GivEnergy EV Charger vs Andersen Quartz: Battery storage vs kerb appeal

A home-battery specialist against an Andersen on a budget

These two chargers have almost nothing in common beyond a Type 2 plug and a Wi-Fi radio. The GivEnergy EV Charger at £478 exists to sit inside a home-energy ecosystem — battery storage, solar panels, a monitoring portal that tracks every watt. The Andersen Quartz at £695 exists to look good on a wall while doing a competent electrical job. The £217 gap between them buys entirely different things depending on what you already have bolted to your house.

• GivEnergy EV Charger — a specialist. Charges the car from a home battery, not only from live solar. Outside that use case, it is ordinary.
• Andersen Quartz — the accessible Andersen. Eleven finishes, seven-year warranty, PEN fault detection built in. No hidden cable drum — that stays with the A3.

What the GivEnergy does that almost nothing else can

Battery-to-EV charging. Most chargers with solar diversion — the myenergi Zappi GLO, for instance — route surplus generation directly to the car. If the sun drops behind a cloud, the diversion drops with it. The GivEnergy takes a different path: charge a home battery overnight at 7p/kWh on Octopus Intelligent Go, then drain that battery into the car the following afternoon. The car gets cheap electricity; the grid never sees a peak-rate draw.

This is a narrow advantage, and it requires hardware most households do not have. A compatible home battery — GivEnergy's own or certain third-party units — is the prerequisite. Without one, the GivEnergy is a £478 tethered charger with a 5-metre cable, a 3-year warranty, and an app that does scheduling but not much else. No live supplier API, no half-hourly tariff chasing. On Octopus Agile, it cannot follow the price; on OVO Charge Anytime, it is not supported. Buyers without a battery who want smart-tariff depth are better served by the Ohme Home Pro at £535.

What the Andersen Quartz's £217 buys

Four extra warranty years, for a start — seven versus three. That alone has a monetary value; a failed board in year four costs more than £217 to replace. The Quartz also integrates with Intelligent Octopus Go and OVO Charge Anytime, giving it scheduled smart-tariff capability the GivEnergy lacks. PEN fault detection is built in, so no earth rod and no extra install cost. An 8.5-metre cable option (£99 more) suits driveways where the consumer unit sits at the far end of the house. And the finishes — eleven colours, with Accoya and carbon inserts available — mean the unit does not look like a white plastic rectangle.

The caveats are real. The Quartz's OZEV approval is not confirmed on the current eligible-chargepoint list, so the £500 grant cannot be relied upon. The GivEnergy *is* OZEV-approved — for eligible renters and flat owners, that grant covers the £478 unit outright and contributes to install costs too. That changes the arithmetic considerably. The Quartz also falls short of the smartest chargers on variable tariffs; on Agile's half-hourly pricing, neither charger here can follow the rate in real time. For that job, look at the Ohme Home Pro.

Andersen's install network tends to charge more than generic OZEV-accredited fitters — the Quartz's quoted install range is £435–£800 against the GivEnergy's £400–£600. The total outlay gap can stretch beyond £217.

Who should look elsewhere entirely

If you have no home battery *and* no strong opinion about how your charger looks, both of these are hard to justify against the wider field. The Easee One at £405 is OZEV-approved, compact, and cheaper than either. The Hypervolt Home 3 Pro at £690 — £5 less than the Quartz — offers a better app, dynamic load balancing, and confirmed OZEV approval. Solar households without battery storage should compare the Zappi GLO against the GivEnergy directly; the Zappi's solar diversion is more mature, even if it cannot draw from a battery.

The verdict

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You own a GivEnergy or compatible home battery and want to charge the car from stored energy
• You already use the GivEnergy monitoring portal and want one dashboard for everything
• You are OZEV-eligible and want the grant to cover the unit price entirely

Buy the Andersen Quartz if:

• A seven-year warranty matters more than a three-year one — and it should
• You want an Andersen finish without the A3's £995 price tag
• You need a longer cable (up to 8.5 m) or plan to use Intelligent Octopus Go

For most buyers without a home battery, neither charger is the strongest recommendation at its price. The GivEnergy's entire argument rests on battery-to-EV — remove the battery and the argument collapses. The Quartz is a handsome, well-warranted unit, but £695 without confirmed OZEV approval puts it in difficult company. If the wall matters, buy the Quartz. If the battery matters, buy the GivEnergy. If neither matters especially, the Ohme Home Pro at £535 does more of the electrical thinking for less of the money.