BMW and E.On offer smart charging for the home
BMW and E.On have agreed to cooperate on smart charging. Initially, the aim is to charge EVs at home at times convenient for the grid. But bi-directional charging could also play a role in the long term.
The ‘Connected Home Charging’ service will launch in several European countries in the second half of the year. The focus is on smart charging at home. According to the partners, this is the first cross-industry project of its kind in Europe.
A common interface will connect electric vehicles, smart homes and the energy sector. In this case, the vehicles and wall boxes come from BMW and E.ON will be “responsible for ensuring sustainable energy tariffs and access to the energy market, which plays a key role in the intelligent control of charging processes”.
As a first step, BMW customers should charge their vehicle whenever electricity is cheap or when they can use electricity from their own photovoltaic system. Bi-directional charging could also be interesting for the partners in the future.
According to BMW and E.ON, the results of the joint research project “Bidirectional charging management – BDL” have already been incorporated into the development of the offer. The press release states that the company will “focus their efforts on the opportunities offered by bidirectional charging and its two central use cases: ‘vehicle to home’ (feeding electricity from the high-voltage battery into the household) and ‘vehicle to grid’ (feeding electricity from the high-voltage battery into the power grid) — with the clear aim of creating appropriate customer offerings in the medium term.”
“Bidirectional charging technology will enable further functionality and optimisations in the ecosystem, such as allowing the electric vehicle to provide grid-supporting and stabilising services as part of bidirectional charging or the more comprehensive, optimised use of green energy through the entire power grid,” the partners added.
“Together with E.On, we will make the car an intelligent element of the smart home. This will bring more balance to the private energy ecosystem, with lower costs and an improved carbon footprint, and will enable smart integration into the energy market in the future”, says Frank Weber, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG.
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