Does your home have an analogue meter? Then click here
In certain situations, there might be insufficient power available in your home for optimal use of your charging station. But thanks to an energy management system, you can avoid having to increase the available power and the high costs this involves. Such a system takes into account the real-time consumption of other appliances in your home (electric heating, induction cookers, dishwashers, tumble dryers, etc.) and dynamically adjusts your charging station’s charging power/rate (Active load balancing). This avoids a potential power cut.
In addition, you can also restrict the charging capacity of your charging station to avoid high peaks. Given the capacity rate in Flanders, this is certainly an important cost-saving solution.
Important notes
MobilityPlus is unable to advise you when it comes to choosing your ideal peak consumption. Further, MobilityPlus is not responsible for any impact of your decision. It is a decision you have to make entirely independently, based on the information you can access via the grid operator. MobilityPlus is solely responsible for implementing the desired maximum peak power on your charging station, thereby ensuring that the charging station will not be the cause of any higher-than-desired maximum peak power consumption. MobilityPlus will therefore not be able to offer any advice regarding the peak power of your home electrical setup. Naturally, regardless of charging station usage, an increased peak can still occur due to a change in usage from other consumers within your home network.
Why is load balancing so important?
- Avoid power cuts
- No infrastructure upgrade required
- Available capacity is maximised
- Keep your energy costs easily under control
What is needed to achieve this?
- Communication of the real-time consumption of your home to the charging station
- Active Load Balancing licence on your charging station
1. Communication of the real-time consumption
Your charging station is connected to your digital meter / energy meter via a UTP Cat6 data cable. This is provided when the charging station is installed.
This way, your charging station knows the consumption of the home at all times and can respond accordingly with Active Load Balancing.
Also make sure the P1 port of your digital meter is activated. Read how to check this here
2. Active Load Balancing licence
In some cases, the licence and activation of this energy management function on your charging station is already included in your employer's @home charging package. First of all, check your car policy whether this is the case.
You can also purchase this licence + activation yourself from MobilityPlus. These are one-off costs. If you are interested, send us a ticket and we will send you an offer. Click here to create a ticket
Configuring Active Load Balancing
Thanks to Active Load Balancing, the car will never be the cause of a home power failure. This happens when the maximum protection of your home is exceeded.
Attention: only the charging capacity/charging speed of the charging station is dynamically adjusted according to the consumption in the home.
In the module, we set the maximum protection of your home. Read here where to find this info.
In addition, we strongly recommend that you restrict the peak power of your charging station. This is important to avoid high peaks in function of the capacity rate. For this, we need the maximum peak you reach on average with your home. Read where to find this info here.
Example:
Your peak power is set at 5kW
Your solar panels generate 2kW. (production)
Your consumption at home is 1kW.
Available power = set peak power + production - home consumption. (6kW = 5kW + 2kW - 1kW).
Then your charger has 6kW available at that time.
If you also have solar panels, their output will go to the car if it is currently charging. The limited charging capacity of your charging station will never be exceeded, which means you cannot always make maximum use of your output.
It is also possible to use the power of your home battery to charge your car. Be sure to indicate this during the video audit so that we can perform the connection in your fuse box correctly at once.
What to bear in mind ?
In this current solution, the logic is built into the charging station, with the charging station acting as Master. This functionality is designed to monitor the current per phase and ensure that the set current values (in Amps) are not exceeded.
A vehicle always requires at least 6A per phase to charge. You cannot choose on which phase you physically want to charge single-phase.
Currently, you cannot make adjustments to the power management settings yourself.
Do you wish to change the settings? Please send us a ticket and we'll take care of it.
If CPO management of the charging station at your home is provided by your employer, it is still possible to manage the charging station via an app from the manufacturer (or third parties) or to integrate it into your own EMS or home automation system. However, there are a few conditions attached to this. Read more
What are the possible risks when there is no energy management with an digital meter?
Since the charging station has no insight at all into the home's maximum protection, the chance of a power failure is real. There is also a chance of creating high peaks with financial consequences in function of the capacity rate in Flanders.
To avoid this as much as possible, we advise you to have the charging capacity of your charging station restricted. We then also inquire about the maximum protection of your home and also the maximum peak you reach on average with your home.
To avoid this, we advise you to have the charging capacity of your charging station restricted. We then also inquire about the maximum protection of your home and also the maximum peak you reach on average with your home.
Please note: This is not a conclusive solution to avoid a power failure and peak load.
If you also have solar panels, their output will go to the car if it is currently charging. But the restricted charging capacity of your charging station will never be exceeded. So that way you can't actually make optimal use of your output.