What does it save and how will we charge in the future?

Last year we released the feature to optimize smart charging on dynamic rates with a now growing list of partners. On top of that, we released a feature to set a custom leaving time beyond the day. Thanks to our advanced price forecasting engines allow EV drivers to leverage low power prices in the future. Small steps for e-mobility, giant leaps for smart charging! Time to take a look at the results so far and have an outlook on what the future will bring for this kind of smart charging.

Show me the money

In terms of absolute and relative savings, we see that countries with variable grid fees (per kWh) are the clear winners in terms of savings potential. In the UK, we notice an average energy bill reduction of 3,5 Pence/kWh, saving you about 20 % compared to “regular” charging on these same rates. When comparing this with a standard flat electricity rate it gets even better, and we see a saving potential of about 5 Pence/kWh! Similar results can be seen in Belgium and France. In the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway the dynamic rate only varies for the energy component and as such, results are a bit lower. In the Netherlands, we see average savings of about 1,5 Eurocent/kWh at an average rate of 21,2 Eurocent/kWh. Compared to the standard flat rate (around 24 – 25 Eurocent/kWh) this still makes a huge difference of about 3,5 Eurocent/kWh and 15 % overall bill reduction. The good news about these savings is that they come on top of any flexibility earnings that are generated through our virtual power plant operations, for example, to provide grid balancing services.

Custom leaving times and price forecasting; dynamic rates on steroids.

When applying custom leaving times, we can create even more savings thanks to a bigger time window combined with our price forecasting and algorithms. Preliminary results show that the savings potential increases by another 30 – 40 % compared to “regular” smart charging when allowing for two extra days of optimization. Two days may sound like a lot, but on average we see a charging session once every three days, so this is basically in line with the typical charging behaviour. Naturally, a customer needs to allow Jedlix to do this for them, but adoption is increasing thanks to education and less concerns about range anxiety.

Future outlook

With bigger car batteries and less range anxiety, we expect these “advanced” leaving times beyond the day to become a normal habit. The exact same trend was noticeable for our feature that allows you to limit the charging to a maximum SoC to preserve the battery that was also mainly adopted by cars with a large range. This basically confirms the saying that bigger (batteries) is better (for smart charging) :). Besides giving EV drivers the settings and tools on our app and platform we also provide recommendations based on driving behaviour and car data. The next stop, of course, is full automation; the autopilot for smart charging.

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