myenergi Zappi GLO vs Enphase IQ EV Charger 2: Which solar charger deserves your roof?

Two solar chargers, £29 apart — and a canyon between them

Both the myenergi Zappi GLO at £750 and the Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 at £779 exist to turn rooftop surplus into road miles. The £29 price gap is almost irrelevant. What separates them is everything around the unit: install cost, ecosystem lock-in, grant eligibility, and how fussy each charger is about the panels feeding it.

• Zappi GLO — panel-agnostic solar diverter with three modes, a myenergi ecosystem behind it, and OZEV approval. £750.
• Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 — a precision node in an all-Enphase energy system. 7.5-metre cable, MID-certified metering, five-year warranty. £779 — but install runs to £900–£1,300, and OZEV approval is unconfirmed.

The Zappi GLO works with any roof

The Zappi GLO reads surplus via a CT clamp on your incoming supply. It does not care whether your panels run through Enphase microinverters, a SolarEdge optimiser, or a £400 string inverter from a brand you've half-forgotten. Eco+ mode holds the charge until enough surplus is available; Eco mode blends solar and grid; Fast mode ignores the panels entirely. That flexibility matters. Most UK solar installations are not Enphase systems, and the Zappi does not penalise you for it.

The Enphase charger, by contrast, reaches its potential only when paired with Enphase IQ microinverters and — for the AI-led source selection it advertises — an IQ Battery. Without that gateway and battery stack, you are buying a competent but overpriced 7.4 kW charger with a 1.38 kW solar-chase threshold. The threshold is impressive on paper. In practice, the requirement for an Enphase ecosystem narrows the audience to a sliver.

Install cost is the real gap

Unit prices sit £29 apart. Installed prices do not. The Zappi GLO's typical install runs £400–£600 — standard for a UK home charger. The Enphase quotes at £900–£1,300, partly because it often needs an IQ Gateway on site and partly because fewer installers carry Enphase certification. All in, you might pay £1,150–£1,350 for a Zappi GLO on the wall and £1,679–£2,079 for the Enphase. That is a gap of £500 or more — enough to buy an Easee One outright.

Then there is the grant. The Zappi GLO is OZEV-approved. Eligible renters and flat owners can knock £500 off. The Enphase's OZEV status is unconfirmed, so grant-eligible buyers cannot rely on it. For a qualifying renter, the Zappi GLO's £750 unit price shrinks dramatically — the grant covers most of it and contributes towards the install. The Enphase offers no such certainty.

Neither charger talks to your tariff

If your priority is half-hourly tariff optimisation — chasing cheap slots on Octopus Agile or getting the 7p/kWh rate on Intelligent Go — neither charger is the right tool. The Zappi GLO supports smart tariffs but through manual scheduling, not live API calls. The Enphase has OCPP 2.0.1 and open APIs, which sound promising, but it lacks direct integration with any UK half-hourly tariff today. For tariff work, the Ohme Home Pro at £535 remains the obvious pick — and if you want solar diversion *and* tariff smarts compared side by side, the Ohme vs Zappi GLO comparison covers that ground.

On a fixed off-peak window — Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh from 00:30–05:30, say — either charger can be scheduled manually. No advantage to the Enphase there.

The Enphase's genuine strengths

Credit where it is due. The Enphase carries a five-year warranty against the Zappi's three. Its 7.5-metre cable is a full metre longer than the Zappi's 6.5 metres — useful if the charger sits far from the parking spot. MID-certified metering at ±1% accuracy is a nice touch for anyone tracking energy costs precisely. And the IK10 impact rating means it will survive a knock from a wheelie bin without complaint.

The ISO 15118 hardware readiness is forward-looking — Plug & Charge and eventual V2X support could matter in a few years. But you are paying today for firmware that may or may not arrive, on a charger whose UK ecosystem is still thin.

The verdict

Buy the myenergi Zappi GLO if:

• You have solar panels of any brand and want surplus diversion without ecosystem lock-in
• You value OZEV approval and the £500 grant it unlocks for eligible buyers
• You want a standard install cost of £400–£600, not double that

Buy the Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 if:

• You already run Enphase microinverters and an IQ Battery and want single-app control over the lot
• The five-year warranty and MID-certified metering matter to your setup
• You need the extra metre of cable and do not mind paying significantly more to install it

For most solar households, the Zappi GLO is the charger to fit. It costs £29 less, installs for half the price, works with any panels, and qualifies for the grant. The Enphase is a fine piece of hardware trapped inside a narrow use case. Unless every box on your consumer unit already says Enphase, the maths points one way.