Renault Germany teamed up with German-Swiss company The Mobility House to test a charging system for Renault Zoe that should reduce charging times for the electric vehicles, as well as charging costs.

The Mobility House, specializing in electric transport solutions including smart charge terminals and energy storage systems, developed a technology that substantially reduces charging costs and shortens the charge time. Selected to participate in the test were eleven Zoe owners from Renault in Germany. They are to put the system to the test under real-life conditions.

The system stems from the fact that electricity from the grid is more expensive during high demand periods than the low ones. High general demand also affects charging times of the battery packs, so you can end up charging them for an entire hour longer than you normally would.

Hence, experts from the The Mobility House created a special 'home charging station' with a system that is able to detect high electricity consumption in the power grid. Based on this information, the system stops the charging until the cost (and consumption rates) falls again. When the time for charging is optimal, the system resumes charging the batteries at lower cost. Electric cars owners are given the opportunity to reduce the cost of their electric rides without having to think about when is the best time to re-charge the cars' batteries.

Renault and The Mobility House work together on several other e-mobility projects as well. With smart grids they wish to – next to implementing other electricity bill cost-cutting measures – give electric cars users a chance to use excess electricity from their cars and feed it back into the grid. By doing they could even earn some money on the side.

Nov. 27, 2015 Driving photo: Renault

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