Electric Vehicles charging stations (wallbox) using Domoticz
Smart electric vehicle charging using Domoticz
In this section it's described how to charge an electric car using EVSE modules / wallbox compatible with Domoticz.
Creasol DomBusEVSE module to build an home-made smart wallbox
This is an advanced solution that uses the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) module DomBusEVSE made by Creasol, in Italy: it
- detects vehicle connection and disconnection, start and stop charging
- detects alarms from vehicle and failure in mains power supply
- interfaces a bidirectional energy meter to know the real time import or export power from grid, and another energy meter to measure the power and energy feed to the vehicle
- operates as stand-alone (no need for a domotic controller) or managed mode (charging current selected by the domotic controller) with the following charging mode:
- OFF: charging disabled
- SOLAR: use only energy from renewable plant (power from grid = 0)
- 25%: add 25% of available power from grid (for example, having a 6kW contractual power, it set the power consumption to 1500W)
- 50%: add 50% of power from grid
- 75%: max 75% of power from grid
- 100%: use all available power from grid (charge using solar power + max available power from the grid)
- MANAGED: charging current (power) is set by domotic controller (automation script for custom charging)
- operating in the a MANAGED mode it's possible to set the charging power to balance the power between two or more charging stations, using an external script/automation.
It's possible to write simple automations to charge the vehicle using all available power if the battery level (SoC) is below a threshold, then use only solar power: for example, if EV battery SoC is less than 60% then set EV Mode to 100%, else set EV Mode to Solar.
Video showing electric vehicle charging by Domoticz
Prerequisites and connection diagram
- Creasol DomBusEVSE module
- bidirectional energy meter, to compute the current import and export power (optional, not needed if already installed!)
- type-B residual current circuit breaker
- 2P (single phase) or 4P (3-phases) contactor to enable/disable charging
- optional, but recommended, energy meter to measure the charging power
- 32A EV cable with type-2 or type-1 plug on one side
Click to see the connection diagram to make a smart electric car charger using DomBusEVSE module!
Another wallbox working with Domoticz...
Name and description of another wallbox that works with Domoticz...
Warnings
Electric car is not a vacuum cleaner, that stay attached to the mains socket for 30 minutes!
Keep in mind that power dissipation on connectors (and cables) is computed as P=RI² where R is the connector/wire resistance, and I² is the square of charging current.
As result, when the charge current is high, the system must be checked to prevent connections and wires from overheating and burning.