Intelligent Wallbox Control with coneva’s Energy Buddy

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The Energy Buddy app offers a wide range of analysis functions on energy consumption and generation. More than 20,000 users already record the readings of their electricity meters or read out the digital electricity meter via the optical interface in order to optimise their energy consumption. The Energy Buddy is also a popular tool for “prosumers”, i.e. customers with their own generation system (usually a PV system): These users see their energy flows in the app in real time and as a history over days, weeks, months and years. The link to the energy management portal provides users with insights into the energy data of the PV system, battery storage and charging energy of their electric vehicle.

Integration with Keba Wallbox

With release 1.6, the coneva Energy Buddy app now also offers the possibility to control the charging of the electric vehicle. This is specifically designed for users who want to charge their EV with their own PV power. The local energy management system (SMA Sunny Home Manager) is equipped with special firmware for this purpose, which enables control of the Keba Wallbox. Users can choose between three charging modes:

  • Fast charging: The vehicle’s battery is charged with maximum power. If there is a PV surplus, the battery charges with PV electricity, otherwise electricity from the local grid is used.
  • 100% solar charging: The vehicle is charged via the wallbox using only the energy from the PV system, i.e. 100% of the rooftop’s own renewable energy.
  • Scheduled charging: The user can specify the desired state of charge of the vehicle at a defined target time (e.g. 08:00 tomorrow morning). The energy management algorithm maximises charging with the user’s own PV power while adhering to the parameters defined by the user.

Advantages of intelligent charging

Customers of the solution can save money with intelligent charging and at the same time increase their own consumption of the PV system. With the amendment of the EEG in 2021, there is an increased financial advantage, especially for medium-sized systems (10-30 kWp), as self-consumption is no longer taxed with the EEG levy. Our own calculations show that intelligent charging with simultaneous avoidance of grid consumption brings cost savings of between 100 and 200 EUR per year, depending on the dimension of the PV system as well as the driving performance and battery capacity of the EV. The cost advantage is realised by the energy management system: Compared to supposedly smart wallboxes with PV charging, the coneva system knows through integrated forecasts and learning algorithms how to avoid expensive grid consumption of charging power. In the future, the integration of the wallbox and energy management system with a connection to the coneva platform will also allow the implementation of new tariff products, for example a smart charging tariff that takes into account dynamic prices on the energy market and the optimisation of charging processes through the application of §14a EnWG (sheddable loads). The technical basis for such new tariff models is already provided by coneva’s turnkey solution.