The popularity of EVs has surged in the last few years, and with the recent government incentives for prospective EV owners, that popularity will surely grow even more. Moreover, EV charging can draw immense amounts of electricity, especially with rapid charging, which offers a full charge in a couple of hours.
But for the majority of potential EV owners in the future, needing to fully charge once a week isn’t necessary since any residence has the basic infrastructure to be able to charge an EV daily. All an EV owner needs to do is contact their local sparky to hook up a charging station to the electrical mains of the property, which then enables them the luxury of recharging anytime they like. This means no more watching the price of petrol and waiting in line for the pump to save a few cents a week. Instead, EV owners will be conveniently charging their vehicles overnight while they sleep, and at the lowest price possible.
The reason why smart chargers can offer these benefits is that they can take advantage of cheaper electricity prices during off-peak times. In addition, slow charging is more efficient and uses less energy than rapid charging. Combining the two methods using a smart charger, therefore, allows EV owners to automatically recharge at the most optimal times, which then results in lower costs.
Although not all smart chargers are created equal, many vary in the number of features they offer, and how much their settings can be customised to the owner’s particular needs. Some energy companies are currently offering trials for basic smart chargers. Yet, the configurations of such devices can often not be changed and are therefore limited with what they can do.
There are more feature-rich and robust options on offer, such as Ocular’s high-quality IQ range. These smart chargers have all the functions of other basic smart chargers, but also enable rapid charging. They also have wireless capabilities so that smart devices such as phones or tablets can be connected to them to analyse data, including EV charge time remaining, billing information, peak times, and many other helpful metrics. Features such as load balancing also help to ease back on EV charging when other devices on the premises are drawing high amounts of electricity during peak times.
The IQ range uses the latest Exploren software to ensure all smart features are constantly up to date, this ensures users are always receiving the most benefits from smart charging. Since it is also a professional software product, Exploren also provides customer support to provide ease of use, faultless operation, and remote maintenance and support.
The financial incentive for individuals is, therefore, quite apparent. Still, the real benefits of smart charging go even further since it also has the potential to assist the efficiency of the entire power grid. The current conventional methods of charging-as-needed are perfectly fine in the early stages of the emerging market, but are not sustainable for a transportation industry that is predicted to be solely producing EVs from as soon as 2025 onwards.
When the demand on the grid is too great and cannot be met, it causes power outages and failures. Conversely, when not enough people are drawing from the grid and a surplus of power is generated from alternative sources such as solar farms, it can also cause frequency voltage disturbances which can damage the grid infrastructure.
More smart chargers mean more nodes within the network, all collecting and receiving EV electricity usage. This constant flow of data is then able to be analysed by intelligent cloud-based software such as Exploren, which can use this information to tell individual nodes when it is the best time to charge. By regulating the power consumption of smart chargers within the network, grids are then able to maintain the most optimal throughput.
As demonstrated, the attractiveness of instantly saving money by using a smart charger is obvious. But thankfully, the inherent utilitarian nature of smart chargers will also have a far-reaching impact on the greater community, which is why every EV owner will be using smart charging in the future.
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