Energex QECM Version 4, in plain English.

If your house is single-phase

Most Brisbane homes are single-phase with a supply of 100A or less. On that supply, a dedicated EV charger rated above 20A needs Active Device Management — a way for the network to see or limit what the charger is drawing, so a street full of cars charging at once does not overwhelm the local supply.

At or below 20A, none of that applies. A 20A dedicated circuit is an ordinary connection, and it still adds a useful amount of range overnight — for most households, considerably more than a day's driving.

This is why the question is almost never “which charger should I buy”. It is what your supply is, and whether you want to charge above 20A badly enough to take on one of the paths below.

If your house is three-phase

Three-phase changes the picture. A dedicated 22kW charger — 32A on each of the three phases — switched across all three can usually be connected without the extra management options a single-phase home would need at the same current.

That is the practical advantage of three-phase for charging, and it is worth knowing before anyone spends money converting a supply. Converting to three-phase is significant work involving new consumer mains, switchboard work and the network. It is a planned job, not an add-on to a charger install.

The official ways to get 32A on single phase

If you are single-phase and you want a full 32A, QECM Version 4 provides three routes. These are the network's options, not ours.

• Economy or load-control tariff, using a network device — the network manages when and how much the charger draws.
• Primary tariff with basic active management via a network device — not available in every suburb, so it has to be checked for your address rather than assumed.
• A dynamic connection, where the charger's draw is adjusted in response to network conditions.

Availability is address-specific. The second option in particular is not offered everywhere, so the honest answer to “can I get 32A?” is that it has to be checked for your place, not answered from a rule of thumb.

How we install for it

This section is what we do, not an Energex option. It is a practical approach to the rules above, and it exists because most people do not want to decide today whether they will ever take on a load-control tariff or a dynamic connection.

• Run upsized cable now — typically 6mm — so the circuit is physically ready for 32A later.
• Fit a 20A RCBO, so the installation is compliant today without any network involvement.
• Set the charge speed in the vehicle or charger app — the Tesla app, for instance — to match the 20A circuit.
• Later, if you add load control, a network device or a dynamic connection, the breaker can be upsized without rerunning the cable.

The point of it is that the expensive, disruptive part — getting cable through walls, ceilings or underground — is done once. Changing a breaker later is a small job by comparison; pulling a new cable to the garage is not.

One thing to understand about the app limit: the 20A RCBO is the real protection, not the app setting. If the app is later set higher than the circuit allows, the breaker will trip — which is it doing its job, not a fault. Tell us if you change cars or chargers and we will check the setting with you.