Is EV charging draining your house battery?

As electric vehicles (EVs) become more common, homeowners are looking for efficient ways to integrate EV charging with their home energy systems. Many modern chargers don’t communicate directly with the hardware but instead use current transformers (CTs) to monitor the energy flow in and out of the property. This allows for smarter energy management, where, if your home’s battery is fully charged and your house demand is met, any surplus energy can be directed into charging the car.

However, one common concern is how to charge your EV without draining the house battery. After all, you don’t want to tap into the battery reserve, leaving your home without power. Luckily, there are a couple of solutions to this issue.

Solution 1: Schedule Charging Times
One straightforward approach is to program your home battery to avoid discharging during the same hours that your EV is charging. This ensures that your battery stays fully charged while still taking advantage of any surplus energy to power the car. By setting specific timeframes for both charging and battery usage, you can ensure they never overlap, keeping your home’s energy supply intact.

Solution 2: Create a Separate Fuseboard for EV Charging
Another option is to separate the car charging system entirely from the house’s general consumption. By installing a new fuseboard dedicated solely to EV charging, you can ensure that the house battery doesn’t “see” the energy being drawn by the car. In this setup, the house battery remains unaffected by the car’s charging demand, which prevents it from discharging unnecessarily while the vehicle is powered up.

Both of these strategies allow you to maximize your home’s energy efficiency while keeping the house battery intact and ready to provide energy when you need it most.

As EVs become an integral part of home energy systems, finding ways to integrate them efficiently with your home’s energy setup will be key to optimizing costs and maximizing performance. Whether you choose to schedule your charging or isolate the charging system, there are simple ways to ensure that both your home battery and your car are always powered up.