Smart meters can make charging electric vehicles cheaper and
greener by giving consumers greater control over their energy
use. Consumers will be able to drive home from work, plug their
car in, and automatically charge at the cheapest, lowest carbon
point, rather than over the expensive evening peak.
Two projects will demonstrate how smart meters can be used to
automatically charge electric vehicles when demand and energy
prices are at their lowest – this is known as load control.
Shifting demand away from peaks helps to minimise carbon
emissions and lowers the cost of energy by using up cheap green
energy, reducing the amount of new electricity generation and
network capacity required.
Smart meters enable a more flexible energy system and secure,
cheap and clean energy, which could deliver benefits of up
to £40 billion by 2050.
The provision of secure, cheap and clean energy, and a smart
flexible energy system is essential to delivering both
the Industrial
Strategy and the Road to Zero
Strategy for decarbonising the road transport sector.
Project funding
Two projects, which commenced in April 2019 and will complete in
March 2021, have been awarded a total of £2.7 million. The 2
projects each include design, build, testing and trialling of
demand management devices in over 100 households with electric
vehicles.
EDMI-led consortium
Bulb Energy will use EDMI’s technical
solution which integrates a SMETS2 meter with an
electric vehicle charge point. An Auxiliary Load Control Switch
(ALCS) will be
used for load control. ALCS is a switch
within a smart meter, designed to manage an appliance within a
property.
EDF-led consortium
The consortium includes ITRON, Nuvve and SLS, and is developing a
home area network-connected auxiliary load control switch
(HCALCS). HCALCS offer
similar functionality to ALCS, although rather than
being integrated with the smart meter directly, the switch sits
in a separate device and is remotely connected to the smart
meter. This project proposes to integrate HCALCS with
an electric vehicle charge point.
Get more information about the smart meter load control
device trial procurement process.
For further information about the projects, please contact:
smartmetering@beis.gov.uk.
