Charging Stations For E-cars With Better Cost Transparency

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 05:39

Electric car drivers will have better control over their electricity bills in the future. The first certificates are available for charging stations that comply with calibration law.

They were issued by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). These certified charging stations can now not only determine the electricity consumption of a refueling process, but also display it for the customer and save it for later checks.

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Functioning electricity meters in charging stations already exist in some cases - at least for the slow AC charging stations, so far, with a few exceptions, the values were neither usable for customers nor for the roaming services connected between them and the electricity supplier.

Costs only visible with billing

For example, those who refuel at a charging station can often only see the amount of electricity and costs once the monthly statement is in the post. Complaints are difficult to make. Unthinkable for drivers of conventional cars, they pay the amount shown at the pump directly at the petrol station.

The growing range of charging stations compliant with calibration law is likely to have a major impact on the price models of the mobile traction current market. Without the transparent measurement process, electricity has only been billed by the kilowatt since the beginning of the year in exceptional cases (especially with fast charging stations). Many charging station operators make do with charging a lump sum instead or giving away the electricity directly.

Sometimes billing is also based on time, which some calibration offices do not accept, since in this case the same problem with traceability exists as with billing according to kilowatt hours. In addition, drivers of e-cars with low charging capacity per hour are financially disadvantaged compared to users of fast-charging models. In the long term, these three tariff models will therefore probably disappear in favor of payment per kilowatt hour actually fueled.

Construction boom expected

After the introduction of calibration-compliant columns, experts also expect a construction boom, especially in the public sector. The charging systems compliant with calibration law should generally have a display or a meter that shows the customer the amount of electricity that has been filled.

At least that is the approach taken by the Sauerland company Mennekes, which is one of the first companies to receive a type examination certificate from PTB. The start-up Ubricity, which uses lanterns for the charging power supply, has outsourced the electricity meter to the customer's charging cable. The industry is also working on retrofitting solutions for existing charging stations. In the long term, however, it is not unlikely that the electricity meter will move from the charging station to the car. Then it would also be possible to feed electricity back into the grid for a fee. (SP-X)