Electric cars can be connected to the home charger inside the owner’s home through standard 3-pin plugs. Chargers are also referred to as “EVSE,” Their only task is to charge electric vehicles for such applications. Although chargers with higher speeds than the current types are introduced daily, you should expect home chargers as something other than charging stations. Generally, the purpose of these chargers is something similar to charging mobile phones that are connected to the charger during the night, and it takes until the morning for their batteries to be fully charged. Among the advantages of home chargers is the lower cost of electricity used. These savings happen mostly when smart meters are used, and most of the charging time is spent from the night’s end to the morning. Even for the optimal use of such conditions, intelligent software has been designed for home chargers.

What are home chargers like?

Generally, you can see EVSE chargers as waterproof units that can be connected to the wall. Their cables are connected to the electrical outlet on one side and provide the type 1 or 2 connector port of electric vehicles on the other side. In addition, you should note that you need to use the expertise of professional technicians to install these chargers. KCS Group is one of the leading companies in the home EV charger installation field and guarantees all its installation projects.

The costs of using a dedicated home EV charger

Most of the initial cost of using home EV chargers is paid when purchasing the charger, which has a price range of 500-2000 dollars. After installation and commissioning, only the electricity costs are calculated in the bill. Of course, as I said, you can save on paying this fee by allocating the charging time to when the power supply network is off-loaded, such as at midnight. For example, in Canada, the standard cost of electricity consumption is $18 per kilowatt-hour, but during off-peak times, this amount drops to 10 kilowatt-hours. But in some countries, the government considers separate tariffs for charging electric cars with special subsidies so that the cost of fully charging the EV battery may reach less than 5 dollars during the night.

The speed of home chargers to fill the battery capacity

The battery charging speed of electric cars is calculated in kilowatt-hours. Home EV charger levels for vehicles are usually 3.6 kW or 7 kW, which makes them travel about 24 to 50 kilometres per hour of charging. If the city electricity is directly connected to the electric car, you can create a power of 2.3 kilowatt-hours, which will only travel 12 kilometres per hour. Of course, it may not be possible to use the total capacity of the charger. Meanwhile, using 7 kW chargers will not damage the car. Also, many countries do not have the possibility of providing multi-phase electricity to the subscriber, so they can eventually increase the charging rate up to 7 kilowatt-hours. But in some industrial areas, it is also possible to obtain power up to 22-kilowatt hours with three-phase electricity.

Suitable times to use a home EV charger

Although one of the goals of having home EV chargers is to increase flexibility when charging electric vehicles, it is better to use them as cell phone chargers. I mean full charge at night and occasional use during the day when there is a critical need. Many drivers do not need to charge the battery fully every day, but it is better not to keep the battery at less than 20% charge for a long time. Also, overnight charging ensures you wake up with a fully charged battery in the morning. Of course, you don’t need to worry about the phenomenon of overcharging because home EV chargers automatically cut off the circuit after being fully charged. Also, some electric vehicle manufacturers have allowed the charging rate to continue until 90% of the capacity is filled and automatically cut off the EV’s internal charging circuit after this amount.

Reasons for using an intelligent home EV charger

With the increase in the number of people using electric cars, smart home EV chargers were introduced to make charging more economical and put less pressure on the electricity supply network. The driver’s worries about reducing the battery life will also decrease.

1. Cheaper energy

The driver of an electric car is one step ahead of paying the high cost of unnecessary fossil fuels, but the use of home EV chargers makes this optimization even more. The good news is that, unlike fossil fuels, the ways to save electricity are much more straightforward. Among them the charging schedule and smart EV chargers equipped with mobile software. This software calculates the electricity consumption of this device and corrects charging behaviour according to lower tariffs.

2. Greener Energy

Currently, apart from the fact that electric cars are greener in terms of not emitting pollution caused by burning fossil fuels, charging is also greener by relying on new power plants and has higher compatibility with the environment. Even in many cases, it has been observed that renewable energies such as sun and wind are used to provide local power for chargers.

3. Managing the load entered into the home network.

Although the use of home EV chargers puts more pressure on the power supply network, to avoid putting more pressure than the fuses can withstand, intelligent EV chargers are equipped with technology to balance the power consumption in the whole house so that the momentary power consumption exceeds the amount cannot be provided. Another advantage of this technology is that you can manually charge several cars without having to wait or connect and disconnect the chargers.

4. The load entered into the power supply network management

With the broader adoption of electric vehicles, the demand for electric power in national grids will increase. Due to the great desire of ordinary people to start charging, failure to manage it can cause an increase in demand, which ultimately causes a heavy load on the local electricity supply networks. When drivers get home after work, it will be around 8:00 p.m., known as peak load time on the power grid.

Smart or standard EV home chargers?

A standard home EV charger only works when the car is plugged in. However, some electric car owners only want this benefit and nothing more. But if you are ambitious and like thousands of other benefits from your home EV charger, you should choose a smart one. Smart charging stations can connect to Wi-Fi or PLCs, allowing owners to monitor their charging, check charge delivery power, and view previous charge statistics. In this way, owners can accurately check the energy consumed by the car to calculate the cost of charging the vehicle.

This charger lets electric car owners guess the cost of charging their cars. Some smart EV chargers can do other things, such as connect to Amazon’s Alexa to charge voice controls and available tools. So, they can communicate with you so that you can have the “greenest” car charging or even load distribution when you supply the power. You can also have two chargers on a dedicated circuit.