Bidirectional Charging

Welcome to Fueling the future with Koen Elands, Product Owner at Peblar. We talk about the bidirectional charging feature on Peblar chargers, and the benefits of bidirectional charging for both users and the grid.

Why did Peblar choose to include bidirectional charging as a feature?

We believe that we need to make a product which is future-proof. So we are not designing for this particular moment in time, but we designed a product that will be capable of performing technologies or techniques that are used five years from now.

Bidirectional charging is one of the topics which is really hot right now, which we believe will be introduced at a later moment in time, and our hardware is already ready. So people won't need to buy a new charger, but can use ours, and with a firmware update will be available in the future.

What do you think users should know about bidirectional charging?

What you should know about bidirectional charging, is that it is not only the charger needs to be capable of doing so. Bidirectional charging is actually a whole ecosystem that needs to be ready to perform this technology, from a power conversion point of view, but also from a communication point of view.

So not only does the charger need to be an entity that plays a role, but also the vehicle itself needs to be software and hardware ready. Also, the energy management system in the house needs to be capable of knowing when to ask for power from the car back into your household or even maybe back into the grid. So there are way more entities than just the charger that need to be ready for performing bidirectional charging.

What are the biggest benefits of bidirectional charging? 

Bidirectional charging can be used in your household to save energy that you generate with your solar panels, because your car is actually a very big battery and can be used as a stationary battery when connected to a charger.

The energy you generate throughout the day from solar panels can be used at a peak moment, where a lot of energy is consumed from the electricity grid, and typically the price is then higher. So you're saving quite a lot of money with this strategy.

Another way that can be used is on a neighborhood level. Sometimes we see that there's quite an instability on the grid because of a lot of solar production or energy usage power usage at certain moments in time, so bidirectional charging can ensure that there is grid stability. So you can save generated energy at certain moments in time and also supply power back to households or the grid, when there are peak moments.