Heatpumpmonitor.org-like resource but for EV charging

Emoncms
1

Hi all, new to the forum!

I’d like to gauge the interest of the community in replicating the idea of HeatpumpMonitor.org, but for electric vehicles. HeatpumpMonitor is a great resource for both HP users and researchers (in fact it has been used in the scientific literature to analyze HP performance).

There’s surprisingly little public granular data (charging power measured, say, every second or minute) about domestic EV charging and a crowdsourced source of real domestic charging sessions could fill this gap.

If I understand correctly, what’s needed from the Emoncms user is simply to give a standard name (say, ev_charging_power) to their already-logged EV power measurements and share a read-only API key. But I’m happy to be corrected.

My questions are:

  • Is anyone already doing this and I’ve just missed it?
  • Would the OpenEnergyMonitor/Emoncms team be open to have this living alongside HeatpumpMonitor (infrastructure or just visibility-wise)?
  • Anyone already logging EV power (say, every minute or more frequently) who’d be willing to sanity check the approach?
  • What do you think in general about an heatpumpmonitor-like initiative for EVs?

I would really appreciate your input.

2

Heat pump monitor for me about understanding the performance aspects of a heat pump. Performance is a big variable, with variable input and outputs.

Sorry if I’m not understanding car charging isn’t that variable what goes in goes in performance is basically 1:1. So what’s the point?

3

Hello @matterda

I think this would be interesting, what are the outputs of this that you would be most interested in? Aggregated domestic EV charging demand at a regional/country level?

I can see the utility of this from a grid simulation perspective and also exploring matching with onsite solar.. e.g who is managing to match the most with onsite solar..

4

Hi and thanks for the reply.

I thought of a few potential applications, some benefiting EV users directly, some for researchers/companies using the data: simulate load balancing in an increasingly electrified grid (with EVs playing a big part), demand-response simulations (Octopus did its first test in Italy, my country, last year!), non-intrusive load monitoring, matching charge with onsite solar production (as you mentioned), detection of anomalies (battery degradation), cost estimates of a charge given the electricity price, … I’ve also heard about Vehicle-to-Grid experiments for grid stabilisation and energy price “arbitrage” (not sure it’s the right term). And people might come up with clever(er) things to do if this data were available.

@Johnmo, I think the benefit for the end user is not as strong as for a heat pump given how complex that machine is and the tuning it allows. But on the other hand there are a few reasons beyond just “share for the benefit of the world” that I’ve mentioned above.