Why our latest product is a game changer for the EV market and indeed the Electrical industry as a whole !

One of the biggest problems facing the EV Charger industry is derived from our own Electrical supply infrastructure being PME (Protective multiple earthing). Without going into too much detail and boring the socks off you, we basically have 2 or 4 cores coming into a property and our earth is derived from our neutral cable, giving us 3 or 5 cables in the property. All is good with this situation until the neutral is broken on the supply side, this situation is called an ‘open PEN’ conductor and is potentially very dangerous.

The recently released 18th Edition of the IET Regulations has put measures in place to try to deal with this situation, some of the measures available to us are to measure the voltage level on the neutral in the premises to Earth (Mother Earth) via an earth electrode as a reference point, or TT the chargepoint, or TT the whole installation, or fit an isolation transformer.

On a 3 phase infrastructure a broken PEN Conductor does not cause any significant problems as long as the loads across the phases are balanced, if the loads are not balanced then either an over voltage or under voltage condition will occur

Through extensive testing we have proven that single phase voltage management is ineffective without reference to mother Earth via an earth electrode due to load imbalances across the DNO transformers phases, however !

We have developed a unique way of fully electronically measuring this load imbalance across all phases under broken PEN conditions within a 3 phase supply. 

So what does this mean to you ?

The matt:e 'O-Pen' is a fully electronic device that detects an open PEN conductor on a 3 phase property meaning any circuit derived from the device is protected from this dangerous situation, you are not required to fit an earth electrode or electrodes if the device is fitted, this is not limited to Electric Vehicle charging ! it will protect any circuit that is outside the Equipotential zone from open PEN, be it a caravan hook up,agricultural facility, open air festival etc, etc.

In the UK alone there are reported situations of open PEN conductors every day of the year, note: these are reported cases ! the actual unnoticed occurrences will be far more !

As i started this article on 'Why our latest product is a game changer for the EV market and indeed the Electrical industry as a whole', recently i read an article where a poor young girl in Australia received a horrific injury through her water tap in her garden, the tap had become live through a broken PEN conductor and she is now sadly in a wheelchair through her horrific injuries, if we can stop this situation ever happening again to others then 'job done'

Remember guys our Regulations are there for a reason, it is not because the IET intentionally wake up in the morning and think 'how can i make an Electricians job harder today?' it is there to protect all of us.

Orders now being taken for the 'matt:e O-Pen'

matt:e Ltd, 'simplifying installations'