GivEnergy EV Charger vs Indra Smart PRO: Battery Storage vs V2G Pioneer

The Battery Specialist vs the British All-Rounder

If you're shopping for a home EV charger and you've already invested — or plan to invest — in home energy tech like solar panels or battery storage, these two chargers will have caught your eye. Neither the GivEnergy EV Charger nor the Indra Smart PRO is a mainstream crowd-pleaser like the Ohme Home Pro or the myenergi Zappi. Instead, they're specialist tools designed for drivers who want their charger to fit into a broader home energy ecosystem.

The GivEnergy EV Charger is built around one genuinely unique trick: it can charge your Tesla (or any EV) from energy stored in a home battery, not just from live solar generation. The Indra Smart PRO, meanwhile, comes from a company with serious vehicle-to-grid (V2G) credentials and bundles in hardware — like a surge protection device and CT clamp — that most rivals charge extra for. At £478 versus £599, there's a meaningful price gap, but the real question is which charger's strengths actually match your setup.

In a nutshell:

• GivEnergy EV Charger (£478): The only charger at this price that can charge your EV from stored battery energy — a genuine game-changer if you have a home battery system.
• Indra Smart PRO (£599): A practical, British-made charger that includes an SPD and CT clamp as standard, potentially saving you over £100 on installation costs.

Spec Comparison

Solar and Battery Integration

This is where the GivEnergy EV Charger truly separates itself from the pack. Most solar-compatible chargers — including the Indra Smart PRO — can divert surplus solar energy to your EV in real time. That's useful, but it means your car needs to be plugged in while the sun is shining. The GivEnergy goes a step further: it can pull energy from a home battery system, meaning solar energy generated during the day can be stored and then used to charge your EV overnight. If you've got a GivEnergy battery (or indeed any compatible home battery), this is genuinely transformative — you could theoretically charge your Tesla almost entirely from solar energy stored earlier in the day.

The Indra Smart PRO offers a solid solar divert mode with a CT clamp included in the box, which is a nice touch. Many competitors require a separate CT clamp purchase (typically £30–50), so Indra saves you that cost and hassle. For straightforward solar-to-EV charging, the Indra does the job well. But it simply cannot match the GivEnergy's battery-to-EV capability — that's a feature only a handful of chargers on the market offer at any price.

That said, as viablepower.co.uk notes, smart chargers are increasingly about fitting into a whole-home energy system. If you don't have a home battery and aren't planning to get one, the GivEnergy's headline feature becomes irrelevant, and you're left with a fairly basic solar divert charger.

Smart Tariff Integration

Here's where the Indra Smart PRO has a clear edge. It offers smart tariff integration with major UK energy providers, meaning it can work with tariffs like Octopus Intelligent Go (~7p/kWh off-peak) or Octopus Go (7.5p/kWh between 00:30 and 04:30) to automatically schedule charging during the cheapest periods. For a typical Tesla Model 3 with a 60kWh battery, charging on Intelligent Go costs roughly £4.20 for a full charge versus around £17 at the average UK electricity rate — that's a saving of nearly £13 every time you fill up.

The GivEnergy EV Charger has limited smart tariff integration by comparison. You can schedule charging times manually through the GivEnergy monitoring portal, so you could set it to charge during off-peak hours, but it lacks the deep API-level tariff integration that chargers like the Ohme Home Pro or even the Indra offer. As evenergyhub.com highlights, matching your charger to your energy tariff is one of the most impactful decisions you can make — potentially saving hundreds of pounds a year. If you're not pairing the GivEnergy with a home battery, this is a significant weakness.

Installation Considerations

The Indra Smart PRO has a genuinely clever advantage here that's easy to overlook: it includes a surge protection device (SPD) as standard. Since the 18th Edition wiring regulations, an SPD is required for most EV charger installations in the UK. If your consumer unit doesn't already have one, your electrician will typically charge £100–150 to fit it. With the Indra, that cost is baked in, which effectively brings its real-world price much closer to the GivEnergy's.

The Indra also includes dynamic load balancing, which monitors your home's total electrical demand and adjusts the charging rate to prevent overloading your supply. This is particularly useful in older UK homes where the main fuse might be 60A or even 40A — without load balancing, running an oven, a shower and a 7kW charger simultaneously could trip your supply.

The GivEnergy is the lighter unit at 4.5 kg versus 5.0 kg, and its IP65 rating means it's fully weatherproof — a step above the Indra's IP54. If your charger will be fully exposed to the elements with no cover, the GivEnergy offers better protection. Both chargers have standard installation costs in the £400–600 range, and both are OZEV-approved for the £350 grant where eligible.

One practical note: the GivEnergy comes with a 5-metre tethered cable, while the Indra offers 6 metres. That extra metre can make a real difference if your charging point isn't directly next to where you park — worth measuring before you commit.

Price and Value

On paper, the GivEnergy is £121 cheaper. But once you factor in the Indra's included SPD — saving you roughly £100–150 on installation — the gap narrows dramatically. If your consumer unit needs an SPD (and most do for a new EV charger installation), the Indra could actually work out cheaper in total.

The GivEnergy's value proposition is heavily tied to whether you own a home battery. With one, it's arguably the best-value charger on the market for whole-home energy optimisation. Without one, you're paying £478 for a charger with a basic app and limited smart tariff support — and as tinyeco.com points out, there are plenty of chargers at this price point that offer more polished smart features.

Who Should Buy Which?

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You already have a GivEnergy home battery (or any compatible battery storage system)
• You want to charge your EV from stored solar energy overnight — not just live solar
• You're building a complete GivEnergy ecosystem with solar, battery and EV charging
• You want the cheapest upfront unit price and your consumer unit already has an SPD
• A fully weatherproof IP65 rating matters for your exposed installation location

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• You want smart tariff integration to take advantage of cheap off-peak rates like Octopus Go
• You don't have a home battery and want the best all-round value
• You want to minimise installation costs with the included SPD and CT clamp
• Dynamic load balancing is important for your home's electrical capacity
• You like the idea of buying British-designed and manufactured hardware
• The extra metre of cable length (6m vs 5m) solves a parking logistics problem

Our recommendation: For most UK EV drivers without a home battery, the Indra Smart PRO is the smarter buy. Its included SPD effectively wipes out the price difference, and its smart tariff integration will save you far more money over time than the GivEnergy's basic scheduling. However, if you have — or are planning — a home battery system, the GivEnergy EV Charger is genuinely unmatched. The ability to charge your Tesla from stored solar energy is a feature that no amount of smart tariff trickery can replicate, and at £478, it's remarkably affordable for what it offers to the right household.

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Read our full GivEnergy EV Charger review or Indra Smart PRO review.

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