GivEnergy EV Charger vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3: £608 apart, different universes

£478 against £1,086 — and they are not competing

This is less a head-to-head than a Venn diagram with almost no overlap. The GivEnergy EV Charger costs £478, charges at 7kW on single-phase, and exists to do one thing no other charger at this price does: pull stored energy from a home battery into your car. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 costs £1,086, weighs up to 24 kg, speaks OCPP 2.0.1, and is built for three-phase homes that want commercial-grade hardware on a residential wall.

• GivEnergy — a £478 single-phase charger whose entire argument is battery-to-EV charging. Without a home battery, it is ordinary.
• CTEK — a £1,086 three-phase unit with MID metering, built-in Type B RCD, and open protocols. Without three-phase supply, it is expensive for what it delivers.

The GivEnergy's one trick — and why it matters

Battery-to-EV charging sounds niche until you run the numbers. Fill a home battery overnight at 7p/kWh on Octopus Intelligent Go, then discharge it into the car the next afternoon instead of drawing from the grid at peak rate. Most chargers can divert live solar; the GivEnergy can also drain stored electricity — from its own batteries or compatible third-party units. That distinction is worth real money if your household already runs a battery system.

Strip the battery away and the picture changes. At £478 the GivEnergy matches the Tesla Wall Connector on price but falls short on app polish, cable length (5 metres versus the Tesla's longer reach), and tariff integration. The Ohme Home Pro at £535 runs rings around it on smart scheduling. The Easee One undercuts it at £405. The GivEnergy's value proposition is entirely conditional on the rest of your energy setup. If you are weighing the GivEnergy against solar-focused alternatives, the Zappi GLO vs GivEnergy comparison is the more useful page.

What the CTEK's £608 premium buys

Three-phase charging at up to 22kW, for a start — rare in residential hardware at this price. A built-in MRCD Type B means your installer does not need to source a separate DC-fault device, which typically saves £100–£200 on the consumer unit. MID-approved metering is baked in, useful if you need auditable energy records for a business or landlord arrangement. And OCPP 2.0.1 with ISO 15118 readiness means the unit is not locked to any single back-end — it will talk to whatever platform you choose, now or in five years.

The trade-off is software. There is no first-party app with Octopus Intelligent Go or OVO Charge Anytime integration. Scheduling runs through third-party OCPP platforms like Monta. That is fine for someone comfortable configuring a back-end; it is a poor experience for a buyer who wants to plug in and forget. The NANOGRID dynamic load-balancing gateway is a separate purchase, too — not included in the £1,086.

On a single-phase supply, the CTEK delivers roughly 7.4kW — marginally more than the GivEnergy's 7kW, but not £608 more. The three-phase capability, the metering, the Type B RCD — all of it sits idle. Single-phase buyers should look elsewhere. The Zaptec Go 2 at £500 offers three-phase readiness and a more polished residential experience for a fraction of the cost.

Warranty and build

The CTEK carries a 5-year warranty and an IK10 impact rating — it will survive a reversing trolley or a football. The GivEnergy offers 3 years and IP65 weatherproofing but no published impact rating. Both are robust enough for a UK driveway. The CTEK's 24 kg weight, though, makes it a two-person install job and suggests this is not hardware designed with a neat suburban garage in mind.

Which to buy

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You already own a home battery — GivEnergy or compatible — and want to charge the car from stored cheap-rate electricity
• You are on single-phase supply and want a £478 charger that integrates with whole-home energy monitoring
• Solar divert *plus* battery drawdown is the combination you need

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have three-phase supply and want 22kW home charging without commercial-grade pricing
• You need MID-approved metering or Eichrecht compliance — for business use, expense tracking, or landlord billing
• You prefer open-protocol hardware (OCPP 2.0.1, ISO 15118) and are comfortable managing scheduling through a third-party platform

For most UK households — single-phase, no home battery, wanting a plug-in-and-forget experience — neither charger is the right answer. The Ohme Home Pro at £535 or the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro at £690 will serve better. But if you have a battery wall and a GivEnergy inverter, the GivEnergy charger is the obvious choice at £478. And if you have three phases and an appetite for open protocols, the CTEK earns its place — just know you are buying infrastructure, not convenience.