Sustainable and inexpensive charging with a dynamic energy contract
These features are in a beta testing phase, so they are not yet available to everyone. More information can be found here.
With price-driven charging, we try to fill the car as conveniently as possible, by planning ahead when we offer more or less power to the car. We look at:
- The prices on the EPEX-Spot market for power, which is used to price dynamic energy contracts.
- A prediction of your maximum charging rate.
With this, we calculate a charging profile. This profile reduces or pauses charging during expensive hours, and charges as much as possible during cheap hours.
Our algorithm controls the power cost for charging, but not the price we pass on through a charge card.
Dutch charge card providers are required to be able to tell you before the start of the charging session what rate the charging session will be charged at. The ACM enforces this. As a result, we cannot make the charges we pass on for a charging session depend on your dynamic energy contract.
To calculate a good charging profile, we need information that we cannot currently predict or read from the car. You set this information once:
- The scheduled departure time (when should the charge be ready?).
- The desired amount of power.
- The minimum amount of power needed.
The scheduled departure time can be set by clicking on the clock icon. A menu will appear where you can set the scheduled departure time.
The desired amount of power is the amount of power you want to draw. This can be the total battery capacity of the car. However, it will be rare to drive a car completely empty. Also, it is by no means always the intention to charge the car completely full.
Based on the desired amount of power, a schedule will be created for the upcoming load.
The minimum amount of power required, the “Start-kWh” is a setting where you can specify how much power is needed “in case of emergency. The system, regardless of price, will first ensure that this amount of power is charged at full speed. Should the need arise, at least you can leave.
The remaining kWh's, beyond the minimum required amount of power will be charged scheduled. The charge point will sometimes “pause,” or slow down, and sometimes speed up, when it is price advantageous.