they do not reset the circuit breaker.

Which type of box do I need – single-phase or three-phase?

The one for the property or building. We have the following in our catalogue: 32 A and 40 A single-phase AC boxes y 40 A three-phase, available in standard and resettable versions, as well as the COMBI-PRO motorised isolator for emergency operation.

The calibre is chosen based on the power rating of the charging point, not the contracted power: a 7.4 kW single-phase charger requires 32 A, and a 22 kW three-phase charger requires 32 A per phase.

See also the electric vehicle chargers and the circuit breakers from the table.