Living Lab adds platform for smart home EV charging products
Businesses offering smart home products or services that incorporate EV charging will benefit from a new offering in Energy Systems Catapult’s real-world test environment.
Dubbed the Living Lab, ev.energy will be integrating its smart, cloud-based platform, which automatically optimises EV charging by filling the battery when the price is lowest – delivering lower carbon and costs.
The platform and Living Lab will assist with offering energy providers wanting to establish new services including EV charging; networks wanting to understand the impact of EV charging on the grid; aggregators offering flexibility services; and home tech providers integrating EV charging into their solutions.
In addition, policymakers and regulators will benefit from real-world studies on EV charging patterns within UK homes, to increase EV uptake and design new energy market frameworks. Energy Systems Catapult will also build a data set of domestic EV charging to add to existing Living Lab heating and energy consumption datasets.
Living Lab business lead, Rebecca Sweeney, said: “Integration of the ev.energy platform is another step towards making the Living Lab the UK’s premier whole systems test and demonstration environment for the home energy market.
“A range of innovators can now rapidly test and launch to market a flexible offering that could include electricity, heating and transport.
“Equally the Living Lab can act as a facility to conduct network flexibility trials where devices are controlled to manage demand pressures on electricity networks.”
An API feed from ev.energy’s cloud will provide the Living Lab with energy consumption data and the ability to control EV charging through price signals. For example, charging may be delayed when the wholesale price of electricity and the carbon content of the grid is higher – during periods of peak demand.
The ev.energy platform connects directly to vehicles via APIs like Tesla and VW, or by using compatible chargers for other EVs such as Rolec devices, or OCPP chargers such as Keba or Alfen.
The Living Lab is a safe and affordable, real-world test environment of almost 200 homes that helps innovative businesses rapidly design, market-test and launch smart energy products, services and business models.
Nick Woolley, CEO of ev.energy said: “It’s great to be collaborating with the Living Lab. Our mission is to integrate electric vehicles into the energy system, to support the decarbonisation of the energy system. The Living Lab is a great way of testing collaborations with other innovative partners.”
The integration with ev.energy adds to existing connections within the Living Lab with smart meter data and Tado heating controls.
Utilising a range of housing types and consumer demographics spread around the UK, Living Lab homes already have room-by-room digital control and sensors monitoring performance, so innovators can gather and analyse real-world data such as energy consumption, air temperatures, relative humidity and local weather.
