My energyMore and more families have an electric car and this trend will accelerate in the coming years. A charging station or point at your home is cheaper and more flexible than using a public charging installation. Through load balancing you not only avoid overloading the power network, but you can also significantly reduce your consumption bill. Energy expert Jonas Verstraeten explains Mijnenergie.be how the principle works.
By Kurt Deman, in collaboration with Mijnenergie 14-10-23, 07:35 Source: Mijnenergie.be
Wat is ‘load balancing’?
Jonas Verstraeten, on behalf of the energy management platform Companion.energy, focuses on energy optimization in the business world. “In a residential context, load balancing means actively monitoring and controlling your consumption, so that you stay within the existing capacity of your connection. It therefore ensures that the power grid does not become overloaded.”
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How does it work in reality?
Suppose your home has a power connection of a maximum of 20 amps. You are cooking and use 10 amps through the combination of the oven and the electric stove. Your electric car is now charging and uses 6 amps. You also decide to start ironing and your iron consumes 6 amps. The car’s charging station will then automatically reduce its power consumption to 4 amperes, in order to remain below the 20 ampere limit.
According to the energy expert, various extensions to load balancing are also possible. They always mean savings on the energy bill:
Peak shaving: this is done to reduce peaks as much as possible. For example, a charging station will automatically indicate to charge your car at times when there is very little consumption in the rest of the home. The purpose of this is to reduce the costs of the capacity rate to keep as low as possible.
Increasing self-consumption: this applies to people with solar panels. The charging station automatically controls itself to charge your car at times when there is a lot of solar production.
Dynamic rates: For people who have such a rate, the charging station directs consumption towards times with low prices.
“I now gave the example of a charging station, but load balancing is also possible with other flexible consumers, such as a battery, a heat pump or an electric boiler,” Verstraeten indicates.
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What is needed to do load balancing?
The charging station, battery or heat pump is equipped with a ‘smart’ algorithm to enable various forms of load balancing. If this is not the case or if you have several smart devices in your home, you can install an ‘energy manager’, which takes care of the smart control of various things in your home. A number of start-ups within that domain are ScoptVision, LifePowr and Smart Grid One.
“To make control possible, ‘the smart device’ needs data. Typically, a link is made with your local digital smart meter to measure the total power consumption and production of the solar panels,” concludes Verstraeten.
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Savings tip. By making sufficient comparisons, you will never pay too much for your electricity: Mijnenergie.be will help you get started quickly and easily using the box below.
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2023-10-14 05:35:00
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