The capacity tariff: impact on drivers of electric cars

Recharge your vehicle at a slower speed and at regular intervals

If you have a charging station to recharge your electric car, this requires significant long-term capacity. If you don't use your charging station smartly, it will push your peak consumption even higher. It's therefore worth spreading out how you charge your electric car more effectively. After all, many drivers are in the habit of plugging in their electric car as soon as they get home. However, if you cook and watch television at the same time as your car is charging, you will see a significant increase in your average consumption peak. That's why it's a good idea to charge your car at a slower speed and at regular intervals instead.

Start generating your own energy

If you've got solar panels, it's best to charge your car up during the day. Recharging your car while the sun's shining means you may be able to flatten out your highest peak.

Install a smart charging station

It is also a good idea to have a smart charging station installed. Smart charging stations offer load balancing – a system that can adjust the electricity that flows to your car to avoid consumption peaks. This allows you to place a limit on energy consumption, which means the charging station will primarily start charging when there is enough energy in reserve. The charging station may even switch itself off for a while at peak times. And if you have two electric cars plugged in, the charger will distribute the set capacity across both vehicles as far as possible.

New technologies can help to lower your periods of peak consumption

In the future, electric cars will also contribute to flattening the curve in yet another way. Two-way charging not only allows you to charge your car, but enables your car to feed electricity back to the grid – useful if you charge your car during the day using solar panels, for example. At peak times, a smart charger can then transfer energy from your electric car to the grid (Vehicle to Grid), to your home (Vehicle to Home) and to other electrical devices (Vehicle to Load). Car manufacturers are fully committed to developing this technology. It goes without saying that car policies will need to set out in detail what is – and what isn't – permitted.

How much you can save by being smart with peaks will naturally vary from one household to another, but this could easily amount to around €300 a year. Definitely worth it, in other words.