Which charger advice please.

Good morning, a new face here. I will be taking delivery of a 71 plate Leaf e+ Tekna 64 kwh car in approx one week. I have no charger as yet and would be grateful for and advice as to which charger to purchase, it needs to marry up with our 8 panel solar system. We live near Chester....cheers guys.....Rick.

Searching the forums will turn up a lot of options. I also found many reviews on YouTube when I was searching.

I considered 8 or 10 different models before settling on the Emporia Smart Home EV Charger. It's simpler with fewer options than some other EVSE, but it works well and integrates with their home energy monitoring system (which I love). I also appreciate Emporia's stance on data privacy.

For reference, I live in the US. It sounds as thought you may live in the UK. I'm not sure if Emporia offers options which work with your voltages and outlets.

First, does your car come with a EVSE (charge cable) ?

I ask, because my car did and I just needed to install the proper outlet for it.

There are several chargers available on the market that offer these features, such as the Zappi charger from Myenergi and the JuiceBox Pro charger from Enel X. Both of these chargers allow you to set a charging schedule that maximizes the use of your solar energy and minimizes your reliance on the grid.

In terms of charging speed, your Leaf e+ supports DC fast charging up to 100 kW, so you may want to consider getting a Level 2 charger that can deliver up to 50 amps of power to take advantage of the Leaf's fast charging capability. The JuiceBox Pro 40 is one such charger that can deliver up to 40 amps of power.

For a Leaf, DC fast charging requires CHAdeMO system. These are very expensive and require specialized power service.

For the 'normal' J1772 EVSE cable, the Leaf is limited to 27.5A at 240V, Some older base model Leafs are limited to about half of this but most EVSE cables support up to 40A.