GivEnergy EV Charger vs Andersen Quartz

£228 apart, two entirely different arguments

The GivEnergy EV Charger costs £444 and exists for one reason: to pull cheap electricity out of a home battery and into your car. The Andersen Quartz costs £672 and exists for a different one: to sit on your wall in one of eleven finishes, backed by a seven-year warranty, and look like it belongs there. The £228 between them buys aesthetics and longevity — or, depending on your setup, buys nothing you need.

• GivEnergy EV Charger — a specialist. Battery-to-EV charging, solar divert, whole-home energy monitoring through the GivEnergy portal. Without a home battery, it is an ordinary 7kW charger with a basic app.
• Andersen Quartz — a design-led charger with solid smart features, Intelligent Octopus Go integration, and the longest warranty in its price band. No battery integration at all.

The GivEnergy's one trick — and why it matters

Most home chargers with solar diversion can only use electricity the panels are generating right now. The GivEnergy goes further: it draws from a home battery. That means you can fill the battery during Octopus Go's 12:30am–5:30am window at the recorded 8.5p/kWh, for instance, then send that stored energy to the car later instead of buying peak-rate power from the grid.

The saving is the difference between the rate used to fill the battery and the rate avoided later, adjusted for storage losses. It varies by tariff and session rather than being a fixed amount. The charger integrates with the GivEnergy monitoring portal, so you can see where each kilowatt-hour came from — solar, battery or grid — in one place.

The catch is obvious. Without a home battery, none of this applies. The GivEnergy becomes a £444 tethered charger with a 5-metre cable, a 3-year warranty, and an app that does scheduling but little else. At that point, the Ohme Home Pro at £539 is smarter, the Rolec EVO at £356 is cheaper, and the GivEnergy sits in an awkward middle.

What the Andersen Quartz's £228 buys

Four things, mainly. First, the warranty: seven years against the GivEnergy's three. That is a meaningful gap for a device bolted to the outside of your house. Second, finish — eleven colours as standard, with optional Accoya wood and carbon fibre inserts. Third, a compact body at 286 × 172 × 110 mm and an optional 8.5-metre cable for driveways where 5 metres falls short. Fourth, built-in PEN fault detection, which means no earth rod — saving £50–£100 on the install.

The Quartz also has smarter tariff integration than the GivEnergy. Its Intelligent Octopus Go support means the charger and Octopus can co-ordinate charging across the full 23:30–05:30 window, slotting sessions around grid demand. The GivEnergy's scheduling is manual — set a start time, set a stop time, hope you guessed right. The Quartz also integrates with OVO Charge Anytime, giving OVO customers 14p/kWh smart-managed charging.

What the Quartz does not buy: battery-to-EV charging. It has solar diversion via its included CT clamp, which is useful, but it cannot touch stored energy. If you have a GivEnergy battery on the wall, the Quartz cannot talk to it. The GivEnergy charger can.

One more caveat. The Andersen Quartz's OZEV approval is not confirmed on the current eligible-chargepoint list. The GivEnergy is OZEV-approved. For grant-eligible buyers — renters and flat owners — the £500 OZEV grant covers the GivEnergy's £444 unit price outright and chips into the install. The Quartz may not qualify at all. That could widen the real-world cost gap well beyond £228.

How the Andersen Quartz compares to its own sibling

Buyers drawn to Andersen's design language should know the Quartz is not the Andersen A3. The A3 at £900 hides its cable inside the unit — the feature that defines the brand. The Quartz has no hidden cable. If concealed cabling is the reason you're looking at Andersen, the A3 vs Quartz comparison is the right page. If you just want an Andersen that costs less than £700, you are in the right place.

The verdict

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You have a home battery — GivEnergy or compatible third-party — and want to charge the car from stored cheap-rate electricity
• You want a charger that fits into GivEnergy's whole-home energy monitoring portal
• You are OZEV-eligible and want the £500 grant to cover the unit price entirely

Buy the Andersen Quartz if:

• You care about how the charger looks on the wall, and want a choice of finishes beyond white or grey
• You want a seven-year warranty and built-in PEN fault detection
• You are on Intelligent Octopus Go or OVO Charge Anytime and want the charger to manage sessions automatically

For most buyers without a home battery, neither charger is the strongest option at its price. The Ohme Home Pro at £539 offers better tariff intelligence than either, and the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro at £625 undercuts the Quartz while matching it on smart features. But if you have a GivEnergy battery sitting on the garage wall, the decision is already made — the GivEnergy charger is the only sub-£500 unit that can empty it into your car. That is not a feature the Andersen can replicate at any price.