A brave new world of DC home charging

There are a number of new charging solutions on show at the eMove360° in Munich. Wallbox of Spain and ABB of Switzerland have developed DC chargers for home owners. Also German Webasto is sporting their latest smart charging features at the fair.

First for Wallbox and their new DC charging system. They describe their concept as lightweight and compact, given it is due to be attached to a wall in a private garage. It has an output of 22 kW and has been designed with smart homes in mind. Its bidirectional power electronics convert AC to DC power from a number of sources, be it a stationery battery, a solar installation or simply the grid. Consequently, the DC Wallbox comes complete with Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) function. In addition, the Spaniards also upgraded the myWallbox platform to include new technologies such as voice recognition and artificial intelligence.

While Wallbox claims their DC wallbox to be the first, ABB also brought a DC home charger to the show in Munich. Their charging solutions is even a little faster as it supports powers of up to 24 kW. It has the option of both CCS and CHAdeMO and can accommodate up to two connections. ABB positions their DC charging station not necessarily inside private homes but on the market for workplace charging as well as at car dealerships or public car parks.

abb-dc-wallbox

Webasto is also exhibiting in Munich. Rather than DC, their solutions are smart charging stations, including the so-called Webasto Live for the European market and the TurboDX destined for sale in the USA and Asia. Both can be integrated into existing networks or installed individually and are therefore referred to by Webasto as “all-rounders”. The associated service package includes remote access via app, live tracking of all loading processes, reporting of charging data and cost-optimisation of the electric vehicle charging stations.