Andersen A3 vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3

£900 for the wall, £1,086 for the wiring

The Andersen A3 and the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 both sit at the expensive end of the UK home-charger market — and neither apologises for it. But they are expensive for completely different reasons. The Andersen is an anodised-aluminium design piece with 247 finish options and a hidden cable that retracts into the body. The CTEK is a 24 kg slab of commercial-grade hardware that happens to mount on a house wall, built around three-phase 22kW output and open protocols. One is about how the charger looks. The other is about how much current it can move.

• Andersen A3 — £900. Single-phase 7.4kW, tethered, 5.5 m hidden cable, seven-year warranty. The charger you buy because visitors will see it.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — £1,086. Up to 22kW three-phase, untethered socket, OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1, MID-approved meter, five-year warranty. The charger you buy because your supply supports it.

The single-phase question the CTEK cannot dodge

Fewer than 5% of UK homes have three-phase power. If yours is single-phase — and it almost certainly is — the CTEK delivers the same ~7.4kW as the Andersen, for £186 more, in a box that weighs over three times as much and comes without a tethered cable. Its built-in Type B MRCD and MID-approved meter are genuine engineering advantages, but they solve problems most residential buyers do not have. The MRCD saves your installer the cost of a separate DC-fault device, clawing back perhaps £100–£150 on the install bill. The MID meter matters for recharging company cars or billing tenants. For a private driveway with one EV, these are features without a use case.

On single-phase, the Andersen is the more coherent product. It costs less, looks better, hides its cable, and carries two extra years of warranty. The contest is not close.

Smart tariffs: the Andersen's quiet advantage

The Andersen integrates directly with Intelligent Octopus Go and OVO Charge Anytime. Set it up once and the charger schedules itself into off-peak slots — 8p/kWh on Intelligent Go, 14p/kWh on OVO. The software is competent rather than exceptional; the Ohme Home Pro does more with half-hourly tariffs like Octopus Agile. But the Andersen handles the two most popular EV tariffs without fuss.

The CTEK has no first-party app for tariff scheduling at all. You route everything through a third-party OCPP back-end — Monta is the usual choice — and hope it supports your supplier's API. Direct Intelligent Go integration is not available. For a charger at £1,086, the absence of a polished consumer app is hard to forgive. The CTEK's OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 credentials are forward-looking and technically impressive, but they serve fleet managers and multi-unit landlords more than someone who just wants cheap overnight charging.

When the CTEK earns its price

Three-phase supply changes the arithmetic. At 22kW, the CTEK fills a 60 kWh battery in under three hours — roughly a third of the time the Andersen needs at 7.4kW. If you regularly arrive home with a near-empty battery and leave early, that speed matters. The CTEK's IK10 impact rating and -30°C to +50°C operating range also suit exposed or semi-commercial sites where the Andersen's IP54-rated aluminium body, however handsome, feels less robust.

For landlords or small businesses needing RFID access, energy metering to Eichrecht standards, and an open protocol stack, the CTEK is the residential-priced unit that behaves like a car-park charger. The Zaptec Go 2 — at £638 — is its closest rival in this space and worth a look alongside it.

Both chargers are OZEV-approved. The £500 grant covers a meaningful fraction of either unit price, though at these costs plus install, the total outlay remains north of £1,000 regardless.

Which to buy

Buy the Andersen A3 if:

• Your home is single-phase — which covers almost everyone
• The charger is visible from the street or front of the house, and you care about that
• You want direct Intelligent Octopus Go or OVO Charge Anytime scheduling without third-party apps

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have three-phase supply and want 22kW home charging
• You need RFID authentication, MID-approved metering, or OCPP for a managed setup
• You are comfortable using Monta or a similar platform instead of a first-party consumer app

For the vast majority of UK homes — single-phase, one car, a smart tariff, a visible driveway — the Andersen A3 is the right charger of this pair. It costs £186 less, does the same electrical job at the same speed, and does it with a seven-year warranty and a finish nothing else in the market matches. The CTEK is a fine piece of engineering aimed at a narrow audience. If you are not in that audience, you are paying for capability you will never switch on.