Discussion
Last week we had a power outage of about 90 minutes which made me wonder what happens when one occurs while an EV is charging?
I imagine that a public charger would not restart without customer intervention as the outage would end the sale, effectively.
How about private chargers: do they restart when the power returns?
I have three reasons for asking.
Firstly, my little corner of Surrey suffers with dodgy power. We get at least a couple of outages per year of an hour or more and, more often, we experience "blips" which vary from just a slight flickering of the lights up to a complete cut for a few seconds. Usually the flickering does not cause any problems but anything more tends to disrupt electronic timers, shut down my computer and give give the router conniptions. It's been this way for years. Obviously, if one of these events were to occur overnight it might compromise charging an EV.
Secondly, there is growing concern that increasing levels of intermittent renewable generation will compromise grid stability, leading to more events like the widespread power failure of a few weeks ago.
Lastly, it seems likely that demand management will be deployed in future when supply is inadequate which would involve restricting heavy domestic consumers, and/or rolling power cuts. Apparently the latest versions of Smart meters have this facility built-in and it was recently promoted in an ad by the Campaign for a Smarter Britain.
So it would be interesting to know how various charging systems respond to outages.
I imagine that a public charger would not restart without customer intervention as the outage would end the sale, effectively.
How about private chargers: do they restart when the power returns?
I have three reasons for asking.
Firstly, my little corner of Surrey suffers with dodgy power. We get at least a couple of outages per year of an hour or more and, more often, we experience "blips" which vary from just a slight flickering of the lights up to a complete cut for a few seconds. Usually the flickering does not cause any problems but anything more tends to disrupt electronic timers, shut down my computer and give give the router conniptions. It's been this way for years. Obviously, if one of these events were to occur overnight it might compromise charging an EV.
Secondly, there is growing concern that increasing levels of intermittent renewable generation will compromise grid stability, leading to more events like the widespread power failure of a few weeks ago.
Lastly, it seems likely that demand management will be deployed in future when supply is inadequate which would involve restricting heavy domestic consumers, and/or rolling power cuts. Apparently the latest versions of Smart meters have this facility built-in and it was recently promoted in an ad by the Campaign for a Smarter Britain.
So it would be interesting to know how various charging systems respond to outages.
It just stops while the power is out and starts again when it comes back on, the car will just think you turned off the charger/unplugged it for a bit. Essentially nothing really happens, car just gets on with things
I would imagine petrol pumps do the same. Ever been at the garage while there was one of these flickers?
I would imagine petrol pumps do the same. Ever been at the garage while there was one of these flickers?
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