A smart charging station? What is it and how does it work?
Charging stations we know by now, but did you know there are already smart charging stations. These are becoming more intelligent in terms of charging. So they charge when the power is cheap, so you charge cheaper, and in the future it will probably even be possible to store and deploy solar energy.
A smart charging station thinks with you
A smart charging station from Blulinc knows when to charge advantageously at off-peak rates. This saves on electricity costs and also spares the power grid at peak times. But that’s not the only thing a smart charging station from Blulinc takes into account. This way – if you have solar panels – you can also indicate that energy from the solar panels is preferred when in stock. You can often use an app to indicate when your car should be full, so blulinc’s smart charging station can perfectly determine what energy it uses, renewable or from the grid. In addition, it can also take into account the other appliances that use energy in the home. If other devices consume a lot of energy, then charging the car can be scaled back a bit to avoid overcharging. This is called load balancing in the jargon.
Is smart charging breaking through completely?
But it doesn’t stop there; going forward, even more will be possible. For example, a smart charging station from Blulinc will not only be able to charge your car, but also use energy from the car to handle spikes or during a power outage. In addition, you could even use your car’s battery to bunker excess energy. Think of wind or solar energy that you can’t consume immediately. This is called bidirectional charging and the technique is also called vehicle to grid. Today, this is used only sparsely. Logical, since you need a special charging station for it that supports bi-directional charging. By the way, not only should the charging station be able to do this, your car should support it as well. Today there are only a handful of models that can do this.