EV charging trial demonstrates 68% power consumption reduction
Image courtesy Liander
A pilot project hosted by Dutch grid operators Liander and Enexis, alongside charging proviers ANWB, Vatenfall and Enevo eMobility, saw a 68% reduction in power consumption when EV charging is shifted outside of peak stress periods on the power grid.
The pilot ‘grid-conscious home charging’ investigated how owners of an electric car, who charge it at home, can be encouraged to charge their car at other times. Charging the car at home has a major impact on the electricity grid, which is becoming increasingly full.
This is especially the case in the winter months when people come home from work. There is a peak in power consumption because heat pumps are on, people are cooking electrically and cars are charging at full speed.
The charging trial took place from October 2024 until January this year. The car charging session was automatically controlled at 330 households and cars were not charged or charged less quickly during peak times.
As a result, it took longer for the battery to be fully charged. For the majority of households, this wasn’t a problem, says Liander in a release, because the car was not needed again until the next morning.
Rather, by intelligently controlling the charging sessions of electric cars, they are charged at times when there is sufficient space on the electricity grid. This can be done by controlling the charging station or the electric car with the help of an app in such a way that less power is supplied to the car during peak times.
Drivers who still need a full battery during peak times can indicate this so that the car still charges at full power. Participants in the pilot have indicated that this is an important prerequisite for participating in grid-conscious home charging.
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Dynamic tariffs
According to Liander, the largest shift in power consumption was achieved in households with a fixed power tariff. During the pilot, their power consumption during the evening peak was reduced by an average of 68%. For this group, it is important to receive financial compensation if they are willing to move their charging sessions.
Households with a dynamic electricity tariff already show much more grid-conscious charging behaviour than households with a fixed electricity tariff. These customers already benefit from lower electricity prices by moving their charging sessions to favourable times.
These usually correspond to times when the electricity grid is not busy. In the home charging sessions that were optimised purely based on dynamic electricity tariffs, the electricity consumption at one of the charging providers was even reduced by up to 88% during the evening peak.
According to Liander, the pilot shows promise of grid-aware home charging as a solution for peak congestion management in the country, especially when considering the almost 400,000 charge points that are present.
Thus, based on the results of the trial, an investigation is currently underway with grid operator Stedin and energy supplier Essent into how grid-conscious home charging can be scaled up in the Netherlands next winter.
In the coming months, grid operators will work together with charging providers on a further roll-out of grid-aware home charging. The ambition is for grid-aware home charging to become the norm in areas where the electricity grid is too busy. How this will be organised, based on regulations and compensation, is being further investigated.
The charging trial‘s results follow a seperate trial by Enexis and Vattenfall in the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Limburg from November 2024 to March 2025, finding that, with limited impact for electric drivers, at least half of the charging peak can be shifted to the evening and night.
