Load balancing is one of those technical terms found in every charging station quote, but it is rarely explained well. Yet it makes the difference between an installation that works flawlessly for years and one that trips main fuses or structurally causes higher grid costs. We explain what it is, which types exist, and when you need which type. <\/p>\n
Load balancing is the automatic distribution of available electrical power between different consumers \u2014 in this case, one or more charging points and potentially the rest of a building \u2014 so that the maximum capacity of the connection is never exceeded.<\/p>\n
The practical benefit: you can install more charging points than your connection would strictly allow, because they will never all charge at full power simultaneously. Furthermore, you prevent a charging session from tripping the main fuse when there is high consumption elsewhere in the building. <\/p>\n
Static load balancing<\/strong> distributes a pre-determined amount of power between multiple charging points. An installation with 4 charging points and a fixed budget of 22 kW will divide those 22 kW among the active sessions, regardless of consumption elsewhere in the building. Simple and robust, but inefficient: available power elsewhere is not utilized. <\/p>\n Dynamic load balancing<\/strong> uses a sensor in the meter cupboard to measure how much power the rest of the building is drawing at any given moment, and continuously adjusts the available power for the charging points accordingly. At night, when an office is virtually empty, the charging points receive almost the full capacity of the connection. during the day, when machines and HVAC are running, they automatically scale back. <\/p>\n For most SME and VME installations, dynamic load balancing is the standard today. The additional cost compared to static is limited, while the operational gain \u2014 more charging points on the same connection, no grid reinforcement required \u2014 is significant. <\/p>\n For an SME with 8 charging points and an 80 A connection, dynamic load balancing typically prevents a grid reinforcement that would cost \u20ac3,000 to \u20ac8,000, plus a higher monthly connection fee. For a VME with 12 charging points, that amount is often considerably higher. <\/p>\nWhen is load balancing strictly necessary?<\/h2>\n
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What are the key considerations during installation?<\/h2>\n
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What it delivers in figures<\/h2>\n
Read also<\/h2>\n