We have covered developments in electric driving in previous articles. Not only the cars themselves, but also the proportion of drivers in the Netherlands going electric is advancing. A good development, no doubt, but that comes with some challenges. More power consumption across the Netherlands and for each household individually. You naturally want to avoid power cuts due to overloading your network.
Welcome to the meter box
When installing a charging station, it is important to check whether the meter box is sufficiently adjusted to the growing load on the home power network. Sometimes it may be necessary to ‘weigh down’ the meter box. Not necessarily what you wanted when you chose an electric car probably. A second consideration here, is the impact on your energy bill (which goes up).
That is why there is another solution – Load Balancing.
Load balancing – what is it?
Alternatively, you can choose a charging station with load balancing. Basically, this feature ensures that the power network is not overloaded, as this technique ensures that power is distributed across the network to avoid overloading.
You have 2 variants here:
- Static load balancing
The installer sets the maximum power for the available charge points by matching the consumption of the charge post to the capacity of the power network. - Dynamic load balancing
The dynamic variant measures how much power individual devices in your home consume. If a lot of power is consumed in your home at a certain moment, load balancing ensures that the charge post temporarily uses a little less power. This means that the charging of your car at that moment will be delayed (or even stopped), only to continue charging (faster) when power is available, such as at night.
Why load balancing?
Actually, we have already somewhat answered that question in the explanation above. With the need for more power by charging your electric car, there is a greater chance of overloading your power network; something you want to avoid. You also don’t want to have to think about whether you can turn on your washing machine because you want to charge your car.
The alternative of a weighted meter box is costly and has the effect of making you feel the pain in your bill as well. With load balancing, you cleverly ensure that your charging station (which you have to have installed anyway) regulates that an overload never occurs. So you smartly charge your car, making use of the available electricity.
Curious about the load balancing options of our charge points? Our team will of course be happy to tell you all about it!
