Electric Vehicle (EV) owners can now experience the benefits of smart charging at their homes. Kitu Systems has brought smart charging features such as access control, payment services and/or load management, which are increasingly common at work, retail destinations, and at public charging facilities, home. The new system will offer advanced monitoring and management capabilities that are more typical of public charging facilities.
More and more utilities are realizing the potential of using electric vehicle loads to offer grid support. These utilities have been eyeing the home, where ample opportunity for charging and discharging occurs. Customers who opt to allow it, give utilities the flexibility to adjust and control the charging profile of their vehicle may find attractive incentives and potentially pay less for energy.
While the idea of having the grid use electricity from charged electric vehicle batteries is an attractive one for utilities, it has not gained much traction among EV makers and EV owners so far.
In addition to supporting the grid, Convoy EV could let homeowners with renewable energy sources such as home solar panels store electricity for later use. Kitu Systems says its Convoy EV allows EV owners, site hosts, and utilities to deploy cost-effective, grid-optimized, and user-friendly charging solutions. With support for multi-standard interfaces to chargers (OCPP and IEEE 2030.5) and to utility systems (OpenADR and IEEE 2030.5), Convoy offers a broad range of hardware and interconnection options to EV owners and utilities.
"Customers want the flexibility to choose the hardware and services that meet their ongoing needs," said Vincent Weyl, Kitu Systems' VP of Marketing. "Convoy focuses the conversation on services and value, and away from technology and interoperability issues. As we progress toward seamless vehicle-to-grid integration, Convoy enables synergies between solar, storage, and electric vehicles, resulting in new benefits to owners and grid operators."
The Kitu Systems Convoy EV platform completed a vehicle-to-grid technology pilot last fall in San Diego, CA, and the platform is now being tested in a real-world environment which incorporates solar, storage, and vehicles capable of bi-directional power flow, and grid support services.
