Intelligent Electric Car Charging With The KEBA KeContact P20 Wall Box
Electric cars have had their fair share of stick over the years. They’ve been the butt of many jokes about their looks, slow charging times and the idea that some of the older models could only do 0-60 in about 100 years.
But it seems the much-maligned electric car has had the last laugh. Towards the end of last year, the Guardian reported that electric cars, hybrids and other alternatively-fuelled vehicles (AFVs) are increasingly stealing market share away from traditional diesel and petrol powered vehicles.
Since then, electric vehicle sales have shot up. In June this year, the UK Department of Transport recorded a total of 9,046 ultra low emission vehicles registered in the first quarter of 2015 – a rise of 366% from the same period in 2014.
Whilst current volumes of electric and hybrid cars on UK roads is still small, the strong sales growth of these type of vehicles indicates that just like smart homes, their popularity is on the rise.
Why the upward trend? Well, there’s strong evidence to suggest that the growing range of models entering the market is appealing to consumers at both ends of the price spectrum (even Aston Martin is considering a 1,000bhp electric car – more on that story here).
Not only that, but the availability of public e-charging stations across the UK is increasing (there are now around 8,500 in the UK).
The other factor driving sales is the availability of government grants to those purchasing electric vehicles and charging them at home.
What Grants Are Available?
Drivers purchasing vehicles with emissions of less than 75 grams of CO2 per kilometre have been offered up to £5,000 off the sale price of a car, and up to £8,000 off a van.
At the moment, there are twenty six models of electric car eligible for the plug-in car grant (and nine models for vans).
Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme
UK drivers who are the registered keeper, leasee or have primary use of an eligible electric vehicle may receive up to 75% (capped at £500 inc VAT, correct as of Nov 2016) off the total capital costs of the chargepoint and associated installation costs. To read more about the grant, please click here.
But there’s a snag: in order to qualify for this grant, detailed data (including times and dates of charging and total energy drawn in kWh) must be collected from every single charging event, collated and sent to OLEV every quarter.
So how do you save yourself all that hassle, whilst ensuring you get the grant? You get an intelligent charging system of course!
The KEBA KeContact P20 Wall Box
Loxone and KEBA have joined forces to offer an intelligent e-car charging solution.
The KEBA KeContact P20 Wall Box can be integrated seamlessly into your Loxone Smart Home via your home network.
The KEBA KeContact P20 wall box boasts a number of safety features and is simple and intuitive to use.
Following the release of Loxone Config 6.5 in early August 2015, integrating your KEBA Wall box into your Loxone Smart Home will be quick and easy to do.
You can pick yours up directly from our webshop today!
Intelligent Energy Management
There are several advantages to integrating your KEBA wallbox with a Loxone Smart Home:
1.) Fuss-free data recording. The Miniserver Go can communicate with the KEBA wall box to keep track of all of your charging activity – when you’re charging the car and how much energy you’re using to do so. Then, every quarter, the hard working Miniserver will send off all the data automatically to OLEV for you.
2.) If you’re curious to see how much energy you’re using to charge your shiny new car, just open up the free Loxone Smart Home app. There you’ll see all of your usage statistics displayed in a simple format that you can view at a glance.
3.) Specify when you want your car charged. With the integration of a KEBA KeContact P20 wall box into your Loxone Smart Home, you can specify when your vehicle should be charged.
If you live in an area where electricity prices are cheaper during ‘off-peak’ times, you can set your wall box to begin charging only when the off-peak tariff is available.
4.) If you’ve got a photovoltaic system, you’ll love this one. If you’ve been doing your reading on Loxone, you’ll know that our Miniserver can be integrated with a variety of solar inverters in order to balance and optimise how the energy you generate via your PV panels is used throughout your home.
The same thing goes for charging your car. The Miniserver can balance the total load of the house depending on how much ‘free’ electricity is available to ensure you’re not buying energy from the grid when you don’t need to.
Choose Your Car!
If you’re thinking of buying an electric car, have a look at this ‘car selector’ tool from the minds behind the ‘Go Ultra Low’ campaign – it promises to match you with the environmentally friendly car of your dreams!
The Loxone Miniserver, Miniserver Go and KEBA Wallbox are all available to buy from our webshop.